I didn't go on to further education when I left school. I left home at 16, did various crap jobs until I joined the Army at 20 and toddled off to war. I'm almost 27 now, having out-grown the job I had in the Armed Forces, having not been promoted due to pursuing various specialist jobs for deployments. Since then I've gained an NVQ Lvl2 in Fabrication, which is almost worthless since once I got qualified I never touched tools again and I spent a year and a half at the military language school learning a language only useful here in Afghanistan. I can run, fight, think, shoot, jump from a plane, build a bridge, stay calm, lead and be led. All of absolutely no use outside the Military in the eyes of employers.(If you want to make more than 30k a year.) So I decided what I needed to do, in order to get a better job, was get some better qualifications. So I started an Open University degree in International Studies. I have no clue how this will make me any more employable either. Most of the stuff I have to write down is a load of balls. As long as I can prove what I am saying is true, however tenuously, I can say what I like. I am getting better at making long sentences and I can quote loads of other people's ideas. That's about it. And it's going to cost me £15k over 6 years. I don't regret starting this, as it opens a few doors to jobs that would otherwise remain closed, but I don't see how writing down a load of crap for 6 years really makes me any more capable of doing certain jobs than I am already. I should have chosen maths or motorcycle engineering or something that would have actually given me useful skills. I don't see how having a degree makes somebody worth more money if it isn't in engineering, medicine or maths.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering, while i was at university i was absolutely staggered at how little work some of my friends on different degrees actually did. I believe that the push to get as many kids into higher education has not only reduced the value of a degree but also watered down some of the courses too...
I am ex forces, and maybe your missing a few pieces of the puzzle at the moment. If you looking at coming out and in resettlement then it can be a daunting time. Have a look at the city and guilds PRA system and see if that fits your current position, as the new awards are Nvq's. Part of the resettlement phase is identifying your personal qualities and how you can use them to maximum effect in your new career. I did a Hnc and a Hnd in engineering with the Blackburn college, via their Blended learning process, as I thought that purely distance learning would have been a nightmare. Also the Lincoln Uni are running courses that might be interesting to you, that are more specific in engineering,logistical management.
Tom, I am in a similar position to you. Due to leave the Army in a little over 2 years. Started an honours degree in Logistics Management with the university of Lincoln as having a degree should open more doors, well, thats the plan anyway! It is a pain in the pipe and you are right, you can say pretty much what you like as long as you can back it up. I would much rather leave the forces with this bit of paper than without it as I feel it will give you that edge to an employer over others. Strangely enough, I did the language training at Beaconsfield too! Now that was a hard slog!! Pashto by any chance??!! Good luck!!
I went to Uni at 28yrs old. Got a Honours Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Best thing I ever done. Uni is great. Its even better when you are 27/28. You can have fun AND do the work. You will be surprised how much you already know. I heartily recommend it. Its a lot of hard work whilst enjoying the best social life you will ever find. Don't think about it, do it. Good luck.
First, it's good to question self-critically what you're doing. Well done for going for a degree, and the best of luck for getting a good one. Vocational training isn't the half of it. Of course a student can be trained as a surveyor or a brewer (say) then get a job in the same field, but that's the bread-and-butter end of education, and you don't even need universities for that. Education in the full sense is about learning to think. Regardless of the subject, the point is to learn how to study, how to listen, how to concentrate, how to analyse problems and devise solutions, how to write convincingly, and how to argue. And that is what first degrees at universities are mainly for. Certainly universities turn out people with vocational training who make careers doing useful jobs. More importantly, they turn out leaders who can cope with new problems and invent new solutions. And just occasionally, they nurture that one person in a million who makes a major contribution to human knowledge and the advance of civilisation - of whom Britain has produced far more than our fair share.
you also have some cracking all day benders with half cleaned like minded charity shop dressers and learn how to party yourself into debt
Its also a sad statistic that out of the 50 or so that started my course, only 5 of us went on to attain our degree. 4/5 were 'mature' students. Just always, and I mean always, do your tutorials. Follow this rule and the degree is yours.
what a load of tosh (and froth) the ones i see with a degree that have ended up the same place as the ones without struggle to study, certainly don't listen, struggle to concentrate, definately can't analyse a problem and are generally the ones who can't see the solution even when you bang them on the nose with it……….. I do agree they can write a bit of bullshit or two and are certainly the ones who want to argue……though generally when they are the ones who have failed the task ...
Au contraire Andy. Your post alone demonstrates the counter argument. Ill thought out and poorly executed. :tongue: Real life does not show you the inverse trigonometrical integrals. Neither does it explain 1+j in polar form.
Education , education education and applying it to real issues is the way to put the world to rights . If someone famous hasnt said this or something similar then i just have !
Don't get me started on this one It's a recent phenomena that ..if you don't have a degree (of any sort) you've already failed. There's a whole generation of kids who went to Uni to get degrees in a subject (sometimes just any subject to get that piece of paper) that neither they, or society in general need, just to fulfil a political target of lowering the unemployment figures. In the process "Apprenticeships" were discarded as "2nd rate qualifications". Young people who swallowed the "Uni is the only way" propaganda, enter the real world expecting to start in employment at a managerial level, meanwhile leapfrogging those who have been doing and learning the job for upwards of 5 years. I feel sorry for both groups. The ones who went to Uni for being conned and the ones who didn't, for being under valued. The idea that Universities uniquely "turn out people with vocational training who make careers doing useful jobs. More importantly, they turn out leaders who can cope with new problems and invent new solutions." is doing a complete injustice to everyone else. WTF..can't you become a leader, problem solver, innovator, or original thinker without a degree in something ????? Quite frankly, it's a mess. The sooner we develop young people to be able to DO THE JOB (sometimes that means Uni education and sometimes another equally valued route) the sooner we will get our industries back on track. . . . . And breathe :tongue:
I really don't have the attention span to sit and learn. I still can't do it today but! I left school with no qualifications. At 40 I still don't know what I want to do when I leave school. I'm not career minded I try to do as little as possible for the most amount of money. Mrs C calls me Delboy pikey as well as having a half decent job in IT I will also buy and sell anything.. My eBay always has random shit listed.
I could write pages and pages on this one; but to keep it short, my experience is this... Left school and joined the Royal Navy at 16. Spent just short of 33 years working in marine engineering. Left 18 months ago... The resettlement process and staff were extremely helpful and their input was very useful - so take ever bit of advice and training you can get from them. Particularly important is listening to their advice about how to construct your CV. Employers, especially in the engineering field, are desperate for ex-forces people - register on all the job-search web-sites. Seriously, there are lots of jobs out there. Don't sell yourself short - think about all the stuff you have learnt. How to be self-reliant, punctual, organised, resourceful etc... Employers do actually value that sort of thing. I left six months early because of the job I was offered... (which, incidentally, was advertised as a "graduate" job - but experience won the day). Good luck...
I got out 6 weeks after giving my '6 clicks' as I had a very well paid job to go to, but it's not a career and it isn't permanent. After 6 years you don't really get much resettlement and from December 2013 to July 2014 all the redundees are leaving so the resettlement people are pretty stretched. But my point isn't what I did or didn't get out of the army, it's about having to have a piece of paper to prove you're a good bloke and how some degrees seem to be about writing nicely and not much else.
One of my degrees is in hindsight...........another is in Construction --------- I'm an Insurance Salesman........ ..............see how quick that wall went up?
