Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 125 total)
  • If you were 18 again would you be going to uni?
  • Dobbo
    Full Member

    No.

    This country in general, the students and the parents need to break this fixation that you need a minimum of a degree to get on in life these days. A lot of graduates seem to finish uni and not have a clue what they want to do, or have too high an expectations of what job they believe they are entitled to. They also don’t seem to realize the sectors where jobs are when they pick their courses.

    I did an apprenticeship when I left school at 16, as well as college you get more real life training in your subject. Graduates that came in to the industry were so out of touch with the reality of the work environment as it’s all black and white to them.

    franksinatra
    Full Member

    Yes I would.

    binners
    Full Member

    Its a difficult one. I did graphic design, to be… well… see if you can guess.

    I love what I do for a living. Could I do it without a degree? Yes, in my opinion.

    Would any employer give me the opportunity to do it without a degree? Or even give me an interview? No!

    Would I saddle myself with tens of thousands in debt to do it now? For the salary I’d be earning at the end of it? Not a chance!

    So ultimately, unless the attitude of potential employers changes significantly (can’t see that happening with 2.5 million unemployed), or those potential employers start offering proper training, and apprenticeships worthy of the name (can’t see that happening either) then nowt will change.

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Yep was there for 9 years although can really only remember about a fortnight of it.

    Would buy a house earlier as I lived like a king without spending a penny on accommodation or bills while my mates had relatively cheap rooms. Mind you I did have three jobs, even through my post grad.

    MSP
    Full Member

    I did an apprenticeship when I left school at 16, as well as college you get more real life training in you subject. Graduates that came in to the industry were so out of touch with the reality of the work environment as it’s all black and white to them.

    Unfortunately the fixation with degrees has destroyed proper workplace training (well that and the YTS scheme). It has also seemingly destroyed the possibility of gaining promotion from “the factory floor” in most organisations. Nowadays it seems either your on the graduate fast track, or you are dirt.

    I really get sick of the CBI constantly bleating on about the government not providing the skilled employees they want, well **** start taking some responsibility for training them you ****!

    samuri
    Free Member

    I wouldn’t go to university but then I didn’t first time round.
    I’d had enough of full time education, wanted to earn some cash and wanted to start getting my hands dirty with a trade. I took an apprenticeship which had block release at a polytechnic. I’d do something like that again. Wonderful series of life and work lessons which I felt prepared me for the work environment really well.

    I’m a huge believer in apprenticeships and am currently encouraging my current business to expand their apprentice scheme. The benefits are obvious for both the company and for the apprentices.

    samuri
    Free Member

    I love what I do for a living. Could I do it without a degree? Yes, in my opinion.

    Would any employer give me the opportunity to do it without a degree? Or even give me an interview? No!]

    My dad ran a graphic design company in manchester for many years. He’d have given you an interview. He didn’t have much time for graduates, reckoned most of them were rubbish compared to those who worked their way up.

    mt
    Free Member

    For lots of people apprenticships are a good way forward, we are looking for some as we are doubling our in take this year.
    It’s great to see some of the youngster (i’m old) leading teams or departments, it only seems like 5 minutes since they were learning to pilot a brush or their totectors were all shiney.

    binners
    Full Member

    My dad ran a graphic design company in manchester for many years. He’d have given you an interview. He didn’t have much time for graduates, reckoned most of them were rubbish compared to those who worked their way up.

    If only everyone were as enlightened as your dad fella. Unfortunately when I graduated, you could take it as read: no degree, no interview.

    I chose my course though as it had a bias towards actual practical stuff (print production etc) as opposed to spending weeks at a time ‘conceptualising’ like they did on some other courses. So I know exactly where he was coming from on that score. I’ve met plenty of graphic design graduates who didn’t have a clue how to prep a job for print, and a ridiculous notion of actual deadlines.

    samuri
    Free Member

    I think he had plans for me to take over the business.
    Unfortunately I’m shit at graphic design.

    binners
    Full Member

    Whereas I’m shit at everything other than it 😀

    richmtb
    Full Member

    Yes,

    And I’d try and have a lot more sex this time, possibly cut back on the beer a bit though

    GHill
    Full Member

    Yes, I can’t imagine my life in anything else than a scientific pursuit.

    mt
    Free Member

    “I really get sick of the CBI constantly bleating on about the government not providing the skilled employees they want, well **** start taking some responsibility for training them you ****!”

