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By the time I graduate what will a degree be worth?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6599643.stm
Is just another story today, of less confidence in degrees as a marker of ability and competence. 30 years ago *old man mode* a degree used to be exceptional and literally opened doors everywhere. In 2010 when I graduate, I expect I'll still be on the bottom rung, but just have a piece of paper that will give me a crack at a better job.
When my degree will cost me aproximately £24,000 in student loans (approx £3000 per year tuition, £3200 maintence), not including any other debts I manage to run up (hopefully none) - it seems a big price to pay when the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, and most people in further education now are going to find themselves priced out of the housing market.
rpi has increased more than wages in the past few years http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6599291.stm, which means if you're not earning a lot of money now then maybe you won't be able to.
For one, I don't like the way things are looking in the economy. We are returning to a rich and poor state.
But perhaps selfishly, I'm more concerned whether a degree has lost it's worth, and is anything more than another piece of paper to allow entry to learning. Like a driving licence in one way.
Or does it still have a lot of prestige attatched to it? I know in Europe, graduates from British Universities are often seen as geniuses.
Is just another story today, of less confidence in degrees as a marker of ability and competence. 30 years ago *old man mode* a degree used to be exceptional and literally opened doors everywhere. In 2010 when I graduate, I expect I'll still be on the bottom rung, but just have a piece of paper that will give me a crack at a better job.
When my degree will cost me aproximately £24,000 in student loans (approx £3000 per year tuition, £3200 maintence), not including any other debts I manage to run up (hopefully none) - it seems a big price to pay when the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, and most people in further education now are going to find themselves priced out of the housing market.
rpi has increased more than wages in the past few years http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6599291.stm, which means if you're not earning a lot of money now then maybe you won't be able to.
For one, I don't like the way things are looking in the economy. We are returning to a rich and poor state.
But perhaps selfishly, I'm more concerned whether a degree has lost it's worth, and is anything more than another piece of paper to allow entry to learning. Like a driving licence in one way.
Or does it still have a lot of prestige attatched to it? I know in Europe, graduates from British Universities are often seen as geniuses.
Post edited by JustV on
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I've been feeling really guilty lately for thinking that my other friend's degrees are a piece of piss. The work I've got on and the work they've got on is a complete joke. However, I think its pretty obvious from the figures given in that article, that a standard Law degree is MUCH harder than say, a standard computer science degree. It surely can't be a coincidence that medicine and law is at the bottom of that table?
I really don't think that a 2:1 in say pyschology (sorry if I offend anyone here) is the same as a 2:1 in Law.
I work so fucking hard compared to my friends. It really gets to me. The work some of my friends have to do is nowhere near that of what I have to do on my course. Its not just the amount of work I have to do either, its the actual difficulty of the work. I look at some of my friend's work and its reminds me of A Level stuff.
In the first year, I had to choose a module in another subject. I chose a Criminology module (sorry yet again if I offend anyone here - I'm going by MY university). I didn't really attend the lectures for this module and revised for the exam the day before and got a first. At the time same, I also had two law exams whose lectures I had attended and spent weeks revising for and barely just passed. Something doesn't seem quite right there.
I'm only going to get a 2:2 (although I've been getting 2:1s all year but I did shit last year) and I really do feel that I've had to work 10 ten times harder than those who get 2:1s in other subjects. I'm not the only one on my course who feels like this too. I have a mate does a combined honours in Forensic Science and Law. She gets mostly 2:1s (and she's also had a few firsts I think) in all her Science stuff yet in her previous law work, she's had a fail, some thirds and a few 2:2s yet she works harder in her law work I'd say. She has even admitted herself that Law is much harder.
I'm beginning to wish I chose another degree tbh because I'm almost certain I could get a 2:1 or even a first in another subject if I worked as hard as I do now. Companies don't really give a shit what course you studied nowadays as long as you have a 2:1. Its shit, it really is shit.
But hey, there is nothing you can do about it. I should stop being so bitter that alot of students have it easier really.
But if you look at Mathematics, it was at the top of the table. Does that mean it's one of the easiest subjects?
In actuality, even from A level and GCSE level, the skew of grades in Mathematics is pretty much A * / A / first or fail. There are some who get middle grades but you either get it or you don't, generally speaking. Obviously I can only talk for Maths as that's what I know, but having looked at compsci stuff it's not terribly easy.
My friend actually who's doing law said it was really easy because he didn't have to go to many lectures. But different learning styles suit different people at the end of the day. I couldn't do Maths at university because there was no interaction whatsoever, it was just spoke at you then you had to go and hide in your room and just do it repeatedly. Whereas my new course has workshops where you group of to solve tasks, and assesments that are based on that rather than an exam.
I just don't like how the confidence in education is falling. 'exams are getting easier'. I was told by a bitter teacher that we weren't as clever as her because o levels were harder than a levels. Well sod her. It's athetic to imply students these days don't work hard for their degrees - there are some who can get away with it - but I worked hard for my a levels and GCSEs and even some of my friends said I didn't work for it.
We seem to be in a culture where exams are less about passing and more about failing. There is seldom lots of praise for doing really well on an exam - would we carry on with them if it wasn't for the morbid fear of failing? As soon as you have passed with your first or 2:1, again - you're not seen as exceptional even then, just to have got past the first hurdle.
I know not all jobs are like that, but more and more it seems to be the attitude that a degree is easy and anyone who doesn't have one is thick, so at the same time people who do have one aren't anything special.
I don't understand how having more or less lectures can make a subject easier or harder? Apart from having more time to do work? The only people who I've heard say that Law is easy is those that are on firsts. They still have to work stupidly hard though. There is only two or three students on my course who are going to get a first (we all know who they are!) and they live in the library.
I don't and never have, had many lectures. However, for the past 3 years, I've had 5 assessed seminars a fortnight which all take about a day to prepare for. They are worth about 20% of our course overall. We are given a grade in each seminar for how much we say and what you say. They are assessed like a piece of coursework or an exam. Its like I've constantly been examined and stuff and I have had to work really hard for them this year.
I have other friends though, who in my uni, they have seminars but they get the FULL 20% just for attending?! What the fuck? Really gets on my nerves. We can't really get more than 16% really as they rarely give anything above 75% in them and to get that, you've gotta be really bright.
I think Law is the only course at my Uni that has assessed seminars too. Alot of my friends do fuck all, just a piece of coursework here and there and a few piss easy exams at the end of the year.
As for Maths, I hate Maths and being honest, I probably would struggle with it and find it really hard. I think you are either good at Maths or you're not which is why I think the figures are as they are up there.
eta: also, with Maths (and correct me if I'm wrong because I don't know what Maths degrees are like) but isn't there only one correct answer?
Sorry but that does offend me and I don't think you should make such comments about subjects you obviously have no idea about. Maybe "Psychology" is a mickey mouse degree at your University but it certainly isn't at mine. This whole high and mighty my subject is so much harder than yours really gets me going.
And to the OP, a degree is not just a set of results on a paper. A degree can be whatever you make it- the experience you gain with it through related work, the people you meet and connections you make. You can't just expect to walk into a good job because you have a degree you will have to work at that as well. Thinking ahead and trying to get summer work experience (as you discussed in another thread) is a great way of improving your chances.
I'm basing these judgements on the course/other courses at my own University, not elsewhere.
I dont think any of the major sciences have had a decrease in the quality of graduates. high science employers look for good grades from good university's (as in, those high in the league tables). the same will probably apply for law firms looking for graduates to take on as trainees.
although perhaps there are now more people in total at uni, studying what could possible be said to be non-essential degrees, I dont think over all, that the number of, or quality of academic the UK's universities are producing is decreasing.
however, there certainly are more people going to uni now and doing something "just because", and then going on to a career in an area that you don't need a degree to do in the first place. perhaps this looks bad when you look at the raw figures, but you have to take into account that uni is seen as a big social thing too.
trying to compare law and computer science, put a law graduate into a computer science course and they will probably struggle. they're not very good things to compare.
and only having "one correct answer" for pieces of maths is not strictly true. nor would it make finding said answer any easier!
is it a combined course?
