Well gentlemen, a great deal of money has been invested in this project, & we can't allow it to fail

[kynon]

I have just happened across this story (couple of months old, sorry), and reading not just the story, but also the comment from Liam Burns, the president of NUS Scotland, has left me quite literally open-mouthed with disbelief

Comments

[cr4k]

Liam does join up his social mobility philosophy by pushing for grants for poor students to be fair. He's now president of NUS in the UK, so I hope he keeps that up.

I disagree that it is wrong to muddle social mobility with university. In practice, attaining a good degree or not will often put you in a different social class to your parents. In my experience of job seeking, the piece of paper is a prerequisite for being considered for technical jobs. Which other institutions should companies rely on to narrow down their search for good candidates?

You are right to say that responsibility for social mobility should also be pushed down to schools, but given that people develop at different rates, is there any evidence that grades from good schools and uni grades are strongly linked? I don't argue your point about the productisation of uni, but does an elitist system make much sense when there is a greater demand for more highly qualified people?

We'll have to have a chat about this when I come over, I'm sure you know way more than me about this =)

(In the interests of full disclosure, I knew Liam in halls and as a fellow school officer at HW)

[dryriser]

"In my experience of job seeking, the piece of paper is a prerequisite for being considered for technical jobs"

Really? My experience has been exactly the opposite - nobody cares what degree I have or where it came from, they all want experience. I've only found one company recently that cared about my degree and given that they also cared about my GCSE and Higher results, I consider their hiring process deeply flawed.

It took me a long time to find a specifically 'graduate' job. It paid bugger-all and I worked there just long enough to gain the experience that I could put on my CV to get a decent job.

I'd argue that these days, a university degree is often worth little *apart* from social status, with Edinburgh uni being the classic example or students completing arts degrees before going to work in the city - it's a stereotype that has a lot of truth to it.

[cr4k]

Really?

Yes really. My guess is that it depends on how specialised you are after a while.

I agree that companies that look for UCAS points etc...are displaying a bean counter type attitude which I would generally want to avoid in an employer. What should HR look for when assessing an inexperienced candidate for an entry level job? I think a computer science (2:1) degree is a pretty good indication of basic awareness programming and the issues that surround it as well as showing some level of dedication.

I'd argue that these days, a university degree is often worth little *apart* from social status

Do you think vocational degrees are worth little?

[dryriser]

"Yes really. My guess is that it depends on how specialised you are after a while."

If you're talking IT, then it's basically impossible *not* to be specialised. Put a broad range of skills on your CV and employers think you're either lying or not focussed enough.

"What should HR look for when assessing an inexperienced candidate for an entry level job? I think a computer science (2:1) degree is a pretty good indication of basic awareness programming and the issues that surround it as well as showing some level of dedication"

And that was exactly my point. Entry-level. After that, it's useless as anything other than a social status point. There are better (and cheaper) ways of achieving the required skills to get your first job, if the marketplace would accept them as such. I also think you're perhaps being a little naive in assuming that any degree is a sign of understanding of a subject rather than an ability to pass set milestones, especially in a tehnical subject, but that's a different argument.

I'll also suggest you're not helping your own argument. A 2:1 show's *basic* awareness of computer programming concepts? Seriously? That's utterly atrocious - a 2:1 candidate should have a virtually comprehensive understanding of the subject and the fact that you're suggesting that the second highest attainable qualification from an undergraduate degree should be used as a marker for basic understanding just reinforces my point about how horribly devalued they have become.

"Do you think vocational degrees are worth little?"

From direct experience of attaining a vocational degree, I think the same level of training could be (and often is) attained from a 2 year HND course. Not that that's my only beef with vocational courses (assuming we're still talking IT) - with a conventional degree, while a broader understanding of the concepts behind the subject is promoted, it's not required in order to pass; in a vocational degree, it's not even promoted - they teach the languages and skills required in order to get a job at the time the student passes. The fact that 2 years on, those skills will be almost entirely outdated, is not something that seems to be much of an issue. So given that, what's left between the degree and an HND apart from social status points?

And then, of course, we come to Masters degrees, whose graduates have caused me more stress over the last 10 years than any other single group of people...

[cr4k]

You come across as being somewhat bitter about something, so I'll try not to kick the hornets' nest any further...however:

while a broader understanding of the concepts behind the subject is promoted, it's not required in order to pass; in a vocational degree, it's not even promoted

I may be using confusing terminology - by vocational, I include what I think you mean when you refer to conventional degrees, but not degrees like Celtic, Classics or Theology. I'm not aware of degrees where students aren't taught broadly about the target subject. (I'm not an expert though!)

I don't think I ever said that a degree was an optimal solution to the problem of minimising time spent learning the absolute basics. However I do think the extra time spent doing them is not generally worthless as the mindset needed for the professions where qualifications are demanded more often than not takes a while to achieve.

Is a basic understanding of a complex field worthless? Maybe you were just being hyperbolic in trying to make your point when you said worthless =/

I don't disagree that a lot of people don't attain any kind of mindset from uni because they just coast along hitting the milestones. How do you think assessment should be changed so that only the people really interested and dedicated actually get degrees while still providing enough graduates for the job market?

[dryriser]

Not bitter as such - there are a number of things that irritate me about the current university system, as I've mentioned. It's not as though I didn't understand these factors when I entered that system, more that I'm annoyed I had to do it in order to get merely on to the first rung of the ladder, after which, 4 years of effort and debt-amassing amounted to virtually nothing as far as job searching is concerned.

Definitely cross-wired on the terminology, I think (probably my fault). I was referring to degrees (though it generally applies to the universities that teach them as a whole) whose aim is solely or at least mostly to get people the required qualifications and subject coverage to get into the job market - I contrast that to a purely academic degree which can also cover the same subjects but usually from a more abstract level.

I don't believe I said that was worthless, simply that after the first job, a degree as a qualification in itself, is useless for anything other than status. A job will provide greater understanding of the subject matter and the basic understanding and mindset you require could have been more optimally provided by other methods of study.

How do I think assessment should be changed? I'm not sure it can or at least will be - I think the change needs to come from the industry that demands a piece of paper as a prerequisite for getting on the career ladder, while in reality caring little about what knowledge was gained and what effort was required to achieve it. Remove that element and you're on the way to making it something that only people who *want* to learn will enroll on in the first place.

Perhaps we need fees to be payable only once the student has graduated, with the fee payable dependant on the result achieved (okay, that's not entirely serious), but the fact that we have honorary degrees and doctorates and that universities are not run on a catchment area system really should be evidence enough that it's more bragging rights and elitism than actual academic achievement.

I'd like to stress - I'm all for what the university system *should* be. I just don't believe that's what it currently is.

[cr4k]

I don't believe I said that was worthless, simply that after the first job, a degree as a qualification in itself, is useless for anything other than status

I just can't agree with this from a personal point of view. There are a lot of principles and foundations that I was introduced to at uni which minimised the amount of negative work I contributed to projects even after my first job, that seems pretty useful to me. When it comes to the debt incurred, my generation has been financially abused in a number of ways compared to previous generations and I think tuition fees are just the start. I'd recommend Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth if you fancy dwelling on the awful wrong headedness of it all =p

[dryriser]

"There are a lot of principles and foundations that I was introduced to at uni which minimised the amount of negative work I contributed to projects even after my first job, that seems pretty useful to me."

Yes, but that's where I think we need to dissociate the qualification achieved from the work required and knowledge gained in achieving it - the former is in no way an accurate indication of the latter. As I've been possibly ham-fistedly attempting to say, that knowledge you gained is indeed invaluable, but it didn't require a university course to get it - an HND or even well-run internship could provide those, but they don't have the same perceived status. And by the same token, I'm willing to bet you could've passed your degree without gaining that knowledge and most employers know that, which is why they're not interested in your degree for any job that absolutely requires such experience.

As such, if we can accept that merely having a degree is no guarantee of ability at the subject in hand beyond basic exam competence, what is it's actual purpose that cannot be provided far more cheaply and efficiently by other means?

I think my time at uni pre-dates yours a little (the full amount of my first student loan was £750), but even then, I came out of the system with debt that I only paid off 3 years ago. It's an awkward one though - how do you discourage people who want to spend 4 years drinking on the public purse, while still being inclusive?

[faerycake]

I don't think I articulated myself very well there, as I actually agree with most of what you've said!

I think unis do have a huge role in increasing social mobility, but I just don't like what he's characterising that role to be.

I suppose it's a subtle difference really, but he makes it sound like it's ok to *artificially* alter the social make-up of universities... I think I'm just misunderstanding what he means by 'artificial'. I don't think it should be based on grades alone, I think other things need to be taken into account (like background, schooling etc) to make things more equal. I suppose I just wouldn't describe that as 'artificial', more an attempt to make things *less* artificial by attempting to find a better way of gauging who is driven, hardworking and intelligent - which I don't think you really can tell via grades alone, when there are such huge disparities in the opportunities people are getting.

But yeah, lets chat about it on Saturday, yay :)

[cr4k]

Well that does sound pretty artificial to me, even if it's a kind of levelling the playing field artificial. We shall chat soon =)