    @MSP
    Given some of the young people we have tried to employ over the last 10 years, the CBI chap could have been refering to reading an writing, an rithmatic (dance to the tune of a hickory stick, sorry Louis Jordan School Days) and taking basic instuction he could have a point.

    I do understand your point though, many companies had until recently stopped training young people but then complained they could not get the staff. Short sighted in my view. The standard complaint is that “they leave when we have trained them”, that’s right some will but you’d be a mug to let a good one leave. If other companies are training also, some of there staff will come to you. Thats how it used to work, some people would change jobs to rivals or companies in connected industries but may come back in a more senior role with greater experiance.

    As I have mentioned on another thread, since the changes to uni fee and the recession our apprentice applicants general standard has improved markedly.

    bwfc4eva868
    Free Member

    Yes I wish I’d of done better at school and instead of doing a Btec national diploma in travel I’d of done my A levels done a degree and applied to do Medicine at Manchester or St Andrews.
    But I went and did Travel, and then joined the Army for 5 years then came out and did my Nurse training and qualified two years ago.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I chose my course though as it had a bias towards actual practical stuff (print production etc) as opposed to spending weeks at a time ‘conceptualising’ like they did on some other courses. So I know exactly where he was coming from on that score. I’ve met plenty of graphic design graduates who didn’t have a clue how to prep a job for print, and a ridiculous notion of actual deadlines.

    So true. So very, very true.
    Having worked in that field for years, the number of graduates I came into contact with, who didn’t have the foggiest notion of how to actually prepare artwork for print, or create designs that could be reproduced by any practical means was staggering. “What do you mean, it’ll be too expensive to print in twelve pantone colours, plus metallics,rather than than CMYK?” 🙄

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    I’d say if you’re too dumb to realise the fees are a non-issue as they aren’t going to cripple you with debt then you’re too thick to go to Uni anyway.

    mt
    Free Member

    that was bold fuzzy, there will those along to have ago shortly.

    rogerthecat
    Free Member

    binners – Member
    My dad ran a graphic design company in manchester for many years. He’d have given you an interview. He didn’t have much time for graduates, reckoned most of them were rubbish compared to those who worked their way up.

    If only everyone were as enlightened as your dad fella. Unfortunately when I graduated, you could take it as read: no degree, no interview.

    A wise man you dad, Samuri.

    When we were a full service agency we employed a few graduates straight from Uni, and they were a proper pain in the bum. Clearly the degree they had chosen had made them infallible and so confident in their own ability I spent most of the first year of their time with us apologising to clients and fixing their work in between smoothing the ruffled feathers of good staffers who they had wound up to the point they were humming like that kid at the end of Torchwood.

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    Yes, I would. but I’d do industrial design rather than the poorly re-marketed maths course that Mech Eng was.

    And then I’d move to Italy or Germany giving the bird to the SLC.

    crikey
    Free Member

    Oh yes.

    There’s shagging in lumps at them unis, in lumps ah tell thee!

    Least there was when I was there…

    footflaps
    Full Member

    I really get sick of the CBI constantly bleating on about the government not providing the skilled employees they want, well **** start taking some responsibility for training them you ****!

    That is the role of the CBI, to demand someone else (ie taxpayers) subsidise them so they can give even bigger bonuses to their CEOs. Investing in employees is not the done thing in industry, exploitation is where its at now.

    binners
    Full Member

    Indeed. Whereas the documentary Make me a german the other week showed, they favour proper apprenticeships, and investing heavily in training their workforce. And R&D. And providing decent wages and conditions for their employees, in return for high productivity

    But then what the **** do they know! 🙄

    Bikingcatastrophe
    Free Member

    Probably not. But then again, I didn’t go to Uni after school in the first place. I did my degree much later in life (27 when I started) and did it part time while I was working. It was bloody hard work especially as my kids were born during the latter stages of the course. I missed out on the “fun” side of going away which is something I probably regret a bit. However, I was earning throughout so had no fees and it also meant that when I did the degree I knew what I wanted to do and the reason I wanted to do it.

