There’s more to life than a university course

**Hitcher** · 22nd January 2013, 18:53

This morning’s Dominion Post newspaper had as its front page lead a story titled “Degrees ranked by earning potential”.

Apparently officials at the Ministry of Education think that this is a good idea and a valuable use of their time. I disagree with them. Indeed I think that they’re nuts.

“Health” is the big winner in terms of median salaries earned five years after graduating, according to the Dominion Post. This is where the nonsense starts. This category will include doctors and surgeons, together with nurses, paramedics and, presumably nonsense health professions, like naturopathy. That is a very diverse range of occupations and earning potential within a category.

It will be the high income earners – the doctors and surgeons – who are inflating this category compared to others on the list. These will also be the folk to whom the focus of school leavers will be directed by their career “advisers”.

Bear with me while I do a reductio ad absurdum. The nation’s career advisers are spectacularly successful and all of the nation’s secondary school leavers decide to become health professionals and rock off to medical school.

First problem: they won’t all fit into our medical schools. New Zealand is already arguably over-graduating doctors, many of whom leave the country to avoid repaying their significant taxpayer-funded student debt.

Second problem: the academic competency bar for medicine is set pretty high – considerably higher than media studies, for example. Perhaps if Year 13 students work really hard, they could get their average performance over 50%.

Third problem: if every university student graduates as a health professional, how are the country's other professions going to be filled?

I think it’s tragic that a focus is on the earning potential of graduates. Whatever happened to students being encouraged to consider academic training in things they really enjoyed, perhaps were passionate about, and in which they stood a good chance of excelling?

A lot of people, myself included, gain a degree in a particular area of interest and then end up pursuing a completely different career. To explain, my degree is in agricultural science, my chosen profession is in communication. In all of the years I was in a position to hire communication staff, I never hired one with a communication degree. Call me strange but I always went for the applicant I thought was best suited to the role on offer.

I also think that it’s tragic that this nation’s tradespeople, service workers and general backbone of the economy don’t seem to be ranked as a priority by the Ministry of Education. Maybe that’s why our dairy industry has to import qualified and capable farm workers from the Philippines. I suppose that that is also a reality of so many school leavers having above average abilities. It could also be due to the fact that people on the unemployment benefit like to live in big cities, rather than in places like Stratford or Otautau.

I guess we’re lucky that fashion models didn’t come out in the top spot on the Ministry’s list. If they had, then this sage observation from Derek Zoolander would come into play, when he summarised his career: “Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking ‘wow, you’re ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.’”

**Coldrider** · 22nd January 2013, 19:03

Dr Akzle I presume...

**Woodman** · 22nd January 2013, 19:06

Oh I dunno, maybe if my teachers said to me and all the other slackers that if we studied we could have more toys when we grew up some of us might have listened and got off our asses.

**Nova.** · 22nd January 2013, 19:07

I've never planned to go to university, all my life I have only one career that I have wanted, that is excavator operating, left school at 16 and have been doing so ever since.
no school can teach you what you need to know in this industry, and some people may wonder why they didn't get the job even though they trained at such and such school and have blah blah qualifications.

**Coldrider** · 22nd January 2013, 19:12

By devaluing some degrees, Mr Joyce can convince himself to remove funding from those courses.

A real politician would point people towards education that would ultimately gear up the country to earn overseas funds,
rather than the taxpayer to prop up medics that would go overseas to earn healthy incomes.

**Brian d marge** · 22nd January 2013, 19:15

A few points , and this is from the iPhone so the grammatical details can take a flying leap.
First, student loan , is a loan.` The never had it so good` received theirs free.
And wouldnt it be , bear with me while I reduce it to an absurd , or while I ...reductio ad absurdum

Apart from those , u do realize that education is now a business ( along the american model ) and has nothing to do with education ,,,,,,,,just bums on seats

Oh and if you try hard and get a degree you will earn lots more , probably enough to pay off your degree.....

Pawned , classic pawned

Stephen

**Indiana_Jones** · 22nd January 2013, 19:38

Kids today are told 'if you don't go to uni, you'll become a nobody' etc, and they believe it. No wonder the trades and other technical trades are going down the shitter.

-Indy

**Coldrider** · 22nd January 2013, 19:43

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

Kids today are told 'if you don't go to uni, you'll become a nobody' etc, and they believe it. No wonder the trades and other technical trades are going down the shitter.

-Indy

I ride motorbikes to become a nobody.

