University: Not Worth It?

You simply can't find the skill anywhere else - unless, of course, you go straight into some sort of fast track route into a finance company where they teach you it all, but again, you need to show evidence that you can learn and apply logic like a mathematician and you're comfortable with working with high-end numeracy.

I'm tempted to agree. In general, you will learn a substantial amount from university if you do particularly technical or academic courses (e.g. sciences, mathematics, engineering); courses based purely on fact.

But then again, I've become rather well-versed in genetics and evolutionary biology just from reading books and journals in my spare time.

Maybe it's actually more dependent upon how you learn information best. Some people simply learn better from reading and researching, whereas some learn better when lectured to by a professor or discussing things with tutors.

Consider, for a moment, if you had gone to a good university to study a course on genetics and evolutionary biology from professors that had written the books you studied from.

You'd learn a heck of a lot more, regardless of your ability to absorb knowledge from books, wouldn't you?

If universities catered to different styles of learning, and made better use of the technologies available today, they'd probably be a lot more worthwhile. I mean, there's little difference between classrooms today, and classrooms 200 years ago, other than the use of a whiteboard (or projector) instead of a blackboard.

Mmm, this seems like an interesting discussion. I first misread your username as 'Darkacademic' and thought, "how ironic"! I'm surprised you haven't been negged to death considering the forum on which you're posting this, lol: I admire how you've argued such a controversial view so well. I'm going to have to admit that I haven't bothered to read much farther beyond the OP, though.

I completely agree with your opinion of the lack of worth of A-levels, at least insofar as they're meant to measure aptitude and knowledge for certain subjects; without sounding tooooo too bitter, I know plenty of people with near-perfect academic records who've just shown that they can't engage in actual discourse for ****, and demonstrate quite often a lack of ability to think critically, or to form their own ideas/arguments. As for how I think A-levels have affected my own thinking, I could go on and on and on and on and ON. To avoid going on the longest tangent ever, which I'll spare everyone - including myself - for now. Throughout A-levels (really didn't give a **** about anything during my GCSE's ), I've looked forward to university vehemently, mainly because it would be the first time I could actually get good grades as the product of demonstrating original thought, among so many other things.

I'm probably going to be off to university next year, to study Maths & Philosophy at Warwick or Manchester, depending on my grades. Luckily for myself, I'll be just about dodging the 9K a year fees. Now, the think that immediately excited me the most in general, is The Student Experience - I (perhaps erroneously!) see university as an opportunity to really get myself out there, join some societies, form a band, etc. etc. etc. That's something which would be a whole lot harder if I didn't go to university, and see the prospect of an experience like this as almost priceless. So on a personal level (probably the only aspect I could make an informed contribution on, if at all), for most, university is a complete win.

As for the academic side of things, the things that I want to learn about would probably not be learned in a work experience environment. I'm interested in maths in all its purest forms, and how it lends itself to philosophy; and vice versa. I couldn't imagine learning about metaphysics or epistemology in too many jobs. Psychology, music and literary theory are a few more examples of things I like which could probably only be taught in an environment like a university. Having said that, I'm also interested in loads of things that would probably be learned best through a more practice experience, things like economics and politics. I understand that you could make the argument that I would do best to get some kind of practical work experience kind of course, while just reading about things I love in my own time (would you agree with that?), and that's not an argument I'm informed enough to back up particularly well.

My view:

Doctors, Lawyers/Solicitors or Some crazy kind of NASA scientist need Uni.

Everyone else does not, and have been fed this story by schools and colleges that Uni = Great job

In fact, for majority it is: Uni = JSA.

I do not think Uni is all bad, just some people pick idiotic degrees, and then wonder why they can't even get a Tesco checkout job.

The point that most people fail on is: REAL experience.

Do you think the subjects are unlearnable outside of a university though?

Doctors, Lawyers/Solicitors or Some crazy kind of NASA scientist need Uni.

So you think non-NASA scientists/other researchers don't need to know university-level science/humanities?

Can you not learn university-level science/humanities without attending university?

Almost certainly no. You can read papers (if you can afford to - the journals you'd need are extremely expensive) but that won't get you the same skills as being taught the difficult concepts and critical approach needed to be a researcher. In addition, some equipment you need is only owned by universities.

You'd certainly need degree-level education. Perhaps one could try to do this without going to uni, but very very few people would actually achieve that without the guidance and resources universities offer.

Science would be nowhere near the same level if we didn't have high-level teaching institutions. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

I can understand the equipment argument (but then, you're already paying thousands of pounds to attend the university; less money would presumably be spent on hiring those resources separately)

but I don't believe there is any knowledge that you need to be taught, and can't just read in a book or a journal (or even, dare I say, on the Internet). It's the same information, you're just receiving it via a different medium.

There are perhaps advantages of being taught (the ability to ask questions and get clarification),

but there are also advantages of reading and researching yourself (the information being generally more premeditated in its organisation and more compressed,

(or even, dare I say, on the Internet).

I've read most (but not all) of the points on here. It's an interesting point you raise OP, and one I've been debating to myself a lot recently. I've applied for a very vocational degree (photography) for entry in 2011. I'm seriously re-thinking whether I should go, especially because a career in Photography does not need a degree. In fact most the photographers I've worked with don't have degrees in the subject.

I'm not sure if spending 3 years, wasting all that money is worth it when I could get out in the field and set up my own business. But I agree that not many other choices are presented to students other than university. I'd love to set up my own business but am clueless as to how to go about it, as the art course I'm doing atm is 100% focused on getting its students into uni. However I don't want to miss out on the experience of uni, as most of my friends are there now and I don't think I'd feel satisfied if I didn't go, despite the financial burden.