quote:Originally posted by wonderstarr: This seems a bit contradictory: the problem is that having a degree is overvalued - and the problem is that degrees are devalued?
Maybe it's not contradictory at all and I'm being thick.
No, you're not being thick, I'm just not really explaining myself that well. Perhaps a better way of explaining it is that to a school kid, you're given this impression that if you ever want to get anywhere in life, then a degree is like a golden ticket into your chosen career. You only need to look at the number of students who finish their degrees and then spend years out of work, because they don't feel they should have to start at the bottom like everyone else. That is to say that schools give kids that impression, while the business sector sees degrees as being increasingly irrelevant compared to genuine working experience in the field. This is for several reasons and can probably be narrowed down to the fact that there are now lots and lots of graduates looking for work compared to say, 15 years ago. It's also probably the case, although I don't have any figures to back this up, that a much smaller percentage of students go on to take postgraduate and doctorate certificates after their degree, compared to 15 years ago. The other reason the business sector has less respect for graduates now is because of the reason you list yourself: that it's entirely possible to get a reasonable pass by memorising facts and, for want of a better term, blagging your way through assignments without gaining any particular understanding or knowledge of the subject you're meant to be studying, so a lot of graduates don't appear to have anything like the knowledge they should do.
Again, this is based on nothing more than my own observations, and you'd be well within your rights to point out that "15 years ago" as I keep saying, I was actually 10 years old and knew nothing in particular about degrees or academia whatsoever.
quote: You're right I'm sure that the OU gets a totally different type of student, who makes more of it.
I don't know if it's necessaraly the case that an OU student makes more of it. It's more the case, I would say, that a greater percentage of OU students compared to conventional universities, study their courses because they actually genuinely want to learn about something, rather than simply because they feel compelled to do so by certain social pressures. These include a large number of mature students who maybe didn't go to University the first time round and want to challenge themselves. Basically the average OU student is more concerned with how studying is likely to improve them as people than how it's going to improve their job prospects or their wage packet.
Again though, this is a massive generalisation and I know there would be plenty of examples from both sides of the fence which would contradict this.
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No, but I only searched quickly because my colleague, the one who said it sounded like a case of sexual harassment, was kind of looking over my shoulder. Maybe I'll look again tomorrow. Or she might come to talk to me about this case!
By the way "yo" Amy "what's up", "sista" Aren't you from "Philly"? I am thinking of putting in for a conference in "Philly", which means I would come over there for a couple of days! What's it like please... the other conference I might put in for is in Montreal, so is it better than that? (I am only going to get funded for one a year, and I choose my conferences based pretty much entirely on the city hosting them.)
By the way have you ever met hip-hop artist Peedi Crakk in "Philly"? Look, he gives the city a "shout out".
With these (with these) O.G.'s (O.G.'s) Tell that hoe until she roll on a pole I'm tryna squeeze with ease (with ease) then breathe (then breathe) I ain't Hov', I just know what I know I'm talkin O. Sparks five, ride for a dollar bill Famous up in Hollywood, high in them Holly-hills I, can't deny how the mamis feel Hidin the cable bill, slide with your baby girl P. Crakk and I ain't for play I got a mack that'll change your day Fall back, get your act in tact P-I-M-P U-P H-O-E-S is all the rest And yes, this is Philly, you welcome to come check us Crakk, wherever I holla at be gettin neck in Pass her the thing, tell her make it go ring The prince of S.P., is soon to be the king
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PS. Ringo, not only do I see what you're saying now (in the first part of your post) you're clearly grasping exactly what I was trying to say (in the second part of your post), and in the third part, yes that's basically what I meant, in that OU students are more likely to be studying for the sake of education, rather than as some kind of default, automatic, lazy choice - as if a degree is just something you do because people... just do it, like "going travelling".
Again, I don't want to sound remotely patronising but it almost makes me sad to think that you're saying you're not academically strong, whereas in your own spare time on here you write more intelligent, more engaged, more researched, more structured mini-essays than most of the superficial, by-the-book, pat stuff that many students submit.
Not sad like "oh, Ringo if only you'd discover you can do media studies after all!" but sad that here's all these idiots on degrees not making the most of it, and instead just doing the shallow minimum inbetween cheap club nights... and here's you always getting genuinely interested in what you're writing, just because you've got an enquiring mind and a kind of passion when you get your teeth into something. If they wrote essays the way you write posts, they'd be really good essays.
-------------------- pudgy little saucepot Posts: 738
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then they's be full of sass, sassey's, if you will...
The decline of the University - from Uca-pecas to travel and tourism NVQ's in 12 years
My degree is worthless, but I loved the subject - and I was suprisingly good (suprising for me, seeing as I flunked school) at writting essay's on the subject of Roman's and their shit.
