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 Future War Cultist wrote:
Sometimes I feel like my degree was an expensive waste of time and money, Russell Group or not. Modern history. What the feth does that get you? Nothing.

Theoretically, a grounding in modern history from which you can pursue your own interests. I know plenty of history book writers who never did more than an undergrad.

 jhe90 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Yeah it was a law degree.


But the contact hours for that were awful, and we had to buy all our own books too.

I understand if you were in a science degree then that equipment is expensive, but the universities will literally get people's blood from stones if they can. Half the books could only be ordered from the on site shop and so on so forth.

Yep. Workshop/other fees. Book lists, pay for all own paper, and other gear your course needs yourself. Course they have a handy shop on campus...

Half the books cost a fortune and only use em for one semester.
And with new editions, second hand.. NOPE!

Law... That's a complex one... Books only get you so far, its not black and white.

Well that depends on who you ask.

I wasn't so anti EU in my younger days, it was only during University that I became so.

I was studying European Union law (so that a whole 12 weeks of my degree wasted off the bat.) But as I was going through notes it suddenly dawned upon me that there was no real basis for the EU to have the power that it does in regards to law.

When I brought this up in a seminar, asking how does the EU have the right to do this, because I wanted to know in regards to the law, I was shot down and told that this was a good thing end of discussion and good day and anything else was wrong.

It might be that the law department of Kent (where I went) had roughly 100 foreign students in my year alone, which works out at just over 25% of the law students. But it was ferociously pro-EU. Then again, universities are all about making money at the end of the day, and a foreign student is worth about 1 1/2 of a British one in terms of student fees.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Yeah it was a law degree.


But the contact hours for that were awful, and we had to buy all our own books too.

I understand if you were in a science degree then that equipment is expensive, but the universities will literally get people's blood from stones if they can. Half the books could only be ordered from the on site shop and so on so forth.

Yep. Workshop/other fees. Book lists, pay for all own paper, and other gear your course needs yourself. Course they have a handy shop on campus...

Half the books cost a fortune and only use em for one semester.
And with new editions, second hand.. NOPE!

Law... That's a complex one... Books only get you so far, its not black and white.

Well that depends on who you ask.

I wasn't so anti EU in my younger days, it was only during University that I became so.

I was studying European Union law (so that a whole 12 weeks of my degree wasted off the bat.) But as I was going through notes it suddenly dawned upon me that there was no real basis for the EU to have the power that it does in regards to law.

When I brought this up in a seminar, asking how does the EU have the right to do this, because I wanted to know in regards to the law, I was shot down and told that this was a good thing end of discussion and good day and anything else was wrong.

It might be that the law department of Kent (where I went) had roughly 100 foreign students in my year alone, which works out at just over 25% of the law students. But it was ferociously pro-EU. Then again, universities are all about making money at the end of the day, and a foreign student is worth about 1 1/2 of a British one in terms of student fees.

If your classing foreign STEM, then yes as some have a over cap exemption or did used to.
Due to course cost they where very expensive degrees.

Others,yeah, foreign makes up a good% of admissions. EU in particular as they get it free.
Uni get paid!

That's interesting... Very interesting as they act like its cast iron law.
They can hold us to it...

In reality.... Well that's more interesting!

Halls of residense... There's a extra 12k min over 3 years.

nareik wrote:
With the sky rocketing fees, I'd hope the students at university these days get all the materials and support they need to get a first otherwise they are being ripped off!

Everyone has the materials and support to get a first. Getting a first is easy if you put in any actual effort and ever bother to read the boring wads of paper you get at inductions (marking schemes are literally a 'how to get As' guide if you just tick the boxes).

welshhoppo wrote:"This is the basics, go teach yourself in your own time."

Waste of bloody time.

That's the entire point of university. It's for pointing people in the right drection, not spoonfeeding them.

welshhoppo wrote:
But the contact hours for that were awful, and we had to buy all our own books too.

Woe betide! It's not hard to buy books second hand.

A degree in history should give you the following transferrable skills.

Research.
Critical analysis of texts.
The ability to construct an argument with supporting evidence.
Writing effectively.
Verbal presentation.
Basic data analysis.

