It mentions how this year's graduates are up against last year's graduates for jobs as the recession hit the unemployed last year (and this year for that matter). With so many people coming out with all sorts of degrees this year, it almost makes the credibility of a degree almost negligable. Whether you get a first or a fail, your experiences and knowledge you learnt at uni rarely apply to the real world.
I was very critical about my degree throughout the past few years after noticing the amount of actual practical work in my course was minimal. Even my final year project was only research based and I was automatically given this. In the past 3 years for an 'Engineering' Degree. I made a model car, a brake system and a puzzle that eventually didn't get made. I've felt that I spent more time learning about the facts and information but not applying the work to anything, not seeing anything in action and not getting a visual view of the facts. I found this hard to understand without seeing it in the flesh.
You can claim that funding becomes a problem, or claim that so much focus has gone into meeting curriculum or accredited standards that the practical element seems to have disappeared but I've felt short changed from the 10k I've spent for my degree. I don't feel like I've learned anything practical from reading lecture slides and copying notes. I feel short changed. I won't say that I learnt nothing but what difference in information is there from learning through the books and getting work experience/jobs/apprenticeships and gaining first hand knowledge?
I'm not saying that my degree is worthless because there are things I've learnt from going through uni that I probably could not ever learn such as meeting new people, understanding different views and learning new ideas. All of which apply both degree and non-degree related. But I still feel I haven't learnt enough about working in an engineering industry without trying it first hand. And the practical experiments and mini-projects just aren't enough.
It's like learning to swim. Yes you can read a book telling you how to swim fast, how to move and how not to drown (in which case, I'd be fucking Michael Phelps by that logic) but throw yourself into the swimming pool and you'll probably end up sinking faster than a dead elephant! My point is that I've always followed my view of 'Experience beats knowledge'. There does not seem to be many situations where learning from your mistakes, picking it up as you go along and doing things yourself is the minor part of life. You can't spend your life reading and absorbing information without putting that information into good use. There are obvious exceptions to this point such as learning/researching brand new stuff, learning about unknown stuff, skydiving, poison testing, experimenting how high does it take to jump off a cliff without killing yourself, you get my point.
If I owned a business (and god help us all if I do), I wouldn't care if you got a first in Cambridge, lost your whole social life through studying and knew the periodic table backwards while managing to solve a rubiks cube and keeping a ball in the air with your feet (although I would recommend you to the circus if you actually manage to do that). I would base a person on trust, determination, ambition and focus on what they have to do. Forget your firsts and fails, if you can't actually do a job, you're going to end up running to shit.
So good luck to everyone looking for a job this year (and myself). Hopefully we'll all eventually be millionaires and someday laugh about how we all once had a degree and turns out we only needed them to get the first foot in the door and we did everything through jobs.
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For the person from Cambridge who lost their entire social life to get a first, etc. Doesn't that show exactly some of those things you say that really matter? They're certainly very determined - they set their sights on something and pursued it at all costs, if they can apply the same to your business.. Same goes for ambition and focus. They had a goal which they pursued with a clear minded focus.
ReplyDeleteBut they've also managed to do this whilst gaining other skills. Obviously if this is a team based job they're going to have to show some sort of communication skills. And trust will come from some sort of previous employment.
As for your degree: have degrees ever offered practical job training? Is that what they were ever about at any period in history?
I suppose I should follow on this blog after reading it through.
ReplyDeleteI did not mean that a student with a First does not show determination and focus. In fact it does show you have an ability to do something. But it's all about transferring your abilities into the work you want to do. I do not intend to mean that a person with a first is not suitable for a job. I'm trying to define that what classification you get on your degree does not necessarily reflect who you are or if you are suitable for a job.
For my degree, when I originally signed up for my degree, I was under the assumption that you learn lots of practical skills and knowledge intended to be useful for a future job. Knowledge was given but the practical element wasn't really there. If it was an academic degree such as maths, english, sciences etc, then I would completely understand that it's an academic based degree. I remember being told by a technician in the building that before the degree structure changed, students were prepared for building things by giving them safety lectures and getting them to earn a safety certificate before starting any experiments/projects. Perhaps I was just unlucky with what projects I got given and what I did overall.
As you know I did a more academic degree, in mathematics, but for me I've never considered a degree as training for a particular job. I don't think it should be either.
ReplyDeleteFor that you've got to ask: What is a university? Who are the people at universities who do the "teaching"? Well a university is an academic institute filled with researchers. So the people who are imparting knowledge are researchers. It makes no sense they're going to be teaching practical skills - that's now what they're interested in!
So to even begin to think it should be teaching practical job related skills is a myth. "University - the ticket to a job"! It's a myth that has been sold to people though, in particular during the last government although previous governments are guilty of the same. I've got my own pet theories about why that's the case but I've no desire to get into a political debate :).