I can't grasp text speak most of the time - part of me thinks it would take longer to translate it and type it out than to tap it into a phone. I waste so many characters putting in coma's and punctuation marks in messages though. On the phone.
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I wish people would stop slagging off students who go to university just because it seems like the obvious choice and then half-heartedly study a completely vanilla subject inbetween 50p a pint nights and daytime television. It's making me feel like a c**t.
-------------------- Now that you've called me by name? Posts: 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: half-heartedly study a completely vanilla subject inbetween 50p a pint nights and daytime television.
Surely this is the whole point of university? Goofing off is the only reason to go. You've had a stomach-full of school for what's seemed like a billion years, you know in a few years you'll have to get a fucking job, bye-bye soul, why wouldn't anyone with a shred of joie de vivre and self-preservation not spend three short years getting wasted, sleeping the day away and pretending to be a rock star?
[ 25.04.2007, 04:46: Message edited by: Black Mask ]
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I went to University because I had been working for three years as Mike Jones Claims negotiator at General Accident Fire Life Assurance Company PLC and it was driving me slowly mad. I'd basically been taking shit loads of drugs and living in a haze for three years, shaking off the weekend's chemicals by carrying a gas cooker and some burnt cutlery around in the boot of my car - so I was never more than five strides away from a hot knife. My head capsized and I stopped taking each drug one at a time until I finally stopped even smoking dope. It took a while before my head cleared but when it did I thought, fuck, how did I get here? This is like punching in for eight hours in hell every day. I had to do something, so I went to university. The only reason I'd done my A-Levels was because a friend of mine fancied a girl in the sixth form, so he thought he'd do his, and wanted some company.
So, all the wrong reasons. My first year was a complete joke. I spent it drunk and in the bookies, attended three lectures, one seminar and a practical. Come the end of year exams, I knew I was fucked, so I went to visit the dean, made up one of the worst lies I've ever told and asked for a second chance. He wasn't moved, so I added a second, worse, lie to the mix and he said I could start again the following year. I didn't deserve it, I was unforgivable.
After that I pulled my finger out and worked fairly hard. I was bored of socialising at University and pretty much hated most students anyway, so it was easy to focus on work. I enjoyed most of it. I learned a lot, grew up and got a good 2:1 from a shit polytechnic. If you could cut out the earlier unpleasant stuff, I'd say I was probably a pretty good student who took an interest in the subject and found the academic experience rewarding. I considered doing an MA but was in so much debt that I chose against it. My degree has been precisely zero use in my chosen career but I think I'd do it again if I went back. And I think I'd put more effort in if I did. I was a 'mature student' but in reality I needed to do a fuck of a lot of growing up before I got there. I think if I'd spent five or six years in an awful job, instead of three, stoned, I might have appreciated that more and not been an intolerable cnut during that first year.
Quick question: With University degrees being within the reach of a prick like the young me (I'm lovely now, by the way) and their currency being wholly devalued when judged against, say, 20 years ago, would everyone here want their children to go to university? Would you encourage them to go if they wanted to go straight into the work place?
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I'd only encourage the academically best to go - first or high 2:1 and that's it - otherwise it's a waste of time and money, unless they are going to exactly waste time and money - then life lesson I guess.
Ma's are the new Ba's etc...
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: Surely this is the whole point of university? Goofing off is the only reason to go. You've had a stomach-full of school for what's seemed like a billion years, you know in a few years you'll have to get a fucking job, bye-bye soul, why wouldn't anyone with a shred of joie de vivre and self-preservation not spend three short years getting wasted, sleeping the day away and pretending to be a rock star?
Exactly. How much of a bell-end would you have to be to break out of the parental home for the first time in your entire life, escape to a brand new city chock full of young, smart people in the same situation, have every nightspot in the place hurling liver-melting drinks offers in your face five nights a week, have financial institutions queuing up to give you money, and... and in this unrepeatable atmosphere of hedonism you spend your time in the... in the fucking library?!?
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: would everyone here want their children to go to university? Would you encourage them to go if they wanted to go straight into the work place?
I'd encourage mine to go to university solely on the understanding that they fuck about for 3 years, take loads of drugs, form a shitty band, get crabs and fail all their exams. It's being a fuck-up like that, feeling like a colossal failure, gaining some self-knowledge, that makes you a lovely person when you grow up. If you're ever going to be a lovely person at all, that is.
quote:Originally posted by Benny the Ball: except for the sleeping, that pretty much sums up my 3 years in Reading.