If you complete with a high mark you also demonstrate committment and perserverance. The main thing lacking is that as far as I am aware it is a relatively solo degree, so you don't get much practice in team working.

The fact is that most jobs in the modern economy are not heavily STEM based. Employers are not so interested in specific skills and knowledge as they are in the kind of transferrable skills and soft skills that equip a graduate to tackle a wide variety of tasks and also to learn new skills as they become relevant to changing roles.

nfe wrote:

nareik wrote:
With the sky rocketing fees, I'd hope the students at university these days get all the materials and support they need to get a first otherwise they are being ripped off!

Everyone has the materials and support to get a first. Getting a first is easy if you put in any actual effort and ever bother to read the boring wads of paper you get at inductions (marking schemes are literally a 'how to get As' guide if you just tick the boxes).

welshhoppo wrote:"This is the basics, go teach yourself in your own time."

Waste of bloody time.

That's the entire point of university. It's for pointing people in the right drection, not spoonfeeding them.

welshhoppo wrote:
But the contact hours for that were awful, and we had to buy all our own books too.

Woe betide! It's not hard to buy books second hand.

Future War Cultist wrote:Sometimes I feel like my degree was an expensive waste of time and money, Russell Group or not. Modern history. What the feth does that get you? Nothing.

What's it meant to get you? Some knowledge in a field you want to know about and some practice at processing data and communicating the results. That's it. Just learning. It is not, and has never been, the lie about getting you a job. That is not its purpose.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

The fact is that most jobs in the modern economy are not heavily STEM based. Employers are not so interested in specific skills and knowledge as they are in the kind of transferrable skills and soft skills that equip a graduate to tackle a wide variety of tasks and also to learn new skills as they become relevant to changing roles.

However when specific skills (and experience) are present you'll take those over the presumed soft skills.

For example I work in agrochemicals despite not having any specific chemical or agricultural degree, but because I have a long career in foreign trade and dealing with foreign public institutions. However everyone below me in the sales department except one are all agricultural engineers.

They are overqualified for the job, and probably there are better salesmen out there who would do it better than them (indeed the one that's not an engineer is in the top5) but when recruiting usually experience > specific knowledge > soft skills. You expect everyone to be adaptable, eager to learn and a problem solver, and indeed everyone introduces himself as such.

Universities are great at the whole Book scam thing.

New editions every year, insisting that the new edition is REQUIRED for the courses.

Can't shop online, because the books are written by the lecturers, then only sold in the shops on the university campuses.

Charging £50 per book.

Require roughly 3-5 books per class.

There were 3 classes in the first year for me.

Very rarely do the books help going from one year to the next. (I had some that did).

I bought two books at uni and barely used them. Waste of money. Use the library, all the essential course texts they have a dozen copies. If you're desperate to use them today they'll likely have a couple on short term loan meaning you'll never have to wait more than a couple of hours.

I'm feeling better about being a history graduate now. So thanks guys.

Perhaps it's just insecurity. I always feel like a bit of an underperforming dope compared to the STEM grads. Especially my cousin. He's got a PhD in chemical engineering and he's got it made. Then there was my friend with his degree in quantity surveying who went to work in the gold mines of Australia. He's also got it made. They're both pulling down near six figure salaries.

And then there's me...delivering blinds for £12 an hour.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Yeah it was a law degree.


But the contact hours for that were awful, and we had to buy all our own books too.

I understand if you were in a science degree then that equipment is expensive, but the universities will literally get people's blood from stones if they can. Half the books could only be ordered from the on site shop and so on so forth.

A lot of the fee money from degrees in the humanities and arts go to funding the Science degrees as they cost more than £9k a year per head to put on.

Though science degrees do have an advantage when it comes to books. For us it usually is not important what edition of a book you get as the changes will typically be minor corrections or layout changes rather than changes in the actual content. Maxwell's Laws won't have changed between a book published in 1999 and one in 2005, after all

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I bought two books at uni and barely used them. Waste of money. Use the library, all the essential course texts they have a dozen copies. If you're desperate to use them today they'll likely have a couple on short term loan meaning you'll never have to wait more than a couple of hours.

