The Student Room Group

What is considered a useless degree?

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Original post by nsolma1
Well now you're arguing about the politics and economics of it really.

Is it really my fault that access to university has been increased to around 50%?
And now that the job market is flooded with graduates competing for each other, this puts pressure on me to also take a degree to compete with other's in the job market.

Of course you could tell me to do an apprenticeship or a school leaver job, but what if I'm not interested in those at the moment? I don't want to restrict myself to an apprenticeship/school leaver job, because I know that it's in the company's interest to keep me working there as long as possible.

You could argue that it's more "useful" to the economy if I studied engineering and got a job, but what about me as an individual? Like I said, now I know I would hate engineering after I took my gap year. So it's not in my best interest to study it, as I could probably fail and drop out

So now I am left with studying something I am genuinely interested in and then make the best out of it when I graduate really. I can't do medicine, I want to leave accounting for after I graduate, law is far too competitive etc. So what else can I do?

I personally think that this 50% target was not introduced for society's "benefit" but more for the greedy universities who have turned into huge profit making businesses, rather than institutions for the public good. Not only that but I think that overall the corporation's interest from an economy flooded with graduates desperately competing for each other for any type of job.

I'm personally for no tuition fee's in the first place. I think education should be free, but not for too many people, but for the ones going to university who have the academics and a real interest in studying their subjects. That I think should be proven through work experience or something, but maybe that would be hard to get anyway.

Or we should cap the number of people going to university, I don't know, anything to reduce the number of people should be okay. But this is useless if apprenticeships are not developed at the same time. Not only that but immigration also further adds to the competition.

So I think immigration should be reduced, then reduce the number of people going university and the substitute the gap left with increased emphasis on apprenticeships. I think education should be based on apprenticeships/work experience first, and then academics studies later, for the ones who want to take it further.

But the way it's going now, I think the vast majority of graduates don't manage to pay back their student loan and have that debt hanging for 30 years. And this debt is probably sold off by the banks or something to make their own greedy profits, I don't know maybe I'm wrong. But this is my gut feeling about it.



Would you be so happy reducing the number of people going to university if you are one of the people not to go?

What few on TSR realise is just how few private and grammar school pupils went to university in the relatively recent past.
Original post by nulli tertius
Would you be so happy reducing the number of people going to university if you are one of the people not to go?

What few on TSR realise is just how few private and grammar school pupils went to university in the relatively recent past.


Definitely,

Provided that there would be something else to fill that gap.

So apprenticeships basically, but the chance to go to university should still be there.
Just not as accessible as it is right now, with half the country going to university. Also there should be a lot more choices in apprenticeships, and the age for eligibility should be raised to increase access. Also I think apprenticeships should be less restricting as well, so that you could still go to university if you wanted to. But I know companies do not like this, because they invest in you by accepting you on an apprenticeship.But I doubt this would be effective if nothing would be done about immigration at the same time.

If I could have done a psychology or engineering apprenticeship, I would do it. But I feel that the companies will pressure me to stay there for a long time. Also my grades are just terrible at the moment, so I doubt they would take me seriously as a candidate anyway.
(edited 9 years ago)
Arts degrees have huge analytical and intellectual rigour but very few practical skills for any vocation. Obviously this is gonna hold you back coming out of uni, but note that it is much better than the other way around. You can fix a lack of skills with work experience and more vocational qualifications for what you want to do in the future; but the ability to argue and reasons the humanities provides is obviously indirectly useful in anything you should wish to do.

STEM is also a myth. There's a select few courses that will get you a lot of money, however your average science degree ala biology and chemistry seem to have distinctly average starting salaries. If the maths and abstraction (there is coincidently hugely more abstraction in philosophy than biology) gives you a premium among employers, then the difference in monetary gain in different STEM fields should surely be more pronounced.
**** i found this googling and then forgot i came here through google
Original post by banterboy
**** i found this googling and then forgot i came here through google

What have you done.
Getting any degree it at only a 3rd may be considered a waste of time although its better than no degree. Look at graduate programme, most of them do not care what area you got your degree in but that you got at least a 2:1 in that discipline.

My friend got a degree in history and got a 1st and now works in a kebab shop. But he can probably hold good conversations with drunk people about why "hitler invaded France".

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