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Most degrees are a total waste of time
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tbh the people complaining over paying £9000 a year are really crying over nothing, you don't pay it all at once and may not ever pay it off so really it's the best debt you'll ever have. Back onto the original topic, you rarely use your degree in your line of work but a degree is a sign you can learn quickly and have picked up various skills. BA students tend to be more sociable than BSC students anyways so really it depends on the person rather than the degree.
Original post by Princepieman
Would prefer not having to deal with full time work directly after 13 years of school. University gives you the opportunity to learn life skills that are quite vital to performing at the level required for grad schemes.
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Yeah I guess it's nice to have some respite and learn things at a more gradual pace but I still think it's not a requirement. I agree with op that the whole system is a racket
I agree I did a degree with the Open university in social science now I work as a demolition contractor something I did need a degree for?
Original post by tanyapotter
Well, don't say stupid things like "tell that to BA students" if you don't want to be called out and corrected. Your whole argument is ridiculous from the get-go. An LSE economist is hardly wasting their time, even though they're not studying a STEM subject. Equally, if someone wants to do Palliative Care at Wolverhampton University because they want to work at a hospice, they're not wasting their time either. And this is coming from a prospective engineer who is very aware that she could still end unemployed, despite doing a STEM degree from a target university: get over yourself.
If you want a good career, a good rule of thumb is to stick with STEM topics.
Not my problem if you don't want to see that reality
But it's dumb as **** to pick out something like maths, from one of the best unis in the country and go "PROVED YOU WRONG".Get over myself? Stop living in denial kid, it won't help you in the long run.
Original post by geoking
If you want a good career, a good rule of thumb is to stick with STEM topics.
Not my problem if you don't want to see that reality But it's dumb as **** to pick out something like maths, from one of the best unis in the country and go "PROVED YOU WRONG".
Get over myself? Stop living in denial kid, it won't help you in the long run.
Not my problem if you don't want to see that reality
But it's dumb as **** to pick out something like maths, from one of the best unis in the country and go "PROVED YOU WRONG".Get over myself? Stop living in denial kid, it won't help you in the long run.
Just saying, if you're gonna say something incorrect like "all BA degrees are useless", then expect to be challenged.
And I'm not living in denial. I'm gonna study engineering because I want to. Because I like maths and physics and designing things. Similarly, my friend is going to do psychology because it brings her joy, just like maths and physics brings me joy. Forcing yourself to do something your heart is not in is being a lesser version of yourself, and life is too short to do something you won't enjoy.
Besides, all STEM degrees require a thorough understanding of a very innate skill and characteristic: numeracy. You can't possibly think maths comes easily to everyone. Is every single person who's bad at maths destined for failure, then?
Original post by tanyapotter
Just saying, if you're gonna say something incorrect like "all BA degrees are useless", then expect to be challenged.
And I'm not living in denial. I'm gonna study engineering because I want to. Because I like maths and physics and designing things. Similarly, my friend is going to do psychology because it brings her joy, just like maths and physics brings me joy. Forcing yourself to do something your heart is not in is being a lesser version of yourself, and life is too short to do something you won't enjoy.
Besides, all STEM degrees require a thorough understanding of a very innate skill and characteristic: numeracy. You can't possibly think maths comes easily to everyone. Is every single person who's bad at maths destined for failure, then?
And I'm not living in denial. I'm gonna study engineering because I want to. Because I like maths and physics and designing things. Similarly, my friend is going to do psychology because it brings her joy, just like maths and physics brings me joy. Forcing yourself to do something your heart is not in is being a lesser version of yourself, and life is too short to do something you won't enjoy.
Besides, all STEM degrees require a thorough understanding of a very innate skill and characteristic: numeracy. You can't possibly think maths comes easily to everyone. Is every single person who's bad at maths destined for failure, then?
"Just saying". No, you were being pedantic - we both know this.
Explain to me how it makes financial sense to spend over £30,000 on a degree that may not guarantee you work, and may not make you more employable compared to another degree or qualification the person is capable of doing.
"Forcing yourself to do something your heart is not in is being a lesser version of yourself, "
No, it's called being a responsible adult and not a child.
Life is too short to spend three years potentially jeopardising the next 40
Original post by TobaccoSmoke
There are obviously a few careers in which having a degree is more or less essentially, such as medicine, law, engineering, etc, but other than those having a degree these days seems totally pointless and just debt for the sake of it.
The degrees I'd say are particularly worthless are most Arts and Social Sciences degrees. Most employers don't value them and it seems to me that they do little to increase most graduate's job prospects.
Ultimately I think the university system these days is a total racket designed to keep the tens of thousands of university staff in jobs. Most universities know that a large proportion of the courses they run are useless, but they continue to offer them because universities operate like businesses today, not as public institutions with a level of social responsibility.
Really career success comes down to natural talent and the drive to succeed in my opinion. I highly doubt that the vast majority of Arts and Social Science graduates get any further in their careers with their degree than if they hadn't bothered to do a degree.
With the exception of a few industries as mentioned above, most companies don't seem interested in what degree you have. All most companies are interested in is what experience you have in that particular field.
It seems to me that most companies would take a far more favourable view of someone who has spent 3 years aquiring work experience in their chosen field and building their CV rather than going to university, than someone who has spent 3 years doing an Arts or Social Science degree and has never worked a day in their life.
The degrees I'd say are particularly worthless are most Arts and Social Sciences degrees. Most employers don't value them and it seems to me that they do little to increase most graduate's job prospects.
Ultimately I think the university system these days is a total racket designed to keep the tens of thousands of university staff in jobs. Most universities know that a large proportion of the courses they run are useless, but they continue to offer them because universities operate like businesses today, not as public institutions with a level of social responsibility.
Really career success comes down to natural talent and the drive to succeed in my opinion. I highly doubt that the vast majority of Arts and Social Science graduates get any further in their careers with their degree than if they hadn't bothered to do a degree.
With the exception of a few industries as mentioned above, most companies don't seem interested in what degree you have. All most companies are interested in is what experience you have in that particular field.
It seems to me that most companies would take a far more favourable view of someone who has spent 3 years aquiring work experience in their chosen field and building their CV rather than going to university, than someone who has spent 3 years doing an Arts or Social Science degree and has never worked a day in their life.
I am so 100% same view as you. Most employers want experiences! Im thinking of going straight into work instead of going to uni. Now I have two part time jobs hoping to gain more experiences that allows me to apply more jobs with higher salary.
In my school we had a visitor to come and speak to us about student finance - top end of the bracket at £9000, you only pay when you start earning over £21,000; even so, the percentage calculated shows that if you're earning around that threshold, you only pay approximately £30 a month. For careers totalling approx £50,000 pa, the payment gets to around £200-400 a month or something like that. Basically they take a percentage based on what you earn. And it gets cleared after 30 years.
Going around university open days this year, it feels like there is a much stronger focus on job prospects - I took notice of a much greater range of courses that have a compulsory placement year, and a more pragmatic outreach initiative to get students involved with work experience. An evident advocacy of involvement in university life as well, in societies, groups, projects. It feels like there is more recognition of the fact that employability is an outstanding issue for many grads, so there is more being done about it.
As far as the usefulness of uni courses goes - I've read that employers seek the skills gained in university, rather than the content of the course itself, and here I am talking about careers and jobs that don't require a specific degree. So long as you're able to convey that you know how to behave in a professional environment (reason for a lot of emphasis on work experience), work under pressure, be able to analyse and understand complicated data, research, present, and work in a team --- with the prestige of universities, this experience is performed in the fields of higher thinking, so individuals graduate as intelligent people who are, given the right guidance, also approachable in a work situation. Worded differently (since I'm tired and probably not making sense), universities provide an environment which stretches people's fields of thought and so uses this knowledge gained as a medium to apply to various workplace skills.
For example, a philosophy student enters the realms of Philosophy - the sea of knowledge to collect buckets from is vast. While they learn about philosophy with all their appetite for information about that topic, it is the university's job nowadays to provide an experience in which they learn how to use that information critically, to argue their point in an appropriate manner, to persuade correctness, to view sources and assess their reliability, to make comparisons, connections and conclusions, etc. The philosophy itself is just a medium, but the skills are applicable. The agenda nowadays is to establish a necessity to step back and realise what these skills actually are so that they are something you can talk about in a job interview, as well as to point out what's missing so that it can be covered in external opportunities like work experience or extracurricular undertakings.