    I agree with other posters though – this country’s obsession with having a degree is rubbish. It seems like an incredibly lazy approach by recruiting departments of sifting applications that is just as likely to sift out the good candidates. I would say there are a lot of jobs that “require” a degree that simply do not. The push by the last government to guide 50% of school leavers into higher education was little more, IMHO, than a scheme to delay the flood of school leavers looking for a job. Soften the potential hit on the unemployment stats.

    I also agree that the CBI and businesses need to get off their high horse of expecting the education system to provide staff already qualified to do the work they want. Foxtrot Oscar to that one. Businesses need to be prepared to invest in properly training and developing their staff. What the education system should be doing (certainly pre graduate level) is providing young adults with a good, rounded general education and a decent awareness of living. We don’t appear to be doing too well at that at the moment sadly, which also seems to flow through to a number of graduates who don’t really appear to have a clue about very much despite having a “degree”.

    And Fuzzy, I suspect there may be a significant number of people who would suggest that someone who makes such a sweeping generalisation over attitude to fees is probably a bit too thick to understand the concerns over fees. While it is true that a lot of students will never pay off their loans for most of them they will spend a significant proportion of their adult life paying off their uni fees and as their income increases so will the repayments. Sure, they may not be big in the grand scheme of things but that is a monthly outgoing that affects your disposable income in a way that those of my generation who didn’t have fees to worry about did not have to experience or pay for.

    My advice for my daughter is that I will happily support her if she believes in the degree she is doing, is fully committed to doing her very best and has the confidence of achieving at least a 2:1. If the answer to any of those is no then to be honest I don’t think it will be worth it.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Indeed. Whereas the documentary Make me a german the other week showed, they favour proper apprenticeships, and investing heavily in training their workforce. And R&D. And providing decent wages and conditions for their employees, in return for high productivity

    You’re not going to be accepted in the Tory party spouting that kind on nonsense!

    Klunk
    Free Member

    nope, waste of time and effort back then and to add a massive debt on top no thanks.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    No unless i was doing a vocational degree or going to a Russell group uni

    I very much doubt the premium for a degree will exist [ to any real extent]when 50% of the population have them and the debt level is quite high as well

    i dont think they could persuade folk in their 30 or 40’s to take a £75 k loan out to get a degree.

    IMHO we need to return to free uni education and also cherry picking of the brightest.
    We need to combine this with the german system as mentioned above

    porter_jamie
    Full Member

    not a chance. i would take the apprenticeship i was offered instead and be a fully skilled toolmaker and then get the company to pay me to get a degree later

    dannyh
    Free Member

    I was very lucky to finished before tuition fees etc.

    I’d think twice nowadays. Three years of boozing, shagging, playing sport and studying something I was really interested in was great. Still good mates with a few people as well.

    But the job market was different then. I had a marketable degree from a good university, so I did ok when it came to getting jobs that were nothing to do with what I studied. Jobs were like that then!

    Now everything seems to be considered from an ‘investment’ point of view. This is probably good in some ways, but I do feel like I was one of the last of the ‘golden age’ of further education.

    I blame Blair’s policy of selling FE as a sort of right rather than privilege. You can’t have it both ways. You either put FE on a pedestal and make it something ‘special’ or you devalue it by giving a degree to everyone. Sad but true.

    Milk round employers just switched their entry requirement for graduate trainee position from ‘2:1 or better honours degree’ to ‘2:1 or better honours degree FROM A REPUTABLE UNIVERSITY’. The definition of ‘reputable’ was theirs.

    Degrees in (comparatively) trivial subjects should not have been sold to school leavers as something they should just do as some kind of rite of passage.

    If I was 18 now, I’d seriously be considering a vocational course. My major problem was that I had no idea what I actually wanted to do as a career.

    In my view, graduates who have gone into an industry should really have to earn their corn to stay in line with equivalent people who have been on, say, an apprenticeship.

    There was just so much less pressure when I went through all this. That was purely down to luck. I worry about my kids and their education now, they will have much tougher choices to make than I did.

    littlemisspanda
    Free Member

    Plan 2 (post 2012) student loan repayments are lower. But the interest is 6.3%.

    If I had a debt of £27k – lets assume 3 years on a £9k course, and then earned £25k upon finishing uni, I would pay £30 a month on Plan 2. On Plan 1 (pre 2012) the repayments are £65 a month.

    So, on Plan 2 I would pay £360 off a year. 6.3% interest on £27k is £1710. So while I would have more disposable income than my pre-2012 counterparts, my student loan debt would, in fact, be getting bigger, not smaller. So effectively, I wouldn’t be paying my loan debt off at all, and I would be stuck with it much longer if I couldn’t pay down any of the actual loan itself.

    So, if I never earned more than £25k 30 years, the Government would only recoup £10,800 from me.

    I fail to see the financial sense in the Government’s plan, surely if they want to charge for education, they should charge in such a way that it means the fees will actually get paid back?? I mean, given that they’re saying that we haven’t got any money and we can’t afford to pay for students to go to university and all that stuff, because Labour the bankers spent it all on welfare gambled it all away and had to be bailed out….

    djglover
    Free Member

    Although I flunked my course, I think that the peers you meet at uni inspire you to achieve, they certainly did for me.

    In terms of career I’m on a level with most of my old uni mates.

    The danger with not going is getting stuck in some low skilled provincial job thats hard to get out off.

    So would I go again, yes, would I fail again, probably..!

    mt
    Free Member

    Binners, there are companies that provide “proper apprentiships” and that invest heavily in training in the UK. Some of us are bit to busy to go shouting about it. Some companies having been taking on apprentices for years, even in tough times. It’s a no brainer really especially with an aging work force with particular skill sets then certain types knowledge taken for granted at all levels in a company.
    Our view has always been “train our own”.

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    And then I’d move to Italy or Germany giving the bird to the SLC.

    WRONG! They tracked me down in bloody Canada, they’ll track you down in Germany no probs 🙁 Not that I’m begrudging paying the loan back, I was just pissed off that I’d fallen for the ‘you don’t pay it back when you’re abroad’ myth.

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    They tracked me down in bloody Canada,

    Really? I wonder how. So what happened as the repayment is done through PAYE in the UK?

    MSP
    Full Member

    I wonder what they could actually do to you in Canada though, other than write threatening letters. Ultimately I think (unless someone actually knows better)that they couldn’t enforce a contract under English law through the Canadian legal system, and would need to bring some form of legal charge against you in the UK that would require extradition. Which would seem an unlikely although possible scenario.

    I suppose they could mess up your residency visa by telling the Canadian authorities that your a wrong un. But even then there would have to be some sort of official channel for such information to be passed over.

    mefty
    Free Member

    hey couldn’t enforce a contract under English law through the Canadian legal system

    Loans contracts would normally be enforceable otherwise international banking wouldn’t exist.

    plyphon
    Free Member

    They tracked my sister down in New Zealand, and she has now paid hers off.

    I graduated 2 years ago. I’d do it all again in a flash, regardless of the debt (but maybe without the grimy student housing)

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Knowing what I know now- I’d defer for a year or two, I was a child in my first couple of years, I wasted a lot of the opportunity. And not just the course but the social stuff. I had a great time at uni but it could have been better. TBH I never even really new it was an option to delay, it didn’t seem to be on our radar.

    I work in uni recruitment now and with about 20% of the kids that come through my door, I just want to say “Go and get a job, or go backpacking, or something. Come back when you’re an actual person.”

    But maybe I’m wrong, I did most of my growing up at uni, maybe that was a good way to do it and I just regret the what-wasn’t without appreciating what was.

    vickypea
    Free Member

    Yes, I would definitely, for the experience and also for the type of job I’d want. I would probably delay it for a few years and go as a mature student. I am sure I would have got more out of it both intellectually and socially.

    buzz-lightyear
    Free Member

    Yes absolutely . It’s where I grew up. It’s where I became educated.

    There was some stuff about Laplace transforms but it really didn’t matter compared with everything I learned .

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