**Zedder** · 22nd January 2013, 20:04

University certainly used to be an interest based system of education rather than rankings and money.

Sadly, the whole thing is geared towards money and more worryingly, elitism thanks to the USA "waking" up TPTB to saving money and user pays kicking in.

Eventually, only the rich will be able to get a varsity education and perhaps a return to feudalism will be via knowledge instead of force. I have seen cases where people with a degree have taken over a management position purely due to having a degree, little experience was evident.

Plain old degrees are never enough we were told, they should lead to a Masters then of course a PhD which apparently is where the big bucks are. The problem is, there's way too much theory and lack of being in touch with the real world when pure academia is concentrated on. A quick check of the number of PhDs in parliament certainly gives a clear picture of the dangers of that.

**The End** · 22nd January 2013, 20:06

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

Kids today are told 'if you don't go to uni, you'll become a nobody' etc, and they believe it. No wonder the trades and other technical trades are going down the shitter.

-Indy

Can verify this. It was absolutely shoved down our throats in the last couple of years of high school. "What are you doing when you finish school" "Which University are you studying at" "Oh you're doing that course, well done!" "Oh, you're not going to uni....?"

I know of people who struggled in school who were convinced by their teachers to go to uni just to do a BA, no offence to anyone who has/is/will be doing one, but it is basically a time filler degree....

**mashman** · 22nd January 2013, 20:11

Originally Posted by Hitcher

Call me strange but I always went for the applicant I thought was best suited to the role on offer.

You're strange. In IT (development) I've met everything from safa cops to bio-chemists to aerospace engineers to jewelery designers. Some self trained and some degree qualified. I'm one of the degree qualified ones and I scraped through my degree as that's all I had to do (student loan and all). One of the things, ok probably two or three... is that the degree qualified ones can potentially earn more as they are seen as being more capable of learning as they have proven it. Moderately amusing given that I probably put in minimal effort to learn my trade than the guys who did it off of their own backs. We're also gonna lose these guys who seek further understanding in their career paths by doing associated degrees, something I can't imagine as being a good thing. It seems that we're destined to become a bee colony full of one trick ponies, as very few will be able to just dump their life and pursue something that interests them once they get bored of spending 10 years doing the same thing. Such a waste of potential talent and all to make some useless cunt a truckload of money

However, as always

, I have the solution: What we're going to do is train as many people to be Dr's, Pharmacists, Vets and Radiographers... personally I'd like that to be 25% of the population. Then what we're going to do is legalise drugs and drop the drinking age to 15. Pharmacists can release a few dodgy pills in amongst the good stuff to keep them all ticking over, just in case the world gives up drinking. We'll release the odd virus here and there, overly sugary food and enamel eating bacteria in the water. The country will be filthy rich and we'll all be happy. What? What do you mean what about the other 75% of the population? They don't matter, they're just the unskilled workforce who decided that they didn't want to do anything with their lives. They deserve everything they get... musicians and artists indeed, they're more valuable when they're dead. Now be quiet and just do as you're told.

Oh and the 25% will come from good wealthy homes, none of this lottery and aptitude nonsense.

**speights_bud** · 22nd January 2013, 20:38

Just throwing it out there...

My wife spent 4 years at university studying, i spend 4 years doing a trade. We both work 40 hour weeks now and i still earn significantly more at the end of the week. She was one of few who actually managed to find work in her field after graduating. Lucky for us she lived with her parents so doesn't have a student loan to re-pay.

In her Year group alone there were approx 100 Teachers graduating. Now i don't know how many other teachers were graduating at other universities but i doubt that there are hundreds of teachers retiring each year for these new students to replace.... Most of her classmates who didn't manage to find work either ended up enrolling in another course or working in what might be described as a menial job (burger flipping). Nothing wrong with that, gotta have someone to do it but its a shame seeing that they now owe money and haven't moved forward into what they trained for.

Might be worth adding that from teachers must complete 2 years of registered work in the first 5 years after graduating or else they have to re-sit a one year teaching course i think.

I spent 4 Years in an apprenticeship (Precision Machining & Toolmaking), I don't owe anyone any money and am looking at buying a house using a significant deposit earned by wages, all within 2 years of Getting my cert. Yes things have gone pretty well for me and i haven't been made redundant with the economy stuff.... But it's no wonder young people can't afford to buy a house and the housing market is 'out of reach' when they are probably paying half their mortgage back in Student load repayments...