Do you really need a degree?

semi-pro waster said:
The standards must be comparable to some degree, for professionally accredited courses there is a minimum standard that must be met. You can argue that at the top end of the learning you might be better off at certain universities but once a professional body has accredited a university to provide a course it must continue to meet that standard. As far as I'm aware professional bodies don't tend to have differing standards of accreditation or say to people "well, they're nominally all accredited by us but actually unless they're in this group of ten universities the degree isn't worth a damn...".



So the argument is not that they could potentially be of a similar quality but that you don't believe they will be.

Is there any reason why an ex-polytechnic could not increase their entry requirements over time as their cachet grows and they attract both more able lecturers and students? They might or might not wish to pursue this route but I'm asking whether it's theoretically possible or not.



Again, why would an external body wish to give their approval to an institution if the students coming out of it did not meet the relevant minimum standards for the external body? That would hurt their professional reputation and bring into question the whole value of membership of those bodies.

We're getting way off the original topic but I think it's probably fair to say that a degree isn't vital depending on what you want to do in life.
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You keep going on about 'external bodies' verifying courses which I think is indicative of your level of understanding of high-level academic work. What 'external bodies' verify a Philosophy or Classics course? Or a Maths course? Universities are places of serious learning - 'external bodies' normally verify accountancy courses or MBA's or somesuch ilk. External bodies are in the educational industry of vocational courses or industry-linked courses. I'm talking about academic-intellectual standards being massively different at the two types of university, and all you're coming back with is that 'the chartered accountancy organisation verify...' yes, but I'm not talking about becoming an accountant! I'm talking about traditional unis and their traditional purpose, not as some pre-job centre for producing professionals.

I don't think any of my courses or the courses my friends have taken in other departments at my universities have boasted that they are "accredited", as some guarantee of standard. I think I'd be insulted if I saw that.
 
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InKursion said:
You keep going on about 'external bodies' verifying courses which I think is indicative of your level of understanding of high-level academic work. What 'external bodies' verify a Philosophy or Classics course? Or a Maths course? Universities are places of serious learning - 'external bodies' normally verify accountancy courses or MBA's or somesuch ilk. External bodies are in the educational industry of vocational courses or industry-linked courses. I'm talking about academic-intellectual standards being massively different at the two types of university, and all you're coming back with is that 'the chartered accountancy organisation verify...' yes, but I'm not talking about becoming an accountant! I'm talking about traditional unis and their traditional purpose, not as some pre-job centre for producing professionals.

I don't think any of my courses or the courses my friends have taken in other departments at my universities have boasted that they are "accredited", as some guarantee of standard. I think I'd be insulted if I saw that.
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I get it, your subject or those you have the closest appreciation for are not subjects that have an overseeing body and that's fine. I didn't state nor imply that professional accreditation was applicable to all degrees.

I wasn't talking about becoming an accountant per se either, I am on my way to becoming one but that's by the bye as I didn't study it at university nor have I paid any real attention to the requirements for university study. I studied a law degree which is something that is normally professionally accredited and is usually fairly well respected in the field of learning or so I've been led to believe.

However I'm going to leave it there, continuing the debate isn't likely to give either of us much pause for thought so I'll bow out.
 
InKursion said:
All Oxford tutors are at least full readers/doctors and Professors. No precocious MA student will be sitting down in a tutorial :p
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Most of the tutors at Cambridge are PhD students - I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if you had a tutor who was a lecturer/reader! They do the lecturing, not the tutoring.
 
InKursion said:
You keep going on about 'external bodies' verifying courses which I think is indicative of your level of understanding of high-level academic work. What 'external bodies' verify a Philosophy or Classics course? Or a Maths course? Universities are places of serious learning - 'external bodies' normally verify accountancy courses or MBA's or somesuch ilk. External bodies are in the educational industry of vocational courses or industry-linked courses. I'm talking about academic-intellectual standards being massively different at the two types of university, and all you're coming back with is that 'the chartered accountancy organisation verify...' yes, but I'm not talking about becoming an accountant! I'm talking about traditional unis and their traditional purpose, not as some pre-job centre for producing professionals.

I don't think any of my courses or the courses my friends have taken in other departments at my universities have boasted that they are "accredited", as some guarantee of standard. I think I'd be insulted if I saw that.
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Well the external body that verifies geological courses in the UK (including accrediting both Oxford and Cambridge's BSc Geology/Geological sciences alongside many Russell's group unis) is the British Geological Society, unaffiliated with industry and a society that promotes pure research as much as industry fields. While I have little appreciation of the way the arts work there are plenty of arts societies that may very well accredit courses. Accreditation has nothing to do with the type of university, rather the type of course and nothing to do with pushing a course into a job specific direction. That's what the MSc's in things like Petroleum Geoscience and Mining Geology are for (which have industry panels making sure they are teaching the skills relevant to todays industry).