There's a lot of jumbled stigmas, so these are the main points I got from some of what I know about universities nowadays.
Going around university open days this year, it feels like there is a much stronger focus on job prospects - I took notice of a much greater range of courses that have a compulsory placement year, and a more pragmatic outreach initiative to get students involved with work experience. An evident advocacy of involvement in university life as well, in societies, groups, projects. It feels like there is more recognition of the fact that employability is an outstanding issue for many grads, so there is more being done about it.
As far as the usefulness of uni courses goes - I've read that employers seek the skills gained in university, rather than the content of the course itself, and here I am talking about careers and jobs that don't require a specific degree. So long as you're able to convey that you know how to behave in a professional environment (reason for a lot of emphasis on work experience), work under pressure, be able to analyse and understand complicated data, research, present, and work in a team --- with the prestige of universities, this experience is performed in the fields of higher thinking, so individuals graduate as intelligent people who are, given the right guidance, also approachable in a work situation. Worded differently (since I'm tired and probably not making sense), universities provide an environment which stretches people's fields of thought and so uses this knowledge gained as a medium to apply to various workplace skills.
For example, a philosophy student enters the realms of Philosophy - the sea of knowledge to collect buckets from is vast. While they learn about philosophy with all their appetite for information about that topic, it is the university's job nowadays to provide an experience in which they learn how to use that information critically, to argue their point in an appropriate manner, to persuade correctness, to view sources and assess their reliability, to make comparisons, connections and conclusions, etc. The philosophy itself is just a medium, but the skills are applicable. The agenda nowadays is to establish a necessity to step back and realise what these skills actually are so that they are something you can talk about in a job interview, as well as to point out what's missing so that it can be covered in external opportunities like work experience or extracurricular undertakings.
There's a lot of jumbled stigmas, so these are the main points I got from some of what I know about universities nowadays.
Original post by TobaccoSmoke
There are obviously a few careers in which having a degree is more or less essentially, such as medicine, law, engineering, etc, but other than those having a degree these days seems totally pointless and just debt for the sake of it.
The degrees I'd say are particularly worthless are most Arts and Social Sciences degrees. Most employers don't value them and it seems to me that they do little to increase most graduate's job prospects.
Ultimately I think the university system these days is a total racket designed to keep the tens of thousands of university staff in jobs. Most universities know that a large proportion of the courses they run are useless, but they continue to offer them because universities operate like businesses today, not as public institutions with a level of social responsibility.
Really career success comes down to natural talent and the drive to succeed in my opinion. I highly doubt that the vast majority of Arts and Social Science graduates get any further in their careers with their degree than if they hadn't bothered to do a degree.
With the exception of a few industries as mentioned above, most companies don't seem interested in what degree you have. All most companies are interested in is what experience you have in that particular field.
It seems to me that most companies would take a far more favourable view of someone who has spent 3 years aquiring work experience in their chosen field and building their CV rather than going to university, than someone who has spent 3 years doing an Arts or Social Science degree and has never worked a day in their life.
The degrees I'd say are particularly worthless are most Arts and Social Sciences degrees. Most employers don't value them and it seems to me that they do little to increase most graduate's job prospects.
Ultimately I think the university system these days is a total racket designed to keep the tens of thousands of university staff in jobs. Most universities know that a large proportion of the courses they run are useless, but they continue to offer them because universities operate like businesses today, not as public institutions with a level of social responsibility.
Really career success comes down to natural talent and the drive to succeed in my opinion. I highly doubt that the vast majority of Arts and Social Science graduates get any further in their careers with their degree than if they hadn't bothered to do a degree.
With the exception of a few industries as mentioned above, most companies don't seem interested in what degree you have. All most companies are interested in is what experience you have in that particular field.
It seems to me that most companies would take a far more favourable view of someone who has spent 3 years aquiring work experience in their chosen field and building their CV rather than going to university, than someone who has spent 3 years doing an Arts or Social Science degree and has never worked a day in their life.
I dissagree being 50 years old, and having worked in most dead end jobs.
I know first hand that experience will only take you so far, which is why I am
looking forward to getting my degree in a few months.
getting my degree in a few months.