I remember sitting cross-legged on my matress, with cracks in the blankets on the windows letting dusty twilight seep in, rolling an improbably shaped joint, with a bottle of Stone's Ginger Wine nestled in my lap and hearing Mick singing "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me!" I nodded my nodding head and thought "Yuh. Vatz booful, mah..."
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I may have dreamt this but did Ben start university but loathed the kind of slack, fuck up students we're talking about so much that he left after a year? Despite clearly being able to write a first class dissitation with his free hand from a hot tub of bubbling liquid acid and hungry hookers if he felt that way inclined.
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To be fair, if I had gone to university, then that’s exactly what I would have done: bummed about getting pissed and high, banging hot chicks and occasionally worrying about getting work in on time. I might possibly have ended up scraping through by the skin of my teeth with a reasonable but slightly disappointing (to me and my tutors) mark, but I’d have known that I’d have squandered the opportunity.
Instead I spent a year in college before thinking “sod this, I need some cash” and dropping out to pursue gainful employment.
If I had the opportunity now, I would go to university and do a degree in motorsports, and actually look to gain a career in what I love. Unfortunately when you’re over 20k in debt, it’s more or less impossible.
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Not if you really wanted to do it. If you set your sights on starting your degree in three years and really concentrated on saving for something much more rewarding than a new car or the deposit for a house or whatever other thing you could save for then you could go hermit for a couple of years and clear that debt in no time. OK, it would be a shit couple of years but it might mean the rest of your life is much better for it.
I thought you were joking about a degree in motorsports, but I've just googled and fuck me if there aren't several of them.
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The amazing thing is, that in a given month, if I didn’t have a car I wouldn’t need to actually physically withdraw any money from my bank account. Other than paying bills, there’s not a thing I would actually have to spend money on. No cigarettes, no lunch money, no petrol. It’d mean no spending on car insurance, and the money from selling the car would pay off like 10% of my debt in one chunk.
It’s easy to sit here and say this though, without considering the reality of what you’re really talking about. Another couple of years at least of living with my parents. Of not having a car. Of winters spent having to cycle come rain or shine. Yeah, it’s kind of doable, but it’s not realistic. I suppose you’d say that if I were properly committed to doing it then I would do it. You’d probably be right.
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Maybe. I only say it because I had a similar conversation with a very good friend several years ago and he stayed where he was, became completely disenchanted with life and everything other than heroin and now he’s dead. I’m not suggesting your situation is anything like his but anyone who sets a goal like that, makes some serious sacrifices and then comes out of the other side more content with life is a fucking serious hero in my eyes.
I'm not suggesting I could do it myself - two years is a long time to sacrifice such things but, you know.
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I know personal finances are, you know, personal, but I am genuinely staggered by a 20k burden which doesn't include university costs. How on (Shit) Earth have you racked up a debt like that by your early twenties? Seriously- what has this paid for?
Is being able to manage your money some sort of disgusting disease nowadays? I really feel unnatural sometimes by having no debts/loans/credit cards. What's missing in my life that I clearly should have been spending faasaands on?
Interesting points about the validity of higher education, but I don't have time to respond properly now (those trying to obtain such qualifications are clamouring for my attention).
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It does seem a huge, unimaginable amount of money. But that’s because it’s made up of lots of smaller amounts. It’s not like I went out one day and just spent 20 grand on something ridiculous. It started with a small loan to buy a car, then a credit card to get some bits I needed, then the car broke, so I needed a replacement, which I got on finance, then I got bored of that car so had to get another loan to cover the remainder of the finance (and of course, you never just borrow what you need. It’s like, you may need £7000, but you think “I’ll just get £8,000, you never know when a grand might come in handy” and then you have even more debt, and then maybe you’ll buy a new PC, and some clothes, a big TV. Maybe you’re just in a shop and you see something you want, so you buy it on your credit card thinking “it’s ok, I can pay that off as soon as I get paid” but then when you get paid you’ve forgotten about it already so it never gets paid off. You think that you’re making inroads of course, because you’re paying off hundreds of it each month, but the problem is the duration, which means you end up paying back loads more than you actually initially borrowed (the 20k I quote is inclusive of interest, incidentally. I’m not one of those people who pretends it doesn’t happen) but because you’re paying off so much each month you’re struggling to pay for the things you genuinely need, like food and petrol and cigarettes (yeah, I know now..) so you keep putting little bits onto your credit card because you need them and by now it’s become a matter of habit.
