Uni's and the worth of your degree

Hitman_Leon

Hitman_Leon

Hitman_Leon

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Looking around im getting a little concerned about weather I am going to be leaving uni with a degree that will be worth anything to an employer. To the point it seems educated snobery is taking a leak from a great height all over my future prospects. Im at Sheffield Hallam just about to start my final year, Bsc Hon's Computing,

so is it just fancy toilet paper?

was it pointless expense?

or do the educted snobs just need an attitude adjuster?
 
A degree is mostly just a way of getting to the interview room.

You might be out competed by somebody with a degree from a more traditional institution, but your degree isn't useless.

However, for many graduate schemes, degree and A levels run hand in hand, so if you went to a university with low A level entry requirements, you might be excluded from applying. That isn't to say that is true for all jobs, naturally.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
Looking around im getting a little concerned about weather I am going to be leaving uni with a degree that will be worth anything to an employer. To the point it seems educated snobery is taking a leak from a great height all over my future prospects. Im at Sheffield Hallam just about to start my final year, Bsc Hon's Computing,

so is it just fancy toilet paper?

was it pointless expense?

or do the educted snobs just need an attitude adjuster?
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The education system is more about money than education, when only 20% of the pop went to uni in the 90s to around 50 now the value of the degree drops.
 
To be perfectly honest, Sheffield Hallam is mediocre at best.
Nearly every graduate recruiter indirectly filters out below average universities by using A level requirements. Most good job require at least 300 points.

Education snobbery is, and always has been, a part of the sucessful section of society.

If you get below a 2.1, it will be toilet paper.
 
mattheman said:
The education system is more about money than education, when only 20% of the pop went to uni in the 90s to around 50 now the value of the degree drops.
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As soon as I saw that you had posted, I knew that you would have a rant about the educational system without actually answering the OPs question. Low and behold...
 
Nitefly said:
As soon as I saw that you had posted, I knew that you would have a rant about the educational system without actually answering the OPs question. Low and behold...
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It is a true statement. Whats the problem?

Education is now a government run money making racket, and only a few universities still produce graduates as good as 20 years ago.
 
How useful or useless it is depends, at least in part, on what you want to do.

If you just want to get onto a graduate scheme then having a degree from any university (with the notable point that your A-levels/Highers might be an issue as Nitefly says) will put you in contention. After that point it is up to you to prove that you are a better candidate than the rest so provided you can show that you've got the attributes to succeed etc then it shouldn't matter hugely what institution you went to.

Some people are educational snobs and there may be justification for some of their prejudice but good candidates can go to 'bad' universities and succeed (however you measure that) so for me it doesn't make sense to categorise too much on the institution. You may have to work a little bit harder at proving your quality than someone from say Oxbridge as they've already got the cachet of where they read to give them that little bit of a boost.
 
Nitefly said:
It didn't come close to helping the OP and I for one am bored at mattheman's ranting about anything and everything. Apologies to all for my outburst.
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so your telling me the value of a degree is still the same, when almost 50% go to university? what i said was the value of having a degree isnt the same compared to the 90s or 80s.
 
mattheman said:
so your telling me the value of a degree is still the same, when almost 50% go to university?
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The value of having a good degree remains the same. However, you are correct that the average degree today does not hold the same value of years past since the prestige has been 'watered down' by more average degrees from an increasing number of average institutions. To avoid problems, the solution would be to simply not go to an average university and the Government should stop encouraging attendance and financing these lesser institutions. Regardless, a degree from Cambridge is as equally impressive now as it was then.

I do understand where you are coming from, but it is at a tangent from what the OP was requesting.
 
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Personally my degree has heled me get a job, granted it's not the job I want, butit's the first step onto the ladder, my ex on the otherhand, has an english degree and has had many interviews, each time being told she was "overqualified" which suck in itself, she's got to the point where she's tempted not to tell them about her degree.

while the degree helps get into the interview, what will get you the job is the experience and proof of your skills (animators have a showreel, programmers have coding scripts etc) I have a pretty poor portfolio so I'm not able to jump into my desired field, but will work on it once I've some industry experience
 
My degree has helped me lots. I had a place on a BAE grad scheme, but turned it down for a job that did not require a degree as a pre-requisite (although in practice most candidates have one). For my job it was more talking about what I did during my time, how I managed my time and workload and stuff like that. The fact that I had a degree was not, in itself, reason to give me the job - it was the experience and what I took from my 3 years.
 
