University Grads - A quick question

[craptakular]

I studied Earth Science at UEA. Went into Environmental risk and water management, now in asset management at a utilities company.

Thinking of a masters in Mining/Environmental Engineering or Environmental Geology.

 

[Judgeneo]

I'm going to start my A2 course in september, so my applications have to be in then, and I'm taking maths. I have no idea where it's going to take me, but I'm taking it because I love it. I previously wanted to take medicine and be a doctor, but when I realised that I was looking at universities based on the ability to study maths at the side just for personal enjoyment, that I realised I wanted to do my degree in it.

Maths is a great choice for a degree.


Though I do say that with some bias as I'm studying maths and physics currently.
I always enjoyed maths and wanted to continue studying it, but discovered interesting physics during my A-levels so decided to study both. Huge amount of career choice at the end of the degree, I'm now trying to decide what area to go into

 

[[DOD]Asprilla]

Didn't have clue what I wanted my career to be when I was doing my A-levels so I chose a degree I thought I might enjoy and be quite good at. Still didn't know what I wanted to do so did another degree.

Now have successful career but still wouldn't say it was my life's dream. Work is something I do when I'm not spending time with my family and friends; nothing more.

 

[Shicky]

It sounds like you are trying to convince us that your degree is superior than Computing Science. I am not saying that you are incorrect as I know nothing about your course however why are you taking such a defensive stance?

In his defence I did CS at the same university (I'm guessing QUB?) and Games is a much more difficult course, however a lot of that is to do with the fact its a new course and QUB throw you into random modules which have little relevance.

However a dose of realism is required pete, from your course I know one person working in games currently. All the others drop to CS or at least end up working in a typical development role for a finance company or otherwise.

 

[UncleRuckus]

Cool story bro.

I'm doing computer games design, its the exact same course as computer science except we do extra modules every year, and extra assingments (and our course is 5 years with placement, CS do 4 with placement). But, the assingments we do do that are the same as computer science, we have to do extra stuff in them. Its an advanced compuer programming degree and we have to work very hard.

So what you probably did one of those engineering/law degrees you boasted about well I googled your name and your bebo profile Matt Glover shows your working in tescos.

So congrats, can I have a bag of tesco brand oven fries with that please.

Just curious do you get a bachelor of science at the end of it, also which university is it with?

 

[sigma]

Sort of wish I didn't choose a Russell Group Uni tbh as I don't really think it'll make much difference and I'd probably have got a first.

 

[Amp34]

The PRIMARY reason for being at University is to better your career by taking a tough course in a subject useful to the real world.

The amount of people who say 'Isn't Uni easier than 6th form' are on a completely other wavelengh to the engineering, medical and law students from top end Universities.

'Oh I did computer games design'. Well congratulations, can I have fries with that please.

So many issues with this post...

The primary reason for University used to be to educate people, now, with the huge number going it has changed to being to get a job. University used to be primarily what you did to get into Academia, apprenticeships were where the jobs were at! I do agree however in that for most people they should be looking into what sort of job they can get at the end of it...

Isn't uni a lot easier...? Well I found it so yes, because I di maths, physics and chemistry at A-Level, my masters was easier than A-Level as well (although there was a lot more time spent on working). Just depends on what you did at A-Level and how hard you found it. What's a "top university"? Considering before you answer I'd like to point out any accredited course (like most in the engineering world and within a lot of other areas) should be of the same difficulty, that's the point of accredation and external examining. A straw poll of some of my masters colleagues recently just showed this... I'll agree with the latter though, but it's all about the type of course more than the university...

As for me, well I started out in Engineering because I thought I'd like it and it was a good career path. Hated it because it was to repetative and boring so changed to a much easier degree () and did an earth science degree instead. Far more interesting.

You do need to think through your options before you start though, even if you want to do a degree you think will have lots of jobs at the end of it, but don't be afraid to change track.

 

[Devrij]

Personally I picked a subject which I was going to enjoy rather than aiming at a particular job afterwards. It was suggested to me at the time, by a university head of department whose wife my Dad worked with, that unless you want to do something that requires a specific degree to do, it's better to do something you are interested in as you are more likely to stick with it and hence do better.

I did a four year MPhys course in Astrophysics and thoroughly enjoyed it. I did consider that this was a course which covered physics, maths and some computing and applied them to an area I was interested in instead of being more just theoretical.

I still can't say that I really know what I want to do ... after university I fell into IT and have been doing that ever since. It's interesting some of the time but there are time when I feel I should be doing more.

This is what I did, although I did a Ba in sociology, which I figured would apply to quite a few government/corporate positions. Was fascinating and I did well, but still not sure what I want to do with it. I started a Beng degree first because I wanted to build bridges, but dropped out, so choosing something interesting certainly worked for me.

 

[UK-AL05]

Sort of wish I didn't choose a Russell Group Uni tbh as I don't really think it'll make much difference and I'd probably have got a first.

I've done a bachelors and a masters at a non-russell and a russell, and I personally did not notice much difference. I think its one of those things hyped up by the media, since most people never actually go to both, they are not really in a position to make up their own mind.

 

[Rich_L]

Didn't really know what I wanted to do before, still don't know now

Fortunately Cambridge allows you to take a broad range of subjects which I ended up narrowing down to Pathology based on stuff I liked, it was an awesome time for girls, drinks and fun of various sorts but the main thing I got out of it was that I didn't want to work in a lab or do a 'science' career.

 

[Nitefly]

A levels easier than your masters degree?!? Are you having a bloomin' laugh?

My masters was more solid than a post-constipation poo!

