University has taught me one thing, what is the point in university?

If you wanna see the quality difference in universities sit through a lecture and tutorials then watch a oxford or MIT lecture on youtube and look at the difference,they are getting taught properly in away you get....

i have.

I've looked at CS50 lectures online.

Yes, thats how I truly feel. I thought I'd actually get taught stuff and be asked on a routine basis to practice and so forth on my subject. Instead I'm being spoon fed like a puppet in a play various pieces of information and its really not helping me evolve intellectually. Yes I could revise in my own time, however, I could do that without being at university and its made me think 'why the hell am I here?', 'why the hell does anyone go to university?'.

I really do not see the point in university anymore and I actually think I'm a fool in thinking it would provide me a platform to do well in life. It doesn't. It teaches you to do as you're told by an employer and to be spoon fed.

I mean, I sat there the other night and thought 'why did Steve Jobs drop out?', 'why did Zuckerberg drop out?' (not saying I'm anything like them, I'm not, I'm a completely different person, they were great people, however, more the reasoning why, it makes you think) and then i realised, probably because they realised it was a waste of time too. I don't want to be a paycheque slave in the sector. I want to innovate and learn new things but I can't do that. Im fed things I need to learn. I should be told 'go away and do xyz and meet the certain criteria set to get marks', thats research, thats making movements and making something of yourself and encouraging self development and innovation. I feel we are being led like sheep.

I see it as two ways

1) Be at university - get in loads of debt - be taught things on basis of the strict syllabus - get a degree that says I can do something but when i need to put that in practice I can't because i've been taught to regurgitate, not innovate.

2) Leave university - just pay living costs - teach myself something that I feel will land me a job - put together a portfolio - phone the company, tell them i dropped out as I thought uni was poor - keep going over stuff - then hopefully get a job - it has been done

I really don't understand why degrees are valued so much. They're pointless. We'd all be far better on job schemes where companies get investment rather than universities and you get taken on and taught by the company (apprenticeship type thing for more skilled people with higher graded a levels). So say you got straight A's at A level you would get backing from the government to be a trainee solicitor with an actual firm on the job.

Yeah, I've been looking for an answer and i don't think ill ever find one to be honest. I've actually learnt 1 thing on my course so far, the rest i've had to go back to my room and research and look up via books, something i could do at home anyway and save myself loads of money.

Anyone else feel like this? I feel so down.

There is more of a point to university than you think as there as many reasons why people apply to get in.

First off, because accomodation and school departments are mostly on the same campus it provides good opportunity to meet loads of new friends as opposed to meeting a few people in the same workplace (who you may not get on with), it provides facilities e.g. sports, clubs and other social activities and many people apply because they're interested to do a subject at a higher level and because they want to keep many potential doors open to career choices after they graduate - so of course there is a point to university.

The reason a degree is now valued so much more now and has become an industry requirement is because the world is now much more highly competitive - which would explain the lack of jobs and shall we say 'mess ups' in our global economy. Employers are looking for original individuals who are interesting and aspire to further develop themselves beyond the contemporary standards of average people - and though its only on a piece of paper, a degree qualification equates to all the effort put in over a long course of time.

its a reward - one that brings significant self-satisfaction on graduation day along with the potential to enter a whole new range of jobs for the ever-changing mind - this is the point of studying at university.

In order to become innovative in a certain subject, you first need to know the basic rules. If you force every student to do the same thing, you are in effect, making them use a certain set of skills that will be required later on.

Creativity comes later on in MSc's , PhD's , and your own projects of course as someone else pointed out. If you already feel ready to start a revolutionary project, you can choose to drop out. It's your decision.

I have plenty of ideas and I came here hoping I'd be provided the platform to expand on them and learn the tools needed to take those ideas to the next level and put them into practice.

Instead I'm being told 'do this' and having my own creativity suppressed and its making me feel depressed.

1. Its harder to conform to other peoples ideas because you don't have the same logical thinking as them

2. Its better to be encouraged to come up with your own innovations as if you do well you can put them to market. Not only that but if you do something you want to and its your idea you're more likely to be enthusiastic about it.

Im not being provided the platform to expand on my ideas. I go to lecture and then come home and read a book for 2 hours straight to get the faintest idea. I could do that at home or anywhere in the world and save myself time by not going to lectures. I thought university would encourage research, self creativity, it doesn't. It encourages you to become a paycheque slave who follows orders.

Anyone else feel like this? I feel so down.

Creativity comes later on in MSc's , PhD's ,

No it doesn't. Please trust me on this.

If I might put forward some middle ground:

The original post is how I used to think. But before that, and after that....

I went to a horrible state comprehensive, and back in the early 90s, when I went to VI Form, the attitude of the teachers was very strongly "University or bust", and bear in mind this was the year the polytechnics all became universities.

All the students ever heard was how great it would be to go to university (on a full grant no less) and how rubbish anything else other than A-levels would be. Personally, I had aspirations to read medicine, but I had no concept of anything else other than doing A-levels and then going to university. I had no clue what else I might do. I didn't even have a proper bank account.

Any way, the VI form was total rubbish, and had an absurd policy of keeping predicted grades secret from the students (so they wouldn't pressurise the teachers to change them). I don't know what they were, but I didn't get any offers. Completely demoralised, I stopped turning up to lessons and basically got the worst grades imaginable.

I joined the Army, had a laugh for some years, and then afterwards applied to read Economics at Brunel. They let me in as a mature student. I spent a year doing really well academically, but this is where I started to feel like the OP - that university was pointless. I had trade training from the Army in Electronics, and was working part-time, earning double or triple what any other student was earning in retail or catering. There was an "Industrial Society" that most of the Economics students joined, which was essentially a vehicle for the officers of the society to suck up to big accountancy firms and secure grad schemes early.

I didn't like all that, but I was even more disappointed when I figured out that if I took up a grad scheme, I'd be taking a drop in pay from what I was used to. Things were tough anyway, and I needed the money. Convinced that I wasn't going anywhere with graduate employers, I left university to work full-time and within a year I started my own business.

I'm not really sure that my time at university helped in the running of my own company at all. But after more than 10 years, I've come full circle and decided that University does have its uses.

I'm reading Law and looking to practice - there isn't a viable non-graduate route for me. The same barriers are there - I can't afford to do the graduate training unless it's with a very high-paying firm. But I'll have to manage somehow.

Anyway - my thoughts now are as follows:

No. University doesn't necessarily train you to do anything, and I don't think there is evidence that you "grow up" any more than if you didn't go.

A lot of it is self-fulfilling. The "top" people tend to go to university, so we don't know how they'd turn out if they didn't. There's no "control" group.

On the other hand, I know what it is to be an employer. It is very difficult to choose people to employ. Unless you are a very big company with huge resources, you can't generally afford to make mistakes - so you have to go with some kind of standard of education for your potential employees - and that standard is generally the Bachelor's degree.

I know there is the temptation for motivated and smart people to "go it alone" and see how they can do without a degree - and I say all power to them, I like to see people succeed. But for every success story, there must be dozens of people frustrated and trapped below the level they feel they are capable of. Organisations (with some justification) standardise procedures for promotion etc, and there are levels you can't easily get to without the requisite qualifications.

This isn't to say that you can't do well without a degree - of course you can. But if you are talking about skilled (rather than "professional") employment, eventually things level off and you reach a plateau, and it's very hard to kick on from there. You may be an amazing panel-beater, earning £50,000 for Landrover or something, but to move on to the next level is the challenge.

As with so many things, it's down to the individual. There are complete donkies with stacks of degrees that will probably never get anywhere, and there are superstar wheeler-dealers/entrepreneurs that will make things happen without any qualifications whatsoever.

But most people fall somewhere between those extremes, and it's a case of judging what you can achieve with what you have.

As with so many things, it's down to the individual. There are complete donkies with stacks of degrees that will probably never get anywhere, and there are superstar wheeler-dealers/entrepreneurs that will make things happen without any qualifications whatsoever.

But most people fall somewhere between those extremes, and it's a case of judging what you can achieve with what you have.

It depends on the course you're doing...

Yes, thats how I truly feel. I thought I'd actually get taught stuff and be asked on a routine basis to practice and so forth on my subject. Instead I'm being spoon fed like a puppet in a play various pieces of information and its really not helping me evolve intellectually. Yes I could revise in my own time, however, I could do that without being at university and its made me think 'why the hell am I here?', 'why the hell does anyone go to university?'.

I really do not see the point in university anymore and I actually think I'm a fool in thinking it would provide me a platform to do well in life. It doesn't. It teaches you to do as you're told by an employer and to be spoon fed.

I mean, I sat there the other night and thought 'why did Steve Jobs drop out?', 'why did Zuckerberg drop out?' (not saying I'm anything like them, I'm not, I'm a completely different person, they were great people, however, more the reasoning why, it makes you think) and then i realised, probably because they realised it was a waste of time too. I don't want to be a paycheque slave in the sector. I want to innovate and learn new things but I can't do that. Im fed things I need to learn. I should be told 'go away and do xyz and meet the certain criteria set to get marks', thats research, thats making movements and making something of yourself and encouraging self development and innovation. I feel we are being led like sheep.

I see it as two ways

1) Be at university - get in loads of debt - be taught things on basis of the strict syllabus - get a degree that says I can do something but when i need to put that in practice I can't because i've been taught to regurgitate, not innovate.

2) Leave university - just pay living costs - teach myself something that I feel will land me a job - put together a portfolio - phone the company, tell them i dropped out as I thought uni was poor - keep going over stuff - then hopefully get a job - it has been done

I really don't understand why degrees are valued so much. They're pointless. We'd all be far better on job schemes where companies get investment rather than universities and you get taken on and taught by the company (apprenticeship type thing for more skilled people with higher graded a levels). So say you got straight A's at A level you would get backing from the government to be a trainee solicitor with an actual firm on the job.

Yeah, I've been looking for an answer and i don't think ill ever find one to be honest. I've actually learnt 1 thing on my course so far, the rest i've had to go back to my room and research and look up via books, something i could do at home anyway and save myself loads of money.

Anyone else feel like this? I feel so down.