Ok, sticks and wasps nests here. Just because more people attend university that should not take the shine from achievements and I would be quite prepared to go head to head on a project with any student from any socalled elite institution. I won't hold a degree as a passport to any line of work, I will hold to show im capable of learning.
 
Sheffield Hallam doesn't strike me as a first rate institution, but what does the degree actually consist of? I didn't exactly have spectacular A-levels myself but got onto my programme partially because of the strength of my work experience. I don't know about how Kingston is perceived in the name stakes...
 
Sort of in the same position myself where I'm consistently topping the class and getting excelent marks but afraid that perhaps because of where I'm studying the award won't be given the same merit even though a level 8 award is meant to be a level 8 award no matter what institution you study it in. This place is also constantly banging on about how they've the best equipment for this course and how great the course is but of course the lecturers are going to promote themselves.

It's because of this that I'm seriously considering doing my Masters elsewhere.
 
Hallam isn't a bad uni, you've got nothing to be concerned about.

To be honest, unless someone goes to a university like Cambridge, Oxford etc then it doesn't matter too much where you go, as someone said, it's a ticket to get into a interview room. Just try hard and make sure you get a 2:1 or better.

I went to Teesside to study Computing and Networks, Teesside generally isn't regarded as a good uni, but it has a respected computing department. I was offered a graduate level job before I got my exam results, I eventually left that job for various reasons and got another a few weeks after my results, so I was offered 2 jobs in the space of 3 months and there are Maths graduates from Warwick unable to get any jobs...

At the end of the day a degree is also proof on how you can take a subject and apply yourself to absorbing the relevant information. A big part of getting a job (imo) is how you present yourself in an interview room, regardless of qualifications.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
To the point it seems educated snobery is taking a leak from a great height all over my future prospects. Im at Sheffield Hallam just about to start my final year, Bsc Hon's Computing,
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Its not necessarily snobbery, just with so many people going to uni these days the job market is more competitive. With some unis (at the lower end of the scale) admitting people with lower grades the standards of some degree courses will inevitable suffer. Given this environment a safer way to avoid hiring ***** is for graduate employers to apply some sort of filter based on degree classification, A-level results and simply only looking at applicants from certain institutions.

Your degree is certainly not worthless, computer science is still a good subject to study regardless of the institution. Some employers will look down on the institution, others won't - once you're in the workplace and have proved yourself for a couple of years it doesn't matter anyway. Employers who might have been closed to you 2 years previously are now open to you if you make a name for yourself.

The other option is to get a 1st or 2.1 and do a masters at a decent uni - so what if you're undergrad is from a poly - no one will care if you get an MSc from say Imperial or UCL. (Decent uni's that might have been closed to you as an undergrad can be open to you as a grad student once you've proved yourself in your undergrad course)

Ask yourself why did you go to Hallam - was it out of choice or was it due to poor A-level results. If it was out of choice as you perhaps wanted a more vocational course then I don't think you'll necessarily have much to worry about - you're most likely going to be applying for jobs where your choice of uni matters less and can explain your choice at interview if necessary (your A-levels will show you're smart anyway.) If it was due to poor A-levels then was this due to lazyness or lack of ability? If you were a bit lazy at A-level then just work your ass off for your final year of undergrad, get a 1st/high 2.1 - perhaps go do a masters at a decent uni and then don't bother putting your A-level results on your CV as no-one will really care once you've got MSc, BSc on there.

Other thing to note (if you're still feeling bad about your degree) its prob better in some instances to get a decent degree from a 2nd rate uni than to flunk and barely scrape a pass at a more traditional CS course. At least with the ex-polys you'll be able to hit the ground running in some IT roles whereas someone from a red brick who screwed up will have just sat through lots of theory they didn't really grasp.
 
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