 

[Amp34]

I've done a bachelors and a masters at a non-russell and a russell, and I personally did not notice much difference. I think its one of those things hyped up by the media, since most people never actually go to both, they are not really in a position to make up their own mind.

This IMO (and those on my course)... For postgrad it probably does make a positive difference whether you go to a Russell/1994 or an ex Poly. At undergrad however those that went to non Russell groups thought their teaching was better than those that went to Russell groups, on my masters at least. Makes sense, because a research university is about research, most of the staff there will be there to research first and teach second, whereas a lot of the teahing universities will have staff more dedicated to teaching first...

A levels easier than your masters degree?!? Are you having a bloomin' laugh?

My masters was more solid than a post-constipation poo!

Soild I agree. I worked a lot more on my masters however that was workload. The acual difficulty/step up from undergrad was a lot less than from GCSE to A-Level, which is one of the contributing factors to why A-Levels have always been said to be a lot more difficult than Degree level.

 

[Kraven]

Cool story bro.

I'm doing computer games design, its the exact same course as computer science except we do extra modules every year, and extra assingments (and our course is 5 years with placement, CS do 4 with placement). But, the assingments we do do that are the same as computer science, we have to do extra stuff in them. Its an advanced compuer programming degree and we have to work very hard.

So what you probably did one of those engineering/law degrees you boasted about well I googled your name and your bebo profile Matt Glover shows your working in tescos.

So congrats, can I have a bag of tesco brand oven fries with that please.

That degree might be better than your university's offering of Computer Science, however the games industry is very hard to get into and if you are applying to a company not associated with games I think they will see Computer Science as a much better degree on paper, could be wrong.... Not trying to poo poo your degree but I think a lot of computer game development roles ask for Computer Science.

 

[Energize]

The PRIMARY reason for being at University is to better your career by taking a tough course in a subject useful to the real world.

Wrong. There are so many mature and retired students not learning a degree for the purpose of getting a better job.

 

[Destination]

I chose a degree which provided a professional qualification, and then took an intercalated degree along the way.
Meant I was qualified for work and employment with my degree.

 

[Stumble Bum]

I was made to go to school. I did not like this.

I liked logical subjects at school so I chose to study Accounting at college.

I liked accounting at college so I chose to study Accounting & Finance at uni.

I liked my Tax module as part of my university degree so I got a placement year working in a Tax Department of an accountancy firm.

I liked my year in the Tax department of an accountancy firm so I got a job after I completed my degree in a Tax department for an accountancy firm.

I like Tax so i'm currently doing my professional Tax qualifications.

I like studying my ATT tax qualification, I shall therefore do my CTA tax qualification afterwards.

The CTA qualification is the devils work, so I fear I will not like it.

Thanks for reading.

 

[JonJ678]

I read natural science on the basis that maths / physics / chemistry & biology was what I'd read at A level. This was tragically misinformed, none of them bore any remote resemblance to the A level material. I subsequently failed exams and was thrown out, and am now reading mechanical engineering at a lesser university. It's still very difficult, and it's less interesting, but it's possible to do other things without everything going terribly wrong.

Career path looks pretty straightforward, it's either graduate & move to london, working for pwc or similar, or read a doctarate and go into research. A fair few people go into research without the doctarate, I'd like to know how well that works out for them.

It would be a really good idea to look at the course before applying to it. "I'd like to be an engineer" is different to "I'd like to learn to handle multiple simultaneous deadlines".Whichever one you're considering, someone on here will have read it and can produce a list of textbooks (with some effort you can find reading lists online too). It's possible to make the start of the course go much more smoothly by improving background knowledge, and the process will tell you whether you want to do the course after all.

For example, starting electrical engineering without a decent grounding in C will make life very difficult. Mechanical engineering or physics will go much better if you're good at maths, as in beyond A at further marths standard.

 

[alx]

Right,

This has been a bit of a pet hate of mine for quite some time, on this forum we see quite a few threads start up with people who are unsure of university/did a degree they didn't like/or did a degree with no prospect and then seem to whinge and moan on here.

So this has lead me to believe that I must be different to most of the forum as I knew what I wanted to do after uni before I even picked my degree. One of two career paths, RAF Pilot or Engineer, when I spoke to the RAF at 14 about them sponsoring my uni degree I was told they would not if I was doing a course like maths of physics, which was my plan, I withdrew my application and went on to the second choice.

So my question to OcUK Grads, when you chose you uni course, did you pick it on a subject you enjoyed? Did you look at your career path afterwards? Or did you do something you thought you'd have a lot of free time on and be with a load of girls?

KaHn

I knew what I wanted to do quite early (prob during GCSEs), ie a science/engineering degree at uni. I decided pretty quickly that for me I'd prefer an engineering degree and career over a pure science one due to the applied side of it.

Rest sort of followed on from there.

 

[IceBus]

Right,

So my question to OcUK Grads, when you chose you uni course, did you pick it on a subject you enjoyed? Did you look at your career path afterwards? Or did you do something you thought you'd have a lot of free time on and be with a load of girls?

KaHn

Started my degree at 21 so I knew exactly what I wanted to do/study. Studied Politics BA, focusing on democratization and conflict resolution. Since graduating I've worked in conflict resolution in the Middle East and been an international election observer in Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire.

 

[A.N.Other]

I've always wanted to do something sciencey since I was around 10, at a guess. Got that from my Mum, who used to work in a lab. Apart from a small time when I was considering science journalism, that's always been my plan.

So, did the appropriate GCSEs, AS and A levels, did Biology at uni and am now doing a PhD. Sorted.