You'd think that wouldn't you?


Not a single book was available from the library for 90% of the times. They often had less than 5 copies of the books you needed.

And Kent had this lovely system where you could refresh your loan at home. It was a 2 week loan period and you could refresh it 6 times. So basically an entire semester.

The only books on short term loan were the very rare books. Regular books that you could buy didn't exist on short term loan.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I'm feeling better about being a history graduate now. So thanks guys.

Perhaps it's just insecurity. I always feel like a bit of an underperforming dope compared to the STEM grads. Especially my cousin. He's got a PhD in chemical engineering and he's got it made. Then there was my friend with his degree in quantity surveying who went to work in the gold mines of Australia. He's also got it made. They're both pulling down near six figure salaries.

And then there's me...delivering blinds for £12 an hour.

My perfect cousin has got degrees in Maths, Physics, and Bionics!

 welshhoppo wrote:


It's impossible to buy second hand law books. You know why? Because they change the edition every year. They don't put them online and you can't buy them from many retails because they pump the RRP up.

You can almost always get by with previous editions. The content will almost always be the same.

And as for the "point them in the right direction." That's utter bollocks. You're paying £200 an hour for someone to give you pointers. You should at least get some weekly 1 to 1.

Well, sorry, but you're expecting something that has never been the case in higher education. Nor should it be: academics simply don't have time for that nonsense, and anyone who needs it shouldn't be there in the first place.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I bought two books at uni and barely used them. Waste of money. Use the library, all the essential course texts they have a dozen copies. If you're desperate to use them today they'll likely have a couple on short term loan meaning you'll never have to wait more than a couple of hours.

You'd think that wouldn't you?


Not a single book was available from the library for 90% of the times. They often had less than 5 copies of the books you needed.

And Kent had this lovely system where you could refresh your loan at home. It was a 2 week loan period and you could refresh it 6 times. So basically an entire semester.

The only books on short term loan were the very rare books. Regular books that you could buy didn't exist on short term loan.

When I was at uni you could renew you loan at home unless someone had put in a request for it. In that case you'd have to bring it back when it was due.

Not in law.

New cases happen every day. Plus if you compare different editions they tend to move the sections around.


And that is a nasty low blow to a lot of people.


Besides I didn't say that we needed, but would you honestly pay £200 for something and not expect to have a personal interaction with someone.

Like you'd happily pay £200 to sit in an auditorium and listen to a guy talk for 45 minutes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I bought two books at uni and barely used them. Waste of money. Use the library, all the essential course texts they have a dozen copies. If you're desperate to use them today they'll likely have a couple on short term loan meaning you'll never have to wait more than a couple of hours.

You'd think that wouldn't you?


Not a single book was available from the library for 90% of the times. They often had less than 5 copies of the books you needed.

And Kent had this lovely system where you could refresh your loan at home. It was a 2 week loan period and you could refresh it 6 times. So basically an entire semester.

The only books on short term loan were the very rare books. Regular books that you could buy didn't exist on short term loan.

When I was at uni you could renew you loan at home unless someone had put in a request for it. In that case you'd have to bring it back when it was due.

That's how it should have worked. But it didn't work that way for some reason, I don't know whether Kent just didn't bother to implement it that way. But it was a right old pain and exceedingly unreliable.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Not in law.

New cases happen every day. Plus if you compare different editions they tend to move the sections around.


And that is a nasty low blow to a lot of people.


Besides I didn't say that we needed, but would you honestly pay £200 for something and not expect to have a personal interaction with someone.
Like you'd happily pay £200 to sit in an auditorium and listen to a guy talk for 45 minutes?

My PhD is well-funded by the government and I was funded by prizes through my first research degree, but I cheerfully paid for my second undergrad with exactly zero formal one-to-one for four years. I did have one-to-one interactions with staff, but none that were specifically tied to the degree, more about other research and potential future progression. So yes. I would.

That said, this is an incredibly entitled way to look at university education anyway. It is not there to service your needs. Students are not customers. You aren't buying a degree. You are paying for the facