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Post by DarknessFish on Jul 16, 2023 12:19:21 GMT
I did a year of a chemistry degree at Nottingham Trent uni. Probably the worst year of my life. Hated the course, hated the people I lived with, it was a disaster from start to finish. I stopped turning up to uni after about 3 months, and basically attempted to drink myself into oblivion.
The couple of years I spent unemployed after that were much more fun, I just spent every weekend kipping over at friends who were still at uni, going to a different place each week.
The only benefit I got was that when I went back into full time education, for a HND in software engineering, the grant system had stopped, but the 2 years of grant I hadn't used were still valid. So it was an easy life compared to everyone else. At the end of the HND, the college arranged job interviews for everyone, and I've never been out of work since.
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Post by fearlessfreap on Jul 16, 2023 13:06:27 GMT
My experience was very different. I didn’t have the typical ”college experience.” I went as an adult and worked full time. I was five years older than most of the other students.I lived in an apartment by myself and not in a dorm. I didn’t study a liberal arts curriculum, in fact, all of what I know about art ,literature, film as well as history is completely self taught. I studied a trade where I then took an exam for a professional license. I picked my major not out of interest, but to find a decent paying job in a field that was in demand at the time as I was tired of Henry Chinasky jobs living paycheck to paycheck. There is now a glut in this department as the number of schools offering this major has increased four fold in the past 25 years.I do wish I had studied something more interesting and rewarding, but no sense crying over spilt milk.
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Post by souphound on Jul 16, 2023 13:22:52 GMT
Here's a strange thing that happened to me at the begining of my secong stint at uni: At the start of one of my courses, the professor had us all pair up with someone we didn't know. For 5 minutes you got to learn a few things about the person and then had to present them to the class. The guy I was paired up with went on and on about how much he hated his present job, the company he worked for and the people he worked with, etc. etc. About six months later, the company he worked for bought out my employer and he suddenly became my boss. A bit awkward huh?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2023 10:27:18 GMT
I think there's gonna be a big shift in some 3rd level education. My town has a few american companies that pretty much dictate what is taught (IT Wise) in our local university. I think that's the way forward. I know you can argue that universities have always adapted to local jobs markets, but i don't think it's was at the level of collaboration as it is now. I think it will be more specific that a general cover everything course.
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Post by riggers on Jul 19, 2023 10:51:14 GMT
Not even on the radar of a scruff bag like me. I grew up on a council estate, went to a comprehensive school and most of the kids on our estate had Dads who did solid blue collar jobs. My Dad was an exception in that he had an office job, but we were always skint. My Mum only worked occasionally due to health issues and they split up (quite acrimoniously) when I was about 12.
Although I'd shown early academic promise, my folks divorce, puberty and punk rock meant that school work was firmly on the back burner from that point on.
It's a massive cliché but 'Rock n' Roll' kinda saved my life. I hated school, felt like an outcast, with only a few like minded friends, my Mum was a shit parent, wrapped up in her own issues, couldn't manage the finances, knocked us about the house in true 70s parenting style. I took refuge in my room, records, books and guitar. I didn't need anything else.
By the time I left school, I wasn't even entered for exams in English or Maths (would never have got a maths qualification..I recently got a diagnosis of discalculia) and although I turned out some decent pieces of English work, I'd spent too many hours bunking off, playing guitar at mates houses to be able to catch up...
I left school at 15 with a couple of Mickey Mouse qualifications (History CSE anyone?) and immediately went to sixth form college to avoid growing up and to meet new people, which I did. Never got any qualifications there though, just played in bands and stuff.
As I got older, my circle of friends included more university educated, middle class types and although none of them were ever judgemental towards me, I couldn't help feeling like a bit of an oik.
I'm mostly happy with who and where I am these days, but I only have to walk to the end of my road to see Victorian buildings turned into million pound houses (my bit in the middle has all been converted into flats. I'm the old bastard, stuck with all the kids and students) and lovely well adjusted nuclear families trooping out into big cars and I wonder if I'd 'knuckled down' at school and gone on to uni, would I have had a successful and lucrative career, had a family, all that. I dunno, maybe..
I still occasionally get a little chip on my shoulder for not being as well educated as others...(not particularly well read, unless you count endless music books, struggle knowing when to employ 'whilst' or 'whom' correctly..) Luckily, our parents gave us a bit of culture, we had shelves full of books and a large, varied music collection. We were encouraged to be open minded and progressive in our attitudes, when other families in our neighbourhood were more rough and ready.
I don't know if I would have turned out differently if I had gone to uni, I'll never know, but I do kinda wish I'd had the chance.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Jul 19, 2023 22:36:52 GMT
I didn't do very well at school either or FE college, but I finally knuckled down somewhat and got a couple of A Levels and went to university as a mature student (I was 23/24). I found the course pretty easy because I was a bit of an autodidact when I was younger, I was reading things like Kafka and Camus at 16, so I arrived with a lot more cultural capital than everyone else.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jul 20, 2023 8:30:15 GMT
There's a lot to be said for real world experience and getting out and about early in life. The exes niece didn't go to university even though everyone was telling her she should go (I was more sceptical). Instead she got jobs, worked her way up and ended up with some finance company in London and now earns good money apparently. Meanwhile her mates who did go to university are struggling in the graduate market, often with pointless degrees of little market value. If you have a work ethic, an appealing personality and a can-do spirit you can still get places.
University has been built up so much over the years to become this Great Thing but even when I was there there was a lot of people who, truthfully, weren't academically up to the job and would have been better pursuing other routes. I can't imagine how bad it is now when you have around 50% of young people in higher education. It's ridiculous really and harms a lot of young people who could fulfil their potential elsewhere. It also saddles the UK taypayer with all this student debt that a percentage will never pay off so We are paying for this folly. At some point the whole thing will probably crash and burn because surely this is not sustainable . Don't get me started on foreign students lol
I wouldn't be too envious therefore if you never went when you were younger. Leaving aside the fact that for a lot of people it is really just an excuse to get pissed for a 3/4 years unless you are studying a degree you are really into at a very good university and are driven to actually study and learn (which many people aren't of course) the experience won't be everything it's cracked up to be for sure. Personally I feel like it's one of these false dreams, these fantasies where the reality is wildly out of sync with the illusion but it's become the standard thing to do sadly.
I was glad to leave. And to this day I still generally prefer non-graduate types to graduates in the real world.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Jul 20, 2023 8:38:01 GMT
Universities should have a broader function and value than simply feeding the employment needs of businesses. That's a depressingly narrow view imo (not that I'm denying that should be one of their functions).
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jul 20, 2023 9:11:44 GMT
That's not what I'm saying.
I am saying they have expanded past the point of absurdity where there are too many degrees that are either of no value in the marketplace and/or pseudo academic (also this gender studies crap). It's a waste of everybody's time.
To be of use in the marketplace they don't necessarily have to be specifically related to the job/career in question either but they have to be able to demonstrate that the graduate has a certain standard of intelligence and ability to learn/think critically that can be applied in the real world. Clearly that is not happening and employers find it harder to differentiate between the good and the bad because degrees have been devalued and don't demonstrate this anymore. I know from my own experience that there is a not insignificant group of graduates who are basically average intelligence people who have spent 4 years doing some daft drama degree who end up doing basic office work, often in the public sector. We have had to invent jobs to accommodate these people almost.
Also some people should be paying for their own degrees at the point of entry. Many families could afford to pay for their child's higher education and they should be doing so. If they did their children would be less inclined to waste their time doing silly degrees and spunking their parents money. It would also cut down on the number of middle class graduates who are polluting our society in more ways than one. The irony of this expansion is that it has enabled the middle classes to increasingly dominate and we see the consequences of this in the real world, from media to politics.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2023 10:29:43 GMT
I wish i did that travelling malarkey before or after uni. I know i could still do it now, but it would be with less energy and enthusiasm.
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Post by oh oooh on Jul 20, 2023 13:59:14 GMT
It would also cut down on the number of middle class graduates who are polluting our society in more ways than one. The irony of this expansion is that it has enabled the middle classes to increasingly dominate and we see the consequences of this in the real world, from media to politics. what on EARTH are you talking about now?
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Post by oh oooh on Jul 20, 2023 14:22:23 GMT
I went to Wolverhampton Polytechnic and came out with a third-class BA Honours degree. It doesn't get much lower than that, in terms of quality of tertiary certification. We used to joke about wiping our arses on the certificates.
I wanted to go to university to get away from Whitehaven, really. To live life in a bigger city, to meet people, to have greater access to culture. I'd had a taste of it already and I liked it. I was very conscious that those were my reasons, and I wasn't especially concerned even about what course I'd study. Wherever would take me. So I ended up ringing around, and was finally accepted on a course to study Economics and German at one of the UK's most Mickey Mouse institutions. And I was a genuinely terrible student - I missed lectures all the time, was a lazy, messy fucker and I drank way too much.
Nonetheless it was a great experience in many ways. Only a few years later students had it much harder in terms of grants and funding - but in the late 80s and early 90s, we still got LEA cheques every semester, beer in the SU bar was subsidised, and the banks would give us free overdrafts. The money ran out a few weeks into term (unless you locked yourself in your dorm and lived on crisps), but there were (mostly legal) ways to cope.
What made those three years especially worthwhile in a practical sense was the six-month study period in Germany (I was an Erasmus student). We got extra funding for that. The great thing was that nobody really checked what we were up to once we were over there, and we quickly sussed this out and stopped going to lectures (which were ridiculously early in the day AND incomprehensible to us anyway). The whole business of study was very much secondary to fully experiencing life in a foreign country for the first time- I mean, of COURSE it was! So we had the funds and we had the time to have fun, to socialise, even to travel a bit. It opened up doors for sure, and planted the idea of teaching English in my head (at least it seems so, in hindsight).
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Jul 20, 2023 14:28:46 GMT
I am saying they have expanded past the point of absurdity where there are too many degrees that are either of no value in the marketplace and/or pseudo academic. It's a waste of everybody's time. They've been that way for as long as I can remember - it's not a new thing. I recall people speaking mockingly of 'basket weaving degrees' and such when I was a kid in the 70's. I'm sure it happened much earlier than that.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jul 20, 2023 14:38:05 GMT
It would also cut down on the number of middle class graduates who are polluting our society in more ways than one. The irony of this expansion is that it has enabled the middle classes to increasingly dominate and we see the consequences of this in the real world, from media to politics. what on EARTH are you talking about now? The expansion of education has led to more and more middle class students taking "advantage" resulting in less social mobility with a narrowing of discourse and ideas in popular culture. This might seem counter intuitive to those who supported such an expansion (Blair's 50% target) but there you go. You can see the consequences of this in the British media and politics where you can see the increasing dominance of a middle class graduate class centred on London (where more middle class graduates can afford to live). This, as it has done across the pond, has contributed to an increasing schism in our society between this expanding graduate class and the rest of us. The introduction of nonsense could not have occurred without this expansion over the last few decades imo. In fact the expansion of education combined with increasing numbers of women, in particular, obtaining certain degrees where they are exposed to the lunacy and entering the jobs market (in particular in HR, media and comms) has played a significant role.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Jul 20, 2023 14:39:07 GMT
I wish i did that travelling malarkey before or after uni. I know i could still do it now, but it would be with less energy and enthusiasm. Buy fewer suits and cars.
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