They're not eligible for either of those. Everyone knows students don't wash their dishes often and struggle to get up in the morning. They fail on lack of experience.
All depends on the career path. One needs academic the other practical. University is bloody expensive and is producing a huge amount of debt. Kds and they are kids, are being encouraged, due to the widespread results in say A levels, to go to University and take Law or Medicine, because they got the entry requirements. Parental and proud parents are more than happy to encourage. How many Law graduates are practising? Its an old boys club and you need contacts. Do Civil Engineering, Quantity Surveying, Architecture etc. Something that has a route to employment. You will learn these skills at University.
I agree Dean kids aren't doing vocational based degrees, they do film studies at Hatfield University and expect to walk into a 30k a year job.
The UK economy is based on the service industry so there aren't enough jobs for everyone to go and do engineering degrees. Where would they work? At least a weak degree (like I am doing) can be interesting even if it doesn't get you a job. Kids in the UK should probably all go and do Economics.
They'd be better to train as plumbers and carpenters, they seem to be the drivers of most of the Range Rover Sports around here!
I'd quite like my kids to go to University, I want them to have comfortable lives without the stress of having insufficient funds. I don't want them to have to sell their safety to make a buck, even if it is fun and I don't want them to have their first child at 19 like I did. Kids are for in your 30s when you have a clue what you're doing. Not for when you barely know how to look after yourself.
university graduates are there own worst enemy wife was in a situation a few years ago where she had 22 temps reporting to her, after a few bad experiences she requested that they agency send her no more university graduates, she wanted somebody who could actually do the job rather than talk about it
I completed an apprenticeship, paid hands-on work, with free further education thrown in, up to and including degree levels.
Well, what a lot of extremely opinionated ranting against being academically able. It is quite possible surely that there are academically able and less able people, and both categories can also surely contain people who are both competent and incompetent in a practical sense. It obviously depends what you are recruiting for anyway. For some roles, you are looking for people that are both of the above, in others, that would be inappropriate, or the person would not fit in at all, and hence be hopeless in the role. Employers are always recruiting for competent people, in any role, whether academic skills are necessary is another matter. And in any case, people aren't machines to be inserted into society in their most efficient position, people chose what they would like to do, based on interest, competence and experience. And some of these choices are irrational in a purely economic sense. Which all adds to the plurality and variety of society, which is surely a good thing. And there are complete muppets in every field of work, as society contains plenty of them in general and they get everywhere!
You're missing the point that many employers won't even consider individuals in the manner you have described purely based on the possession of a degree. An ability to do a job is not decided by a piece of paper, nor is one's compatibility with any particular role but apparently it is a deciding factor when deciding who's cv to read. No body has really spoken strongly for or against chasing academic achievement but they have shared opinions on employer's selection criteria.
And let's not forget the situation where a graduate is unable to obtain employment in their chosen field and looks for a more "menial" job on a temporary basis. Employers have been known to say, "You're over-qualified, I don't think you'll be happy in this job". I'm pretty certain not every graduate in that situation is able to overcome the employer's prejudice (benign prejudice or not) and beg sufficiently well to get the job.
One of the things that has never ceased to amaze me in professional life is how mundane many jobs are and how little intellect they really require. I'm not talking about brain surgery or rocket engineering. I'm talking about what most of us spend our lives doing: trying to get people on the phone, sending emails, having meetings. You don't need a degree to do these things; in fact it may almost be a disadvantage. If you've been used to the intellectual stimulation of analysing Golden Age Spanish poetry or trying to analyse Sartre's contribution to 20th century thought, then trying to get market sign-up to a pan-European website just isn't that interesting. Employers may prefer people with degrees, but then employers are always over-egging the job and pretending it requires astonishing intellectual ability and all sorts of talents. The truth is that if you are really that capable and talented, you'll probably die of boredom in most jobs. What I have found, though, is that degrees quite often make for more interesting people. In my last job, we may have all been doing marketing, but my boss had a history PhD, and his boss had a degree in Japanese. These weren't especially necessary for what we were doing, but they seemed to make for more curious individuals who at least had something to say for themselves over and above their ability to sell product X. People who have only ever learnt about business can often be deeply dull. I did an MBA to learn about business. At least that fitted all I really needed to know about it intellectually into one year, and there really isn't any point spending any more time on it. The rest you pick up on the job. The arithmetic required is rarely more than O Level (er.. GCSE), and judging by most people's emails and reports, the standard of English required isn't any more advanced. But there are clearly degrees and degrees, as has been pointed out. And the institutions supplying them were never equal even 30 years ago and probably less so now. I assume though that for scientific and vocational studies such as law, or medicine, or astro physics, if you don't have a degree, you won't be going to far. But for business? Meh.
It's true that most jobs are mundane, tedious and boring at times. But employers want people who will read instructions carefully, listen to what is said to them, keep careful notes, double-check whatever they produce, and strive to avoid making errors or at least repeating them. So how are employers to identify recruits who are capable of doing those things, if not by seeing what qualifications they have earned?
Meeting them, speaking to them, trying to find a little bit about the person they are thinking of employing? A degree doesn't guarantee those things either.
While many jobs specify degrees, experience counts for a lot. I was short listed down to the last three candidates from over two hundred for a graduate position, yet the highest qualification I posses is an NVQ 4 and city and guilds
I'm an illiterate bastard, spent the 3yrs at senior school (13-16) mainly bunking off, left school at 16 with no qualifications never took any exams, I am 50 next year own my own house bought a brand new motor this year outright, own 2 Ducati's. Get paid monthly and the last week before payday I am not sat thinking shit how will I get through the week. The above is not said to show off, just to show that you don't always need graduate degree's to land on your feet. I hope you get sorted though it is a shit world out here at times.