Original post by Ordo
I am so 100% same view as you. Most employers want experiences! Im thinking of going straight into work instead of going to uni. Now I have two part time jobs hoping to gain more experiences that allows me to apply more jobs with higher salary.
No you are wrong, what they want is an degree plus life, as well as work experience.
Original post by Davman
No you are wrong, what they want is an degree plus life, as well as work experience.
OK xDD
As much as I agree at the same time what does it even matter, yes some degrees are pointless but let people study it, it's their money.
I think one thing we should bear in mind that if you do go to uni and study a "pointless" subject join as many clubs or voluntary schemes as possible. Employeers don't care about degrees as much anymore and because almost everybody gets a 2.1 no one stands out!
I think one thing we should bear in mind that if you do go to uni and study a "pointless" subject join as many clubs or voluntary schemes as possible. Employeers don't care about degrees as much anymore and because almost everybody gets a 2.1 no one stands out!
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by loveleest
Film production. I honestly think I am wasting my time and money.
I would rather do an apprenticeship/internship but I just feel as if there aren't any...
I would rather do an apprenticeship/internship but I just feel as if there aren't any...
http://creativeaccess.org.uk/about-us
Thank you!
I agree completely with the op.
As a mature adult i spent many years in work, sadly they where the dead end menial jobs, so at the age of 35 i decided to go to university in order to start the turn around in my life, i needed a better education, however, i also wanted to live the dream for once, i was fedup of working in jobs i hated, it was time to try and get a job in an industry i had a real passion for, after all thats what we all want deep down.
I chose a BA in Games and Entertainment design, right from the get go the course wasn't good, but i was tied in, had used my student loan etc.
So i carried on hoping it would get better, the course content had some great module titles but it never lived up to the titles.
So here i am with a 2:1 degree in games and entertainment design, lacking the skills an employer requires because the course taught us nothing.
Now im job hunting and sadly none of the job requirements in experience or skills to software use match what i have done, so the dream is over, no job in design industry, no job in games industry, so im left with other graduate jobs like sales which i hate with a passion, i don't need a degree for sales jobs, their everywhere.
Over 40k debt for nothing, i feel cheated and angry.
As a mature adult i spent many years in work, sadly they where the dead end menial jobs, so at the age of 35 i decided to go to university in order to start the turn around in my life, i needed a better education, however, i also wanted to live the dream for once, i was fedup of working in jobs i hated, it was time to try and get a job in an industry i had a real passion for, after all thats what we all want deep down.
I chose a BA in Games and Entertainment design, right from the get go the course wasn't good, but i was tied in, had used my student loan etc.
So i carried on hoping it would get better, the course content had some great module titles but it never lived up to the titles.
So here i am with a 2:1 degree in games and entertainment design, lacking the skills an employer requires because the course taught us nothing.
Now im job hunting and sadly none of the job requirements in experience or skills to software use match what i have done, so the dream is over, no job in design industry, no job in games industry, so im left with other graduate jobs like sales which i hate with a passion, i don't need a degree for sales jobs, their everywhere.
Over 40k debt for nothing, i feel cheated and angry.
They are
Degree apprenticeships are better tbh. Don't know why they didn't exist when I applied...
Degree apprenticeships are better tbh. Don't know why they didn't exist when I applied...
Original post by TimGB
In comparison to other degrees... maybe. But for the most part, going to university to study anything is better than not going to university at all.
Degree snob
My back-up career is probably canine/feline behaviourist and there is a degree course specific to that (behaviour & training). But I feel an apprenticeship would be much better as it's theory with application. You can't really be successful unless you have loads of hands-on experience. Yet, I've look at the apprenticeships avaliable and they just aren't there. It's super frustrating honestly. My back-up plan is supposed to be easy/accessible 😅 not exactly either of those things... Maybe because the majority of behaviourist/trainers are self-employed, unless working at a rescue, and then they aren't in a position to offer to take on/train up apprentices?? My back-up, back-up plan is psychology, but I know further study is needed to actually be a psychologist - does anyone have any understanding of how further study is funded? I know a second undergraduate degree you can't get a tuition fee loan for, but what about a masters degree or phD?
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