Man sues Oxford for 'only' getting a 2:1...

Nasher said:
People still think a degree is a way to automatically get a high paid job, nope. Not unless your one of the Eton boys.

Unless it's something that absolutely requires a degree, like a doctor, you'll be trumped by people with no qualifications but loads of on-the-job experience these days.
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A lot of professions require a relevant degree or equivalent diplomas plus experience to open up access to the professional accredited institutes and professional qualifications from engineering, planning, environmental, clinical/medical, social care, project management, financial right through to law and so on. Even applicable to some degree in recruitment and property sales these days though for role delineation.

Without these, there is a often an absolute ceiling to career progression or what you are allowed to do especially in highly regulated industries.

Experience counts, if you are setting up your own business or simply in a sales/commercial/retail role then of course you can achieve that regardless of qualifications. In an industry where you need regulated and suitable qualified professionals, you can hire them in as well at appropriate stages.

However, the number of decent professional tier and managerial / director tier jobs readily available without suitable academic and professional qualifications is limited though.
 
Nasher said:
In IT experience is everything, most don't care about qualifications because theres just too much to learn. Experience and trust is everything. No one wants some newly qualified guy tinkering with their servers and taking their entire company offline :p

You'll see every good IT job wants a minimum of 3-5 years experience. They list the areas they want people knowledgeable in and often don't even list any qualification requirements. Even for programming, you'll need to demonstrate your ability in the interview usually.
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Good luck getting on an IT graduate program from the likes on IBM, BAE etc without a degree ;-)
 
Nasher said:
If you have years of experience, you wouldn't need to get on to a graduate program. You apply just like any other job.
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How would you have years of experience when you're 21?

And even if you had 5 years experience from age 16 (extremely unlikely), I can't see a 21 walking into a 30k job, which is what IBM graduate programs start at.

In all my years of IT experience, I've only rarely seen "experienced" employees progress further than those that came in on graduate programs. Admittedly, I'm not au fait with small startups, just large multi-nationals, so it's very likely a different kettle of fish for smaller employers but I suppose that's to be expected as the big companies always hoover up the best graduates anyway.
 
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bloodiedathame said:
At my Uni they had to allocate grades, ie the whole class couldn't get 1:1s. It was all proportional. Which is stupid as ****.
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Why is it stupid.

If everyone gets the same grade then the whole concept grades becomes meaningless and it simply becomes a pass/fail situation with no way of making any more subtle distinctions.
 
Orionaut said:
Why is it stupid.

If everyone gets the same grade then the whole concept grades becomes meaningless and it simply becomes a pass/fail situation with no way of making any more subtle distinctions.
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Because a 1st one year may not equate to a 1st in other years making comparison across years difficult.
Andi.
 
A target / grade / percentage to reach should be absolute, you shouldn't move the goal posts after you've achieved that target - otherwise it becomes based on purely beating those around you.
 
Or more likely, to manipulate statistics.

It can't be about competitiveness because one student has no idea how the next is doing.

Companies do similar things with staff appraisal. Mainly because they only want to pay out X number of bonuses. So they make it look like it's the employee's fault they didn't earn one.
 
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fastwunz said:
Building surveyor here - couldnt possibly do it without a degree behind me. There is just too much to know and I’m still going to be learning all my life!
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Surely loading a document repeatedly saying "Looks OK but would advise to get a professional <insert trade here> to check" and pressing CTRL-C and CTRL-V to change the names/address isn't that hard? :D
 
andicole0 said:
Because a 1st one year may not equate to a 1st in other years making comparison across years difficult.
Andi.
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If you are looking at, say, the minimum skills needed to drive a car or pilot an aircraft then a simple pass/fail test is adequate because it is relativly easy to determine whether the candidate has reached the required standard or not.

With degrees, you are trying to establish something more subtle. Not only whether the candidate deserves a degree, but also which candidates are superior to the others.

If the average score in any given year is 80% it doesn't mean that everybody was brilliant, it just means the test was too easy. If the average was 20% it means the test was too hard. proportional scoring IS a way of comparing one year with another

postbox said:
A target / grade / percentage to reach should be absolute, you shouldn't move the goal posts after you've achieved that target - otherwise it becomes based on purely beating those around you.
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But that's the whole point. It IS about beating the people around you. Thats how you find out which candidates are better than the rest.
 
Is that the point of a degree? career-wise I would agree, a test or exam with a score, I wouldn't.

And just to emphasise, if that was the case where they only allowed so many on my course with a specific grade, I'd purposely choose a different Uni with less bright sparks around me just to ensure I would get the grade I want, once you've got your 1st, unless it's a really really bad Uni, or very specific career path, no-one will scrutinise more than necessary.
 
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To my shame I only have some very old and outdated MS qualifications (MCSE/MCSA) and have no uni degree behind me. Done alright in the IT game so far, never unemployed for more than a week. Should I become unemployed I think I should sue my college for not forcing me do a pointless degree :p
 
Em3bbs said:
Surely loading a document repeatedly saying "Looks OK but would advise to get a professional <insert trade here> to check" and pressing CTRL-C and CTRL-V to change the names/address isn't that hard? :D
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How very dare you!

Tell you what let’s have a chat about cowling, flaunching, lining, the implications of defective flashing and the subsequent wind driven rain penetration leading to the efflorescence of hydroscopic salts and the capillary action of moisture causing damp, timber rot, and blown plaster work...... just for fun.
 
Orionaut said:
Why is it stupid.

If everyone gets the same grade then the whole concept grades becomes meaningless and it simply becomes a pass/fail situation with no way of making any more subtle distinctions.
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Yes, but if everyone is bona fide excellent, then it's not fair to say that some people should get a 3rd just because they're the least excellent. That's utterly stupid.
 
Vonhelmet said:
Yes, but if everyone is bona fide excellent, then it's not fair to say that some people should get a 3rd just because they're the least excellent. That's utterly stupid.
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Ah well now you mention fairness, grades depend on how hard the test is from year to year when grade is by score.

Mass grading is unfair however you do it.
 
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