400,000 graduate jobs

w11tho · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:06

Employers are interested in UCAS points because they give a very good indication of the standard of the university (and hence the course) that you are at. University courses are pitched at the students sitting them, and if the lecture halls are filled with people who failed to get higher than a D in physics (for example) then the physics lectures will be pitched accordingly.

In addition, A-Levels are the last point at which candidates can be compared across the board.

A point on masters programs: they are often used as money making machines for big universities. The universities are fully aware that there are lots of people who would like to top up a mediocre degree with a fancy sounding masters.There are also a lot of foreign people (especially Asian) who would like a degree/masters with a British university stamp on it. The standards are often (but certainly not always) lower that would be expected for the undergraduate courses, where the selection program is far more rigorous. Employers are generally aware of this.

Amp34 · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:37

w11tho said:
Employers are interested in UCAS points because they give a very good indication of the standard of the university (and hence the course) that you are at. University courses are pitched at the students sitting them, and if the lecture halls are filled with people who failed to get higher than a D in physics (for example) then the physics lectures will be pitched accordingly.

In addition, A-Levels are the last point at which candidates can be compared across the board.

A large proportion of employers will know the standard of university courses that are relevant to them, you just need to look at the lists of course qualities in the times and Guardian, as well as the certain government awards for examples of that. They will also know from past graduates. This may be slightly different if you are entering a sector that employs graduates from just about any sector, including degrees that almost every university do, but companies in for example the engineering and geoscience sectors will have a good understanding of what courses are like, they will also generally have prefered universities (for example ones that aim more specifically at their work, or a lot of the time that the selection people did their degrees).

w11tho said:
A point on masters programs: they are often used as money making machines for big universities. The universities are fully aware that there are lots of people who would like to top up a mediocre degree with a fancy sounding masters.There are also a lot of foreign people (especially Asian) who would like a degree/masters with a British university stamp on it. The standards are often (but certainly not always) lower that would be expected for the undergraduate courses, where the selection program is far more rigorous. Employers are generally aware of this.

Again I guess it depends on the sector you plan to go into and the university you went to. If you went to a non discript uni and did a masters in english it would be far harder for the employers to know how good the masters was than say someone doing a masters in Petroleum Geology (which there are very few around).

sid · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:38

How do the UCAS points work again? I forgot whats worth what.

I got AAAB at A levels + A at AS level (F. maths, nothing mickey mouse)

sid

Strife212 · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:38

That's 520 points

sid · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:41

Well thats good news then. I remember getting a grade offer rather than points

sid

RemainNameless · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:54

Amp34 said:
A large proportion of employers will know the standard of university courses that are relevant to them, you just need to look at the lists of course qualities in the times and Guardian,

The Times/Guardian university tables count for very little.

meghatronic · 18 Jan 2009 at 15:56

RemainNameless said:
The Times/Guardian university tables count for very little.

Indeed. Measures of universities are about as useful as IQ tests. Nevertheless, RAE is a pretty good measure.

yantorsen · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:07

RemainNameless said:
The Times/Guardian university tables count for very little.

So how are you supposed to determine the best uni to go to?

RemainNameless · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:10

yantorsen said:
So how are you supposed to determine the best uni to go to?

By looking at the offers they generally give out and by visiting the universities yourself to see if you like them.

The Times/Guardian guides take factors into account such as "student satisfaction" which should not count for anything.

yantorsen · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:55

So the main thing I should be looking at are entrance requirements? Are research quality and graduate prospects not important?

Killa_ken · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:56

yantorsen said:
So the main thing I should be looking at are entrance requirements? Are research quality and graduate prospects not important?

I doubt you'll be doing any research somehow and tbh you dont have to go to the same school for grad as undergrad.

dangerstat · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:02

meghatronic said:
Indeed. Measures of universities are about as useful as IQ tests. Nevertheless, RAE is a pretty good measure.

RAE just measures research quality, says nothing about whether they can teach. Plus it's not particularly easy to interpret this time round, it's basically a histogram

TBH the list of "best unis" hasn't changed in decades, everyone knows who they are.

LSE, UCL, Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Bath, York, Warwick, Manchester, Durham, Nottingham

Killa_ken · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:06

Problem is most of the world have never heard of any of those other than Oxford and Cambridge. Even LSE is ranked something like 70th in the world.

dangerstat · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:09

Killa_ken said:
Problem is most of the world have never heard of any of those other than Oxford and Cambridge. Even LSE is ranked something like 70th in the world.

Clearly your not an academic, all those universities are well known, I can't think one of those that hasn't had a Noble Prize winner for starters (well perhaps warwick / york but that's mainly because they're young'ens).

Internationally UK uni's are very well respected TBH.

Killa_ken · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:12

dangerstat said:
Clearly your not an academic, all those universities are well known, I can't think one of those that hasn't had a Noble Prize winner for starters (well perhaps warwick / york but that's mainly because they're young'ens).

Internationally UK uni's are very well respected TBH.

You know this how? You'll find over here the only UK universitys most people have any idea about are Oxford and Cambridge. When I tell people I went to Kings College in the UK they have no idea what it is.

dangerstat · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:27

Killa_ken said:
You know this how? You'll find over here the only UK universitys most people have any idea about are Oxford and Cambridge. When I tell people I went to Kings College in the UK they have no idea what it is.

How do I know? Well it's a case of attending international conferences for one (quick way to get a feeling of how well your home uni is respected). Also last time I checked the figures the UK is the second most popular destination for Asian students for example (after the US). Those uni's I mentioned all have several 5* (in the last RAE) departments, which is designed to flag international excellence.
THES based table here seems to paint a different picture:
http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2008/overall_rankings/fullrankings/

Fyebot · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:28

Killa_ken said:
Problem is most of the world have never heard of any of those other than Oxford and Cambridge. Even LSE is ranked something like 70th in the world.

The University of Bristol at least managed to achieve something like 37 or 38th in the world in one of the worldwide tables.

And we definately get a lot of foreign students, about half the people in my classes now are from other countries. This is at Postgraduate/Masters level.

yantorsen · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:33

Killa_ken said:
I doubt you'll be doing any research somehow and tbh you dont have to go to the same school for grad as undergrad.

true. TBH I don't even know what "research quality" means, or is referring to, could someone explain?

dangerstat · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:35

Fyebot said:
The University of Bristol at least managed to achieve something like 37 or 38th in the world in one of the worldwide tables.

And we definately get a lot of foreign students, about half the people in my classes now are from other countries. This is at Postgraduate/Masters level.

Definitely the Queens Library resembles the United Nations when all the ugrads disappear for the summer

dangerstat · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:38

yantorsen said:
true. TBH I don't even know what "research quality" means, or is referring to, could someone explain?

It's an attempt to classify research output (mainly academic papers) in terms of quality. Normally it's based on the "tier" the journal that the paper has been published in belongs too. So in economics, getting published in Econometrica is damn good. At the same time they try to measure "impact", all sorts o meterics have been proposed, lots are based on the number of citations (people quoting your paper) get. The problem is, it tends to undervalue research that is done in either "up and coming" or "abstract" areas.

The new RAE results indicate the percentage of *submitted" staff output that is internationally outstanding, nationally outstanding, or something like that, I think there's 4 catagories