Then one day you kind of have a moment of revelation. You might be worrying about how you’re making ends meet, so you do the terrifying calculations, and work out that your monthly outgoings are greater than your incomings, and your payments are only just covering the interest, and then you start to really worry. And you think “uh oh, I’ve got a problem here” and drastic action needs to be taken. Sure you could take the ‘easy’ route of declaring yourself bankrupt, or selling off your debts (I don’t know how this works, but apparently it does. Sounds a bit shady to me) but you’re too proud to do that. The final solution is to sell a bunch of crap you don’t really need, pay off what you can in one go, then get one bigass loan to cover the rest, over a long period of time so you can manage the monthly repayments. You cut up all your credit cards, sit back and think you had a narrow escape. But it’s still there, it hasn’t gone away. You’re painfully aware of the fact that you’re going to be in debt for another ten years at least. You’ve got one monthly payment which you write off each month, but it still means that over 15% of your monthly earnings are going straight out and you’ve got fuck all to show for it.
It’s horrible, really awful, and the worst thing is living with the fact that you are the one who put yourself into this position. You’re not a victim of circumstance, nobody tricked you into spending all that money you didn’t have, you were just blinded by the easy availability of things you didn’t think you’d ever have otherwise, and common sense departed long enough for you to sign the form. You did it to yourself because, like a twat, you have no self control.
Yeah, debt is a fucking awful thing. If you can avoid it, never ever borrow money for anything.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: When the banks fail and capitalism crumbles all you schmucks who stayed in the black are going to look pretty fucking silly.
This would actually really annoy me, come Nuclear Winter. However, the same cool rationalisation and forward planning that gives me healthy, smug bank statements now is surely a sign of my evolutionary advantage over the myopic Debt Plebs and means I'll still be laughing as they grub about for shiny scraps in the post-Apocalyptic wastelands.
Thanks for your response Ringo, I had guessed that it was an insidious accumulation of bits here and there over time. To be honest, when you're that much in debt, you may as well double it but at least have something to show for it (ie a qualification in something that genuinely interests you). If I decide to study to be a vet (FIVE years of no income) then I shall just have to fuck it and embrace loans and overdrafts- there's no way around it.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: This would actually really annoy me.
What Black Mask hasn't taken into account it that the collapse probably won't be instantaneous. More than likely, it'll be a quite a gradual descent and as it happens, the banks and credit card companies will do more and more to call in their loans. By the time society falls those with debts will have been stripped of any material items - homes, clothes, food, tools - long ago, leaving them laughably ill equipped when it all goes to shit.
-------------------- Now that you've called me by name? Posts: 2007
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It's not specifically the quantity of the debt that makes it difficult for me to go to uni. It's the fact that each month, on top of whatever it's going to cost me to live, I need to have at least another £300 in the bank to cover my repayments. This doesn't sound like a lot, but even if I had a part time job, it seems pretty unlikely that I'd be able to scrape that sort of cash together. I can probably reduce it, of course, but it does take a lot of time and dedication. I've shown myself to be somewhat lacking in the latter.
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I think people my age are being duped into thinking we're smart. We're all being lured into higher education, tricked into believing we're intelligent, encouraged to learn shit we don't really care about. Ok, university makes sense for people smart enough to be doctors, vets, lawyers, scientists, etc. But the rest of us? What's the point? Business degrees and arts degrees are giving the stupidest of us misconceptions about our own intellectual capacities. Take me. I'm pretty stupid. I don't know stuff, because I don't really care about knowing stuff, because stuff bores me, but sometimes I think that even though I don't know stuff, maybe I'm a bit smarter than most other people who don't know stuff, and that I have potential to learn stuff, and that it would therefore be a waste of my latent potential - my potential potential, you could say - to work as a shelf-stacker, or a bus driver, or a binman. Fact is, those are exactly the sorts of jobs stupids like me ought to be applying for. I'm not, though. No one my age is. Because we got straight As for our Highers and A Levels. We got into university. It bored us, it was a waste of time, we were only there because we didn't have any better ideas - but we'd never have got accepted at all if we weren't more intelligent than most, right? So please, a lorry driver? Me? You are joking.
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Piss, though. Yeah. Piss can be pretty hot. Spiritual, even. Piss happened to me once - 'happened' being 'sprayed', and 'to' being 'all over' - and it was like a fucking libation or something.
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I think you're trying to believe that so you don't feel obliged to make any effort. I think it's obvious that you could excel in anything you chose, but you're trying to convince yourself that the above is true so you don't have to bother trying.
Edit: About being smart, obviously. Not about being pissed on.
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Aren't you from "Philly"? I am thinking of putting in for a conference in "Philly", which means I would come over there for a couple of days! What's it like please... the other conference I might put in for is in Montreal, so is it better than that? (I am only going to get funded for one a year, and I choose my conferences based pretty much entirely on the city hosting them.)
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