Needs to be more academic vigour. I know people who went through 3 year degrees sitting no more than 2 or 3 exams.

Essay-based assessments are often little more than an exercise in detecting plagerism.

Unfortunately its often the employers who enforce that misconception by insisting on such qualifications for even the most mundane of jobs - when was the last time you saw a job advertised for an "office junior", or heard of an employer willing to take on a 16 year old and give them a five year on the job apprenticeship and pay for their day release or night school training ?

The misconception is that a 21 year old will leave university ready trained for the world of commerce in whatever field they choose, which as most of us are all too aware is a gross misconception, albeit a very cheap option for the employers.

Many ?

Are you sure about that word "many" ?

I see precious little evidence of it being "many", "a few" I would agree and only in certain professions, its certainly not "many".

Agreed. Especially in the first year. The 'university experience' generally means getting blasted out of your skull on cheap vodka 4 nights a week, staying in bed until early afternoon and, very occasionally, doing just enough academic study to prevent yourself getting thrown off the course.

Not a scenario I recognise and I'm in one of two universities every working day.

It may not fit the popular misconception you are propagating here but a degree education says something about a persons ability academically and otherwise other than just that they received a higher education in a certain subject.

It's always been like that and this is why companies large enough to have a general graduate recruitment program recruit graduates with degrees in many different subjects. The idea they would be better off recruiting a 16 year old and giving them five years training is another popular myth. If it were that simple then that is what they would do but they don't. A reason they don't is they have no idea if that 16 year old will be worth the effort five years down the line whereas by recruiting graduates they know what they have had to do to get their degree. Such companies are not stupid and you don't get a place on their schemes just because you have a degree but it is degree qualified people they are after.

If you go to a good University to study a good course then you need good grades. It's all very well saying that you only need 2 E's to study law, but it's at Leeds Met......

Can you give me an example of an employer asking for a degree qualification for a mundane job and even if you can are you suggesting this is the norm?



No, the misconception is that you think this in the first place. Why do you think graduate training schemes are call "training schemes"? Employers such as say M&S know a graduate in English or the Classics for example won't know anything about the retail sector but they take them on because of what their ability to get a degree says about them.

Again, not on all courses. I have 25 hours of lectures a week, along with labs which can be up to 10 hours. It's also necessary to put in around 20 hours personal study along with on average 2 assignments and 1 lab report each week.

The sweeping generalisation you make is the socially the perceived view on students but not often accurate. Of course some courses which require less work load and some people will indeed live like this during university life. However, that is reflected in the value of their qualifications post graduation.

Yes, my own eldest daughter for instance, she has a 2.1 law degree and gained a job at a legal administrators office, which in effect is an admin job. Its ok because that's what she wanted, not every law student wants to be Perry Mason but its fair to say that a law degree was not totally necessary for the job, but it was necessary to be considered for the job.



My opinion is formed from a time, not so long ago, when "training schemes" were the only way to recruit new employees and employers actually had to invest some money into training new employees, not always over five years but for those jobs that required a nationally recognised qualification then a five year commitment to the employee was an absolute from the employer.

It worked.

Of course it came off the profit margin, but it worked.

"E's" what?

Absolutely spot on.

Employers have been advertising jobs – and demanding you be a graduate, even if the job does not require a degree – for some years now. Couple that with the continuing demand of employers that young people should leave school perfectly trained for the workplace (regardless of what the workplace is): I remember, not that long ago, complaints from the CBI (I think) that people left school with no knowledge of customer relations. Well no – that's not what school is for.

Add in to that the moves to increase tertiary education – the same has happened in other countries too (see Ha-Joon Chang) – and you are inevitably going to end up with so-called pointless degrees.