fledermaus

What's a degree worth now anyway? Maybe fewer students with higher grades will mean that those who do end up with a degree can use English properly, perhaps argue a point succinctly, maybe use critical thinking. I haven't seen much evidence of any of this in recent graduates.

R I C H

Or perhaps just because they had a media degree, employees decided their talent and experience wasn't suitable enough? I don't think gaining a degree in a particular subject necessarily means an aptitude, or guarantee for that line of work. One of my qualifications is in sports science, and yet I'm a marketing director.

Novocastrian

And I have a qualification in Lesbian Studies, yet I'm an annoying pedant.

I'm told.

dbd33

That sounds like an attack on the qualification itself, a hollow poke.

I took it from your earlier post that you valued the degree but thought the number of graduates excessive. I wondered if you had an absolute number in mind as being appropriate, or a formula, some percentage of the population, or perhaps some derivative of the number of people watching East Enders.

I see now that you're just one of them people wot hates the educated, someone who doesn't care for the proletariat raising their conciousness. "Let 'em screw pipes" as some royal figurine might have been mistranslated as saying. It's a weak argument against the availability of education that few profit financially from it.

dbd
field worker for Novo's qualification.

MarkG

Yes, it's basically worthless. If you want to get into TV or movies you have to start at the bottom, make a movie that impresses people enough to hire you, or start your own company. Or sleep with the producer.

No, the older I get, the more I view credentialism as a huge scam: kids are told that if they only borrow tens of thousands of pounds they'll get a piece of paper which will make people hire them in highly-paid jobs, only to discover a few years later that all it's good for is a job flipping burgers. The worst thing is they're now considered 'overqualified' for the kind of jobs their friends got on leaving school.

I have a degree from Oxford. Yes, I really, really must hate the educated.

My parents worked in factories and my brothers work in construction. Yes, I really, really must hate the working class.

You, on the other hand, appear to regard plumbers as sub-human.

As I said before, why is it that so many people on the left who claim to love the 'proletariat' despise anyone who does manual work?

If you borrow thousands of pounds for a course in Tarantino Studies and end up flipping burgers, you've made a really bad choice in life.

Cue someone to say 'but university is not about the degree, it's about learning to live life, etc, etc.' Well, fine, but if that's what you want, there are much better ways to spend the same amount of money.

dbd33

I do think that. And that is, in large part, why I funded a degree in "Communications" something I assume that to be the local equivalent of "Meejah Studies". It rather pleased me that, equipped with such a degree, one of the fruit of my loins was able to bag bagels at one of Canada's best known bakeries; they're not good with illiterates, your yiddish bakeries.

Life's not all about money you know, you spawn of the Margaret Devil.

Novocastrian

Just the one, then?

DaveLovesDee

I have three degrees.

Oh, wait. That's the Annoying Song thread.

As you were.

Mistress Miggins

I couldn't agree with you more. But as a sister of a sparky, a wife of an ex squaddie and child of someone who never got the opportunity to go to school at all, I personally believe we need to give every child the opportunity to get educated and every adult the chance to return should they so desire.

The last 10 years of my life has been spent working in education and battling to gain my degree in its entirity, although all my qualifications add up to more in years and use, I, as much as anyone, see your point but can't help be somewhat offended. Please don't be so quick to think that because that I am pro education I am like some of the pompus tits on here, I am simply pro education for all.

I think it's a shame that you are so quick to put down others hard work as I am sure it's just a chip on shoulders and stereotype of those who are formally educated that lumps those who have been to uni together. Remember many of us have gained our qualifications while our children slept and everyone else was busy watching the tv, many of us burn the midnight oil and put every ounce of energy we have in to our families, our day time job and the education we fight hard to get. I have never really met anyone with a formal education be so rude about those in the trades, as often they are the first to admit that they are useless at many life skills (how often do you meet an accountant that's great at DIY?). If it's true that you are in fact an Oxford graduate then maybe it's just elitism that you portray.

In the late 90s I was involved in recruitment where I watched immigrants work the jobs the English thought that they were too good to do. Now, over a decade later I would still argue that every chicken packer, container tipper and warehouse picker wherever they come from has the right to an education in their chosen field, not because I see their role as being unimportant, but because I do see that their life will gain enrichment through education if they wish, I fully understand the importance of their dream and their childrens right to pursue their own dream one day too. We are all integral in making the world go round, only someone rather caustic would wish to take the time to pick through who is and isn't important in their own opinion. Not really a sign of a "formal operational" thinker.......

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.


Now, I'm off to study..........

Mrs M x

Alan2005

And I would agree with you. However MarkG's point about how the recent cohort of graduates (in the UK specifically) has been conned is a good one as education has become just another way of selling debt. At some point the generation born after 1980 will wake up to the fact that they are being screwed over again and again.

Mistress Miggins

You all shock me how cynical you are. Education is also enjoyable and offers enrichment...........

Alan2005

Yes it is and does. But many young people underestimate how much of their future labour they are bringing forward to pay for it.

DaveLovesDee

I can see both sides of the argument here.

On the one hand, education people beyond school-leaving age can give graduates in many professions the training and experience it used to take a lifetime to acquire in the real world. Doctors, nurses, business management, etc are all useful courses.
These courses, and these aren't. How the heck is being able to speak Klingon going to help you in whatever your chosen employment field is going to be?

If we help those in lower-paid jobs to improve their education and skills, those workers can step up to the next level which leaves job openings for the next round of school-leavers.

The downside is that many more students are dragging themselves into debts that in the current recession they aren't going to be able to pay off. I'd suggest an alternative of encouraging school-leavers to learn about real-life in the workplace, where they can get a hands on feel for the type of work they'd want to make a career of and save up a percentage of the tuition fees. This would reduce the cost of any student loan to be repaid (maybe helped by tax breaks for employers who assist their employees to do this), and allow students to make sure their chosen job is one they'd enjoy.

dbd33

I think you'll find that it's the generation born after 1979, someone born in 1980 would have had to pay tuition in the UK.

Almost Canadian

One would think that somebody that is "so well educated" and has benefitted from doing so would be able to comment better and think more critically than you have demonstrated here.