Joint honours Spanish & Russian. 4 years and I still only get a BA Hons which does kinda annoy me.
I coulda done a 4 years physics course like that, with one year in industry unassessed, but I didnt think it was worth it. for languages though, it's obviously very important! so now I'm doing a postgrad MSc to get extra letters after my name
The whole MA thing does bug me a little but I know deep down as a linguist I'm fundamentally superior to most people anyway so I don't lose any sleep over it
there will never be a "right" standard for exams, I dont like exams at all, (I'm terrible at revision.)
and there will always always be someone who does better that you and yet seems to do less work, the sooner you accept that and ignore it the better! usually these people do more work than you realise, they just dont tell you about it.
The essay based subjects need you to have a decent arguement technique and essay style, but learning that is pretty easy... it's just that the marks are so vague when the exams are essay based that you can't really give top marks often... whereas when the answers are definitive in science based subjects, people will get top marks a lot more often.
I've heard history is pretty much a doss... only a couple lecture hours a week and you can just do 200 words a day on each essay and ace it, is pretty annoying but I spose you get more self worth from finishing a degree that was really difficult... pity employers dont give a shit about that
I used to be a maths whizz and had a mental image of everything in my head. These days, I don't even know what I'm good at
..it will set me up for a career in accountancy anyway though. A bit of mathsy stuff but also being in the real world sometimes
I'm not sure if this is true or not, someone told me that fresh graduates weren't looked upon fondly either. Someone who's 'worked their way up' gets more cred than someone who went to uni and walked out with a 2:1 according to someone on another forum (referring to joining the police), where your colleagues look down at you even if you're capable.
Well, I don't know anyone who doesn't find a Law degree challenging but ok
I wouldn't say he was the brainiest person I've ever met - he has average smarts ish, you know getting regular Cs. Just a feckin workaholic. Completed some of his a levels before we'd finished gcses (in design) because it was volume mainly.
He got top marks and nobody ever realised he used MSofts own templates for his presentation folders
From my experience it's 1000 times worse sitting down to a bit of work and not even understanding wtf you have to do, so u can be there for 2 hours and make no progress, than sitting thinking shit i have a 10k word essay to do.
The former just leaves you feeling dumb and unmotivated, least you can see you're making progress with other ones!
Physical sciences 18.3%
Engineering & technology 18.2%
Computer science 13.2%
Languages 13.0%
Historical & philosophical studies 12.7%
Creative arts & design 12.5%
Subjects allied to medicine 11.7%
Biological sciences 11.2%
Agriculture & related subjects 11.0%
Architecture, building & planning 9.4%
Social studies 9.0%
Education 7.9%
Mass communications & documentation 7.5%
Business & administrative studies 7.3%
Law 5.4%
Combined 3.9%
Medicine & dentistry 3.4%
Veterinary science 1.5%
I don't think this one bit reflects how easy or difficult a course is. What I would guess is that it reflects how easy or difficult to get on a degree course of that type (the only one I can't explain is veterinary science). In my experience, it's hideously easy to get a place on a law degree course. Maybe not necessarily a good one at a good uni, but it still contributes to the figures. I know two people doing law right now. The first had to get all A's at A-Level, as well as doing work experience for two years prior to going to uni at a solicitors office, and still only got onto her course by the skin of her teeth. My step-brother did okay at A-level, not brilliant, had no extracurricular activities related to law, got a conditional offer (of 3 C's I think), and did the bare minimum to get in. That shows the polarity between just two different courses at particular universities.
Like any other field of study, you get good courses and poor courses (and employers tend to know which is which), but I'd say that law, along with any other subject which doesn't have high costs, tends to get a higher proportion of courses which are essentially designed to bring in money for the more expensive courses. No-one is going to pay a fortune for new science facilities, then not get the best lecturers and be extremely selective about the students they choose. But I don't buy this my course is more valuable/harder than your course crap, and if there is such a thing as a mickey mouse subject, then I think the above statistics would point to the fact that there are more students doing law, who aren't entirely serious about it, than a lot of other subjects.
Oh, and just for the record, I don't know a single person in the world who got a first, who didn't blatantly work really hard for it. In any subject.