I think that post is a prime example that you don't really know what you are talking outside your specific discipline and potentially outside a specific type of university.
 
SideWinder said:
So in summary - it depends on what you want to do in life. :p
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Pretty much.

I never went to Uni after GCSE/A levels (in-fact I got out of school before completing A levels) and I do not regret it.

If I want a career path that needs degree education I will go and do a degree. If I went to Uni after A levels I would have more than likely done a Comp Science degree which would have been an utter waste of time, I would have never done the focused more niche courses that I have considered later on in life.

I have had more responsibility and earned more in IT jobs with no degree than colleagues who had degrees in comp science. Why? Because my on the job experience and self taught technical know-how put me there.
 
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I suspect the number of people who actually need their degree or need to apply the learnings from their degree during their working life are substantially smaller than those who never really needed their degree to get into or to progress within their career. I have nothing empirical on which to base this other than gut feeling based on graduates I've interviewed or worked with over the years
 
Sin_Chase said:
Pretty much.

I never went to Uni after GCSE/A levels (in-fact I got out of school before completing A levels) and I do not regret it.

If I want a career path that needs degree education I will go and do a degree. If I went to Uni after A levels I would have more than likely of done a Comp Science degree which would have been an utter waste of time, I would have never of done the focused more niche courses that I have considered later on in life.

I have had more responsibility and earned more in IT jobs with no degree than colleagues who had degrees in comp science. Why? Because my on the job experience and self taught technical know-how put me there.
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Have... HAVE!

Sorry but there are so many missing.:(
 
Housey said:
I suspect the number of people who actually need their degree or need to apply the learnings from their degree during their working life are substantially smaller than those who never really needed their degree to get into or to progress within their career. I have nothing empirical on which to base this other than gut feeling based on graduates I've interviewed or worked with over the years
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Yes... but a degree isn't about giving you skills that are immediately transferrable to the workplace. A degree is about giving you an education. Do people understand what education means? A degree is not a training grounds for 'x' job or 'y' career: it's about broadening your horizons, intellectual stimulation, cultural refinement, etc. A serious academic degree gives you secondary transferrable skills such as independent learning/drive, initiative, discipline, a high-ability for analytical thought, an excellent standard of rhetoric and formal articulation, etc. What's more they've spent 3 years understanding how stars are born, or reading the greatest works of literature in Western history, rather than learning how to do the menial starter-boy tasks around the office.
 
InKursion said:
Yes... but a degree isn't about giving you skills that are immediately transferrable to the workplace. A degree is about giving you an education. Do people understand what education means? A degree is not a training grounds for 'x' job or 'y' career: it's about broadening your horizons, intellectual stimulation, cultural refinement, etc. A serious academic degree gives you secondary transferrable skills such as independent learning/drive, initiative, discipline, a high-ability for analytical thought, an excellent standard of rhetoric and formal articulation, etc. What's more they've spent 3 years understanding how stars are born, or reading the greatest works of literature in Western history, rather than learning how to do the menial starter-boy tasks around the office.
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What do you use to clean those rose tinted spectacles may I enquire, Autoglym glass cleaner perchance? ;)

If you believe a degree is a guaranteed source to deliver such things or worse, the only way to achieve such things, you are a little naive. A degree is a good thing don't get me wrong and has a varying value, but you overplay it and it's real value to many of the individuals who embark and complete their degree. However, you are 22 I believe so perhaps miss the immense value of ongoing 'experience' of life to enrich and truly grow you as a person or shall we say a citizen of the world. I am relatively well read, I believe bright and certainly compared to your good self experienced in business and the world in which we live to a far greater extent, which is why I find such statements somewhat rose tinted, though I appreciate the sentiment of further learning and its personal value.

I am very clear on what education means, it carries on for your entire life and not simply in the 3-5 years of university and like university and school before that some people have an aptitude and some don't, though some of those aptitudes for learning and achievement don't show themselves until well after university. I also find the 'menial starter boy' statement is perhaps indicative of the arrogance that many students display on leaving university, that feeling of elevation because of their piece of paper and the reason so many employers become so disheartened when apparently educated people seem unable to grasp the very basic fundamentals of the world of work or who believe they are owed a higher role because of their level of education. That education and my point above often has little or no value to actually doing the job for which they are also seeking employment so it simply demonstrates a real lack of understanding of the realities of life.
 
All I know is I'm going to go and do maths because I enjoy it. It'll probably help in whatever career I choose to do, but that isn't my primary reasoning for it. I just want to stay in education and learn :D
 
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