dan_alford

Pulled from the bbc:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6955701.stm

Top 5 "Useless" courses

1. Outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth
2. Science: fiction and culture, at the University of Glamorgan
3. Equestrian psychology, at the Welsh College of Horticulture in Mold, Flintshire
4. Fashion buying, at Manchester Metropolitan University
5. Golf management, at UHI Millennium Institute, based in Inverness.

Reminds me of the "CSI" craze that is currently going on in Community Colleges over here.

Ozzidoc

Well, I must say that they all can go in my opinion!

dunroving

UK higher education is going the way of the US - a way to keep unemployment figures down. Too many young adults wasting their time and money going to university when they're not suited and would do better learning a trade as an employee. There seem to be very few opportunities for apprenticeships these days.

NC Penguin

So how does equestrian psychology work? The horse is psycho analyzed?

Is fashion buying a degree in clothes shopping?

Sally

Those are more like vocational courses - I think fashion buyers are involved in stocking stores.

snowbunny

Maybe they go to uni cos they can't find an apprenticeship? This is a huge problem in the US where there isn't the same sort of tradition of apprenticeships and most tradies either learn on the job or go to a vocational school. Trouble is that here, tradies are not respected as much as they still are in Europe, and in many cases not well paid at all. Plumbers can earn, yes, but brickies? Undercut by illegal immigrants and new arrivals.

all this aside both economies are moving to service economies where there are a few highly trained/educated careers and a LOT of jobs where a full uni degree is not necessary. I think that anyone who wants to go to uni to learn should go, but if they are thinking it's an automatic ticket to a higher-paying job, they will be disappointed.

Sarah

I had a friend in London who was a fashion buyer, she absolutely loved her job, made a nice living from it, got loads of free clothes however I don't think she needed a degree to do it.

My degree was quite pointless in many ways - English Lit and Drama.
Making kids choose their degree course at 17 like I did isn't the best way to do it - I wasn't exactly thinking about a career, I was thinking about which subjects I liked best and would keep me in school. Had I done something sensible like business studies I think I would've made it about 2 weeks before dropping out.

dan_alford

Horse Shrink: So tell me about your mother..

Horse: <silence>

Horse Shrink: I sense some reluctance on that subject, why is that?

Horse: <silence>

Horse Shrink: Do you have a lot of repressed anger towards your mother?

Horse: <silence>

dan_alford

There is also the issue of what is trendy. I did a computer science degree and I remember that in the final year we were kicked out of the labs for the first 2 weeks so that the new 1st year intake could learn how to use a mouse! This was before the dot com burst when IT was the #1 career and the Universities were offering lots of places.

TimFountain

I think my wife has a doctorate in that!

dukeynorton

That's a bit unfair, I think it goes more like this:



Horse Shrink: So tell me about your mother..

Horse: Neeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiigh

Horse Shrink: I sense some reluctance on that subject, why is that?

Horse: Neeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiggggggggggggh (snort) neeeeeeeeeeeigh

Horse Shrink: Do you have a lot of repressed anger towards your mother?

Horse: Neeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiggggggggggggh (snort) neeeeeeeeeeeigh (snort, followed by a shit)

Sally

What about one hoof stamp for yes, two for no?

Bob

to be fair, that's probably a half decent one, because it's good money if you can get into it, and there's loads of golf courses at there, pretty specialised depending on what your into, looking after the course overall, traps, T's, greens, fairways...unless it's a smaller course...and then all that shop side rubbish...

Titchski

Yep theres a golf course management degree offered out our local community college - seems fairly involved from the prospectus.

snowbunny

This actually can be quite challenging, everything from dealing with primadonna pros to keeping the damned turf alive, cut to proper length and disease and pest-free!