Uni of Life v Uni Degree?

[Trudes]

Conform. Or else.

That's what really gets up my nose about Uni, they say things like "we want you to form your own opinions", but providing that it fits in with what they think you should think! grrrrr.

[*caution*]

You've offended a BSc student.

But you're right, with all the degrees in surfing management etc nowadays what's the bloody point?

Those are the degrees that are hardest to get into (arch, med, eng, law-though its easy to get in to law, its hard to stay in), out of my school mates most that went to uni did these or buisiness, the ones who did BSc's all dropped out of uni.....

So actually I don't personally know any BSc grads so i wouldn't like to comment on the job opportunities of the degree... Though a job market flooded with BSc grads is going to make it much harder to find a job though in that area, degrees with higher entry standards make that degree more exclusive, meaning more opportunities (you would hope).

When you go for a job interview though, having a degree next to your name is definetly going to help rather than not having one. Can't see anyway it would count against you!?!

[Toaster]

That is what I learned at Uni, how to see past the BS and get to the real stuff, the lecturers loved it, someone to argue with.
A degree (or 2) helps to open doors, it provides skills and knowledge to promote further learning, and greater understanding of self and others.

Really? Which Uni did you go to Mack? All I did was party, drink, burn couches, drink, pass out, shag and drink some more...

[*caution*]

Really? Which Uni did you go to Mack? All I did was party, drink, burn couches, drink, pass out, shag and drink some more...

Well, it would be rude not too!!

[avgas]

6 of one half a dozen of the other.
To be honest working is a piece of piss to the shit i got when i was at Uni. But that may just be me as i got a shit deal from said govt so i had to also work while i was at Uni.
In terms of employment, i would probably pay/employ someone who achieved either higher or the same level of what i have achieved in life. Or someone who i could see achieving higher than me in life.
To me someone who has learn't all they can in a job is worth the same as a degree. But in my perspective of those i have met - those with no education, typically have no drive to learn. Adapting to a new work place is learning. So if you cant adapt - pretty much your useless to me.
Typically these people never climb very high anyhow.
However that is just me - i can tell you that NZ's culture to degree's sucks. There is no respect for them as 90% of the managers in this country were on the NZCE (or similar), worked to their levels or basically backstabbed their way to the top.
Go to any other country, and it is compulsory to have either 10+ years specific work experience or a 4+ year degree to get a good job.
In NZ to get a good job you must have 5+ years work exp + degree or 6+ years work exp.
I'm no saying they pay less - but its obvious where respect goes.
So if i had a choice between a degree or work ("Life experience" does count when it comes to jobs) experience, i would put degree just purely as you are forced to learn new concepts, or subjects that you would not normally want to learn.
Eg do you read the newspaper or just the business pages? Who is the better person? Who makes more money? etc

[Delerium]

I signed up with the services straight out of school. nearly 7 years later I still have not achieved any of my goals while there. Im doing a bachelor of business studies part time and my lowest final mark for the 5 papers I have done so far is a B. So, ill end up being part of the exodus of people from the service, and do my degree to open up other opportunities. Gee I wonder why the attrition rate is 13 odd %.

[vifferman]

I dunno if it's still prevalent, but it used to be that if you were "smart" (i.e., got good marks at school), that you were expected to go on to tertiary education, and if your were really smart, university rather than tech. To me, this is bollix. Having done a weird variety of jobs over the years, I've learned that ability to "pass" at school or university proves nothing. Take me - I've always been expert at exams, at sussing them out and doing well. But I was a lazy shit (or at least, very unmotivated), and made the mistake of going off to uni with no idea of what I wanted to do/be. I would've been better off going and working for a year or two till I'd grown up, then deciding. Or to have listened to my gut, and followed a childhood dream (writer and/or actor). Or to have followed my interests, and 'done' mechanical engineering.

Anyway, getting back to my original line, I've come across a lot of 'tradesmen' over the years, and what separated the good from the bad and the average from the outstanding (the real craftsmen, if you like) was how clever they were. An outstanding electrician/plumber/builder/mechanic can think his way round a problem, and come up with a solution, not just "do it by rote" and be stumped if it's something out of the ordinary.
My father-in-law fits into this 'clever' class. He left school at 15, was all set to go to tech to study architecture, but his family couldn't afford it (14 siblings), so he was sent off to dig peat, do various labouring jobs, etc. Eventually, he became an apprentice furniture maker, then came to NZ (from the Netherlands) and worked in a factory, then for a builder. His carpentry was amazing: he'd take recycled materials, tidy them up, and re-use them so they looked better'n new. Everything was always straight and neat, no corners cut, no "she'll be right", even on some crappy little unimportant project.