I completely agree, there's nothing worse than sitting there staring at something for hours and getting nothing done :no:
what do those stats represent...? either I misread or you forgot to say
Oh shit, sorry - they represent the percentage of students getting firsts on those courses.
I thought that might be what they were
:yes:
What annoys me about my course, is that there is some people on it who barely passed their A Levels. I needed BBB to get on my course. However, if you do a combined honours here, you need much less. For combined students, at the end of your first year, you are allowed to either carry on both subjects or choose one to do fully so there are alot of people on my course who came to uni with shit grades who did a combined degree in the first year but then chose to do solid law in the last two years. This doesn't seem right considering the students who chose to do straight law in the first place needed higher grades.
I also tend to think that the difficulty of the course is also down to the Uni too. I mean, if I studied at Oxford or Cambridge, I'd expect to be challenged much more and the course to be ten times harder.
And Muse, Law is really hard to get your head around too even though it isn't computery. Infact, I'm really struggling to study for my finals here
Anyway, the general point was the science/technical subjects will almost always have a higher percent of firsts because there are much clearer marking guidelines and also a lot of people in those subjects dropout when they realise what the course is truely like, so the ones that continue it are the really enthusiastic ones a lot of the time.
I agree that the difficulty of the course is down to the uni syllabus and marking a fair bit, but I think the lecturers /lecture slides are a massive part of it too.. bad lecturers have ruined half my modules lol =\. Half of them just aren't trained to empart knowledge to people, all they really wanta do is research but they have to lecture to get more money or because its a requirement or something.
I go to the SILENT section for a reason. Hehe.
Yup, there is people on my course that find assessed seminars really easy and really useful.
I'm only basing my opinion of psychology on my flat mate's course. Her course is actually a joke. She is in two days a week and never has any work to do. I've also seen her essays and stuff and it just looks really easy. I'm only basing my opinion on psychology at MY uni, not elsewhere.
You have a fair point about how people are different and find different things difficult but I think that each course should be equal in the level of difficulty tbh. I realise that thats very hard to judge though.
eta: I'm not making a dig about your degree or anyone elses on here. I can't judge courses at other Universities. I'm only expressing my opinion of what I think of some of my friend's courses whose work I've actually seen.
Oh, and one of my old flatmates studied events management in the first year and she had more work and was in uni more than the rest of us surprisingly :razz:
I'm not going to graduate for a couple more years (assuming I do) what with one thing and another, but when I do I'll have a MEng and a BA (Cantab) in Chemical Engineering from one of the top unis in the country. I'm pretty sure that will mean a lot to almost every employer.
I'm also pretty sure that it will mean a damn site more than a degree in film studies or outdoor education from a uni that no one has ever heard of.
I'm not saying I'm better than people on other courses, more that my degree will say a lot about me, whereas for other people it will be other things that say more about them.
It's an interesting debate this one actually. I sat an exam on Monday in Articulatory and Impressionistic Phonetics, and it was about the right level I felt for what I'd learned in that module. After the exam, the lecturer spoke to a few of us and was saying how we will be the last people to do Forensic Phonetics at a BA level, as they've decided that it's asking too much of undergrads. Also, that the exam we'd just sat would be classed as a Finals exam at other unis, but this is our second year. Apparently York prides itself in making things difficult for other students!
That's not just some randomer's opinion either, by the way, that's the guy who is the chairman of the board of people who read and assess the research from all the universities and award the levels, you know out of 5 and stuff.
I do think my degree is really difficult, but I'm sure everyone thinks that about their own subject. Some of my friend's degrees sound much harder than my own - learning languages for example. I'd hate to do something like Politics or History where it mostly just seems to be research and essays, at least mine is quite involved and practical. Yep, I've just spent a term where one hour a week was dedicated to making funny noises!
Would it be fair to say that employers now look for the fact that you have a degree, and not really what it's in? Unless you want to get onto a graduate scheme or something. To me, I think my degree will mean a lot personally but probably bugger all to anybody else. I'll be pleased that (hopefully!) I will have finished a degree and I'm proud that I got in to York.
End of rambling.