[DaveO]

Re: University entry : Mon Sep 17, 2012 3:31 pm  

Ande wrote:

In my university it was a non negotiable requirement to complete 6 weeks placement. I dont know how it is elsewhere but this was something i found to be fantastically rewarding and a big thing to put on my CV and something employers WILL look for.

With all due respect I wouldn't see 6 weeks placement as a reason to consider one applicant over another. It's just not long enough. It is many years since I was at Uni but when I went I did a full year in industry between my 2nd and 3rd years. This was when we had Uni's and Poly's and so it was fairly unique for a Uni to want their students to work in industry. The Computer Science dpeartment still pushes this strongly.

I am concinved I got a better degree because of this year out and that it also helped me with my subsiquent employment.

Teaching students are out on placement for a much larger chunk of time. My course was very much essay driven and exams mixed in every now and again. I hate it when people say that essays are easier and exams test you more. I have learnt so much more from my essays than i have remembered for exams. I was challenged in my essays, i guess some institutions do not challenge their students enough maybe?

Well I also work for the Open University as a tutor and Computer Science students results are determined by the lower of the assignment score or the exam score. I wasn't keen on this myself when I did some courses there but now I am on the other side of the fence I can see the reasons why.

When I was a student my course had masses of practical work to do and we even had deadlines the day before the final exams started. Some of the practical work counted for less than 1% of the final mark but still required a lot of work to complete. Some students elected not to submit some of these assignments and it counted against them later if they were marginal on a grade boudary.

Putting people through University on 80 points is something that makes me angry in a way. I worked hard through my A Levels, i didnt get the grades i wanted and knew i had to step up at Uni. I cannot imagine people with 2 E's having the motivation/desire to do this. Leeds Met is struggling, big time for cash. bad decisions has pretty much red flagged them to authorities. They are now charging £8,500 which for me knowing Leeds Met (pretty well) is horrifying. My lectures contained no more than 40 people at a time, often half that. Leeds Met's lectures can often contain double that sometimes more. The one on one time with lecturers must be non existent.

My son is off to Uni tomorrow and throughout the application process I was pretty impressed with all the Uni's visited. On one visit while they said they were strict on the minimum points total (280) they understood that A level grades don't tell the whole story. They realise other factors can come into it. For example my son had no phyiscs teachers for the majority of the year as both were off on sick leave. The school didn't get supply teachers in but had the Chemistry teachers cover. This was rubbish and probably affected his grade. He also broke his hip in January in the middle of exams so missed those and quite a few lessons. He did get the points required in the end but what was said at that Uni told me if Uni's let people in on lower grades it is not always because they Uni's are rubbish. It is because they want the particular student to go and will give them a chance despite screweing up their a level exams. There is a limit though and being several grades off the requirment ought to mean it is the exception rather than the rule that you get a place.

Re: University entry : Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:43 pm  

When I was applying to university in the 80s it was common place for them to offer students who they expected to get straight As a 2E offer as a sign that they really wanted that student to come to them. These days it appears to be a means to put bums on seats and pocket the tuition fees.

Employers should not expect ready trained employees to come out of any educational institution. Schools and universities have a broad remit in terms of the education they provide and cannot pander to the needs of each and every employer. In the old days the polys provided vocational degree courses for students on day release from their employers. This would be the ideal way of paying for the highly educated workforce the powers that be tell us we need. Sadly employers do not want to spend money developing their staff in this way.

As stated in an earlier post, the well paid graduate jobs are not out there to the level they were anymore. In my own field I recently saw an ad for a chemistry graduate to work in an analytical lab for £12k a year and a couple of years back saw a similar job at £9k (both in the SE). To be fair, these were permanent jobs rather than the temporary positions that are prevalent in a lot of science/tech based companies at the moment. These are cases of exploitative employers trying to get employees on the cheap while telling the employee that they are doing them a favour as the pay is that low that they won't have to pay back their student loans. The job situation is just as bad at the PhD level. When made redundant at the back end of 2007 I had to take a £5k pay cut and the situation has only got worse since with the Big pharma companies announcing thousands of redundancies. The government and business are perpetuating the lie that if you get a degree in a tech/science subject you will end up in a well paid job. It just isn't true. All that sending 50% of the population to university achieves is to keep a few more school leavers off the dole for another 3 years. I know this sounds very cynical and somewhat depressing for some of the younger posters on this board, but in my personal experience it is also very true.

Re: University entry : Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:33 am  

I have to say that compared to a lot of other students I had things very easy at uni. With living at home I only left with £3000 of debt, and had a really enjoyable three years. The way I did it was work hard from Monday morning to Friday evening (in the second and third years I had a 100-day placement each year, so sometimes it would be placement 9am-5pm and then private study at the library from 5pm-9pm), but then I unwound and went out over the weekend, rarely picking up a book on Saturday or Sunday. This worked for me personally - I was never the type who could be up reading until midnight on Sunday and still being refreshed and ready to go for a 9am Monday lecture. Came out with a 2:1 Social Work degree four years ago.
Since then I've been knocked for 'not using' my degree, which is somewhat true in that I'm not in a full-time social work position, but I usually do 40 hours a week, spread over three jobs (doing a night care assistant role for a disability team and sessional work for two family support teams), + my voluntary job with Samaritans which I've had for four years. So fair dues I've not climbed the career ladder like many of my fellow students on the course will have, but I enjoy what I do and the degree gave me the confidence and self-belief to do things that I never thought I would be able to. For example I supervise family contacts in places such as prisons and rehabilitation facilities. In all honesty before uni I would have found the thought of prison work very daunting (not that people should, but I'm just the type who's shy and feels easily intimidated sometimes I guess), whereas now I love doing it and find it really interesting.
Likewise with my voluntary work - there's no way in a million years that I would have though pre-uni that I could do something like that (working all types of shifts e.g. midnight-6am) but it's easily the most-rewarding thing I've ever done and I've learned / gained so much from it whilst also 'giving back' a bit.
So for me university has opened doors in different ways, and though it's a bit unconvential the way I earn a living at the moment (i.e. across 3 / sometimes 4 services) I'm enjoying what I do for the time-being, and am chipping away bit-by-bit at what is admittedly a relatively-small student loan.

Re: University entry : Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:59 am  

Roofs wrote:

Since then I've been knocked for 'not using' my degree, which is somewhat true in that I'm not in a full-time social work position, but I usually do 40 hours a week, spread over three jobs (doing a night care assistant role for a disability team and sessional work for two family support teams), + my voluntary job with Samaritans which I've had for four years. So fair dues I've not climbed the career ladder like many of my fellow students on the course will have, but I enjoy what I do and the degree gave me the confidence and self-belief to do things that I never thought I would be able to. For example I supervise family contacts in places such as prisons and rehabilitation facilities. In all honesty before uni I would have found the thought of prison work very daunting (not that people should, but I'm just the type who's shy and feels easily intimidated sometimes I guess), whereas now I love doing it and find it really interesting.
Likewise with my voluntary work - there's no way in a million years that I would have though pre-uni that I could do something like that (working all types of shifts e.g. midnight-6am) but it's easily the most-rewarding thing I've ever done and I've learned / gained so much from it whilst also 'giving back' a bit.

Can I just say, you sound like a a really great person and the sort of invaluable asset to society that most of the millionaire "celebrities" should look up to.

I've not climbed the career ladder like many of my fellow students on the course will have, but I enjoy what I do

THAT is the most important thing you wrote, if you enjoy your work then you can't put a price on that.

Re: University entry : Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:58 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

I really don't think someone with E grades at A level and a 2:2 law degree from Leeds Met is likely to go on and qualify as a solicitor or barrister.

A bit sweeping.

Mrs 28 got Ds at A level, a 2.2 in Applied Science at an old Poly and is now a barrister.

Re: University entry : Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:18 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

A bit sweeping.

Mrs 28 got Ds at A level, a 2.2 in Applied Science at an old Poly and is now a barrister.

You used to be able to do that in yesteryear, but professions like law and medicine are now so competitive you are highly unlike to get on with those sorts of grades nowadays. I know legions of people who have graduated with law degrees and cannot get anywhere in the profession beyond some low-paid paralegal type job.

Is she a practising barrister, i.e. did she do pupillage and get taken on as a tenant? Pretty much anyone who is willing to pay £10K to do a year long course can get called to the Bar. Actually making some money out of it as a day job is a lot harder, and full respect to her if she has achieved that.

Re: University entry : Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:27 am  

Dally wrote:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203987/Two-E-grades-A-level-let-study-degree-desperate-universities-try-courses.html

How can two E's at A level be adequate to enable entry to any meaningful university course in law or architecture? The country has gone mad.

I got into the Hull School of Architecture with no A levels (and completed the course)

Re: University entry : Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:31 am  

The Video Ref wrote:

Agreed. Especially in the first year. The 'university experience' generally means getting blasted out of your skull on cheap vodka 4 nights a week, staying in bed until early afternoon and, very occasionally, doing just enough academic study to prevent yourself getting thrown off the course.

There were 24 started my course and a few took this attitude towards studies, all those that did never made the 2nd year. I think you are generalising and in fact the majority (from what I saw) do not behave in this manner.

Re: University entry : Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:35 pm  

The Video Ref isn't far wrong in my eyes. Of course people can offer examples of when friends and family members work hard and never fit in with that stereotype but try walking around a University town or city midweek at night and consider whether the generalisation is far wrong.

Even if Johnny has told his parents that he is skint and too busy with his 5 year Mechanical Engineering course, you will probably find him out and about getting smashed on a Tuesday night, dressed as a smurf after drinking a bottle of Malibu in his flat beforehand, before throwing up in the 24 hour student library and walking home with a selection of road signs for the morning.

[DaveO]

Re: University entry : Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:17 pm  

Dave Lister wrote:

The Video Ref isn't far wrong in my eyes. Of course people can offer examples of when friends and family members work hard and never fit in with that stereotype but try walking around a University town or city midweek at night and consider whether the generalisation is far wrong.

Of course its wrong! You would have to be pretty stupid to believe it were true! Why? Well take the University my son has gone to which is where I went, Aberystwyth. Term time the population of the town swells by about 8000 these days (it was half that when I was there).

Are there going to be 8000 students out on the town midweek? Nope. Will some of them be out on the town midweek? Yes. How many will you see out on the town midweek? A few hundred if that. Will it be the same people out on the town every week? Nope.

What I am getting at here is that in a student population of 8000 you will always be able to find some of them out on the town just as you will always find some of them in the library or working in the labs or whatever.

It stands to reason in cities with even larger student populations that students part of these populations will exhibit different behavior at different times.

All you are doing is seeing a group of friends or say the students rugby club (or whatever) out for night out and concluding that all students spend their time doing this. It's a ridiculous position to take. It's like me seeing you in a pub and concluding you are an alcoholic.

Even if Johnny has told his parents that he is skint and too busy with his 5 year Mechanical Engineering course, you will probably find him out and about getting smashed on a Tuesday night, dressed as a smurf after drinking a bottle of Malibu in his flat beforehand, before throwing up in the 24 hour student library and walking home with a selection of road signs for the morning.

I am absolutely certain students, just like other young people, will go out and have a bender every now and again. They are not going to a monastery and they have as much right to blow off steam as anyone else but this generalization of yours is ridiculous.