One of the problems today is that we've institutionalised EVERYTHING. Ideally, the schools would do a good job of finding out what talents and interests children have, and match their course of study to that, fostering their talents as they did so. Instead, it's just a sausage factory: raw materials and money in one end, sausages and bits of paper (and waste!) out the other.
Of course, personal responsibility comes into it - I blame no-one for my cock-ups or where I am today except myself. And the "education" system for failing to educate me. Oh - and my parents, for not encouraging me. But they had their own shortcomings and hangups, so I don't really blame them.
Especially now that I've failed myself at parenting three boys. Despite my best efforts, they're just as fucked-up as me: it's in the genes.

[Mikkel]

I must say that I'd like to think that having spent 5.5 years doing a Master of Science in Engineering Physics would make me more qualified for certain positions than someone who had not done something comparable.

I certainly feel that I'm in a much better position to obtain new knowledge in a number of fields (from economics to quantum physics) now compared to when I left highschool.
I didn't get an A+ GPA since I was too busy living life while doing "alright" at my course work. I did pull my shit together when I did my final thesis and pulled a nice A+ out of the hat since I wanted to do my best for once. I spent more time than most of my classmates partying, doing silly stuff and going on adventures - and while this didn't help my grades I certainly found it more fulfilling.

Does my time at university make me:

A) A better person than someone who does not hold a degree?
B) More intelligent than I was before I went to uni?
C) An arrogant cunt - and a nerd to boot?
D) More educated?

I'd say D - maybe a bit of B (compared to if I'd been speding 5.5 years on the dole smoking weed and getting drunk - as it is I spent 5.5 years on a student allowance smoking weed and getting drunk, but at least I was stimulated! ).

I don't think hauling your ass to uni to do half a year of disconnected arts degrees will necessarily make you more educated. Still it might, depending on your attitude.
If you have two almost identical persons, the only difference being that A can engage in a lengthy insightful discussion on the differences in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle whereas B can not - A would per definition be more educated than B, but it's not something that'll give A an edge over B in 99.9% of all circumstances.

In the end - does it matter? Degree or no degree, if you start talking out your ass there'll always be someone out there who will pick you up on your bullshit - either through education or experience... neither is a substitue for the other.

[xwhatsit]

The "University of life" thing is utter bullshit. The "University of life" is often used as an excuse for parochial ignorance, while anyone who claims that their university education makes them better than anyone else deserves to go to heaven when they die and be confined to socialising with CEOs.

`Must spread bling around' etc.

Mom! I didn't know you were the book-burning, "I don't need no fancy word-learnin' ma" sort of person! I expected better.

Now I'm going to come across as a right arsehole, but so be it. I think it's worth drawing a distinction -- first of all between your Unitecs and Polytechs and all of those sort of places, and between real Universities (congratulations, AUT, welcome to the real world). Universities are what we're concerned with here.

Secondly, within unis, we need to draw a distinction between `money-earner' (for the uni, at least) degrees like BComs, BHealth, a good number of BA pathways (see below), and many of the new BSci pathways -- and with traditional degrees like Med, Law, BEng, and the more heavyweight BSci pathways.

Some BAs and other courses are very good, though -- not really a hard, solid degree, but often speak volumes about a person who is interested in philosophy and literature and is prepared to spend three years studying it. Many employers value a person who has learned to think critically about the world they live in.

If your little Johnny wants to be a doctor, don't give me this `go to the University of Life' horseshit. Or the guy who's in charge of fixing up the decrepit Auckland Harbour Bridge -- I, for one, am hoping that he fully understands structural physics to a university standard, instead of just learning on the job from some old guy who told him how to put rivets in.

I'm studying a BSci Computer Science (hence the comment about `heavyweight BSci pathways' ). There are entry requirements, of a sort. Next time you pay for something via credit card over the internet, quietly hope to yourself that the guy who designed your web browser and the credit card server software studied and fully understood public/asymmetric-key cryptography at university. Otherwise your fucked.

There's many degrees out there that are just bollocks. Designed for the university to make money, pretty much, as they don't get enough funding from the government any more (uni used to be free once upon a time). However there's a good chunk of pathways still around that mean something.

I'm at uni because I'm passionate about compsci. I may be a strange person to find microkernel architecture fascinating, but I do -- and I'm not going to learn from smart people who've done academic research in the area by arsing about in the `university of life'

Don't associate me and the great volumes of like-minded people at real universities doing real things, with the arse-dribbling degree-factory attendees, who (rightly so) end up working in customer service because their marketing degree from some third-rate polytech was worthless after all.


Now if that was too many words for your poor little brains, read this.

I've got a student loan. I've also got a part-time job -- not enough to pay for uni directly, good luck there -- but enough to keep off the dole and even pay for a shitty 1980s Honda 250. Nearly everybody I know at uni is the same, working at a job to get themselves through uni. Yes, I work in customer service (well, a restaurant). Yes, I use a calculator (I'm a fucking compsci, what do you expect, I can type faster than I can think ).

[Swoop]

I've come across a lot of 'tradesmen' over the years, and what separated the good from the bad and the average from the outstanding (the real craftsmen, if you like) was how clever they were. An outstanding electrician/plumber/builder/mechanic can think his way round a problem, and come up with a solution, not just "do it by rote" and be stumped if it's something out of the ordinary.

Damn right. Have you seen the crap plans that qualified "designers" come up with??
Yes, a nice looking idea on paper, but who has to fix all the problems and make it all work and survive in whatever environment that it is placed?
Designers

[Luckylegs]

Don't associate me and the great volumes of like-minded people at real universities doing real things, with the arse-dribbling degree-factory attendees, who (rightly so) end up working in customer service because their marketing degree from some third-rate polytech was worthless after all.

I know this thread was intended to move the focus away from the Parking issue, but..... (I reeeeaallly cant help it )

Hands up if your one of the "arse-dribbling degree-factory attendees" and your taking up a valuable parking space from our good friend (and his like minded friends) Xerxesdaphat.

[Bass]

I have an engineering degree.
I got it because I needed it to do the sort of work that I wanted to do and I'm not especially bright, so at times it was hard going.

I learned 2 significant things along the way.
Firstly the degree got me higher pay but a later start. So I was in my 40's before my total earnings caught up with those of my mate who left school at 15 and did an electrical apprenticeship etc. That's not inflation adjusted either, so in real terms it was probably nearer age 50.
This meant that he did his big OE etc as a young fella and I never really have.

Secondly, the degree course I did also included a polytech course at night, to teach some manual engineering skills such as welding, turning, pattern making etc. The idea was to teach what was possible and how it all happened.
From there, all the long holidays were taken up with approved practical work with an approved employer.
I ran out top of my year in the polytech course in everything. My hands work reasonably well. So I went off to my first prac work period (as a fitter's mate at the Alliance freezing works just out of Invercargill), thinking that I knew it all and that this would be a doddle. Praise the Lord that I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut, because I had been there about 4 days when I realised that the old fart on the Lathe in the corner (he was 72 - they couldn't persuade him to retire) had forgotten more about turning than I would ever learn. Two weeks later I was helping to erect some steel 3 stories up on a scaffold that was swaying about 300 mm in the wind. I watched the guy I was helping laying down vertically downwards welds (very naughty and difficult but fast if you know your stuff), that the slag peeled off as he went. No chipping necessary. They were perfect - and working from a wildly swaying platform.
I came to the conclusion that if I practiced for the next 6 months, I might be fit to carry his electrodes, but that was as close as I would ever get.

The whole 3 month period was full of learning experiences like that.

I came away believing that education is essential and some jobs require more education than others, but in the end there is no substitute for experience.

I have never changed my mind.
It's a little like riding bikes I guess

[xwhatsit]

I know this thread was intended to move the focus away from the Parking issue, but..... (I reeeeaallly cant help it )

Hands up if your one of the "arse-dribbling degree-factory attendees" and your taking up a valuable parking space from our good friend (and his like minded friends) Xerxesdaphat.

You cheeky little shit

They all park down by the new Business school, so it's OK

[Luckylegs]

You cheeky little shit

.........I AM NOT little !!!!

[Bass]

Does a University Degree make you more educated/more respected/more employable, in todays world? If you dont hold a degree, does that make you dumb, and stupid and your opinions count for nothing.

Anne, you know the answer to this one - you only have to look in the mirror.
So why did you ask?

Were you just trying to get a feel for KB opinion and if so, why does it matter?