British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"
Discuss current events and changes in the education system and ways you'd like to see it improved, from secondary school through to postgraduate study.
| Announcements | Posted on | |
|---|---|---|
| Enter our travel-writing competition for the chance to win a Nikon 1 J3 camera | 21-05-2013 | |
-
- Reputation:
- Thread Starter
- Vengeful, Imperial Overlord of The Student Room
- Location: England
British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"What do you think?
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/lea...worthless.html -
- Reputation:
- Benevolent Member
- Posts: 774
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"Depends on the degree and the area you are trying to get into. Medicine and law degrees for example, are obviously not worthless because you wouldn't be able to get into the professions without one.
-
- Reputation:
- Banned
- Location: the UK
- Posts: 17,783
- Warning points: 1000
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"I think you might as well listen to the socioeconomic opinions of a lottery winner. For every Simon Dolan out there whose lucky investments happened to make him rich, there are 1,000 people -many of them far smarter, ballsier, hardworking - who did something similar and didn't happen to get lucky.(Original post by Dee Leigh)
What do you think?
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/lea...worthless.html
The stats don't lie. Average graduate salary is significantly higher than someone without a degree. -
- Reputation:
- Thread Starter
- Vengeful, Imperial Overlord of The Student Room
- Location: England
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"I agree with this too. I totally understand why he would say that (some degrees can be pointless) but you can't tar every degree with the same brush. A degree in dentistry, medicine, law etc are needed for those particular careers, and so they are certainly not useless. Even the traditional subjects such as PPE aren't useless.(Original post by laura130490)
Depends on the degree and the area you are trying to get into. Medicine and law degrees for example, are obviously not worthless because you wouldn't be able to get into the professions without one. -
- Reputation:
- Thread Starter
- Vengeful, Imperial Overlord of The Student Room
- Location: England
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"Another thing that is often pointed out is this: graduates tend to earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates, so a degree can't be totally useless.
-
- Reputation:
- Exalted and Worshipped Member
- Posts: 1,103
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"A view from someone who has become successful without a degree, tell that to the thousands of others who follow the same path as him but end up on minimum wage, or at the very best run a struggling business.
I don't think it's any secret that a significant number of the country's most successful business people, and the richest people, didn't go to university, or even do A levels, they all started up a business around the ages of 15-16 and it took off for them. It's easy to see them and say that you want to do that and become successful, but the majority of people who try that will fail, some will end up with a relatively profitable business which gets them enough to live on, and a tiny number of those people will run a multimillion, multinational empire at the end of it.
The article is also a bit twisted in how it's worded, he's not so much saying that degrees are worthless, but that work experience is more valid, and some degrees are stupid because they aren't relevant to anything. He says that young bright people are the more appealing people to employ, but I expect he's referring to those who have work experience, or who have done something themselves. It would be interesting to know whether he'd rather take on a university graduate who will need minimal training or a 'bright' person with no experience and who needs to be fully trained (ie needs considerable amounts of money spent on them before they can do anything). -
- Reputation:
- Overlord in Training
- Location: Wiltshire
- Posts: 2,410
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"Such a stupid opinion I'm not even going to waste much time arguing against it. Typical opinion from someone who only cares about money.
"I think a far larger part needs to be taken with how to be useful in an office or work environment."
Yes that's right- don't educate the young to understand science, philosophy or ethics just make them good at working in a corporation to line the pockets of the CEOs. Hence I've emboldened the word 'useful'.
Capitalism drives this insane idiocy and the greed driven push to create wealth leaves a trail of devastation. A ruined environment, generation of austerity and now, if the likes of him get his way, a generation of ignorant youngsters. Knowledge is the most important thing we have- just because it doesn't benefit the likes of him doesn't make it worthless. My grandfather and father are businessmen and both have the same blind philosophy.Last edited by Aramiss18; 29-03-2012 at 12:18. -
- Reputation:
- TSR Demigod
- Posts: 7,488
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"This is the thing with entrepreneurs... Thatcher encouraged us to worship them... And they're socially and economically vital. But don't just take what they tell you seriously... They often don't know very much.
-
- Reputation:
- Overlord in Training
- Location: Leeds
- Posts: 2,553
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"When you think of every advance in science in the last few centuries, and every advance in the future, without a degree such advances would not occur. Therefore the statement is not even worth thinking about - it is a contradiction to the highest degree (excuse the pun).
-
- Reputation:
- Peer Of The TSR Realm
- Posts: 1,429
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"Must gaining a degree always be about improving employment/earning potential? Sure, that's probably one of the main reasons why people go for degrees but I, and I'm sure plenty of others, am here simply because I enjoy academia.
“Graduates come out with a self-right to not have to flip burgers even if it is the only job they can get"- to be honest, I think that this attitude is reflective of most people, not just graduates. I don't get what is so wrong with 'flipping burgers' but society in general seems to sneer upon that sort of work.
It's a pretty narrow-minded opinion in all... -
- Reputation:
- Section Moderator
- The Daedric Mod of Madness
- Location: Cambridgeshire
- Posts: 9,658
Re: British entrepreneur Simon Dolan says, "Degrees are worthless"Well seeing as a significant number of jobs specify that you must have a 2:1 degree or higher, I'd say having a degree is better than not having one for a large number of people.
Also when it comes to sciences and medicine, I sort of prefer it when researchers actually have a vague understanding of what it is they are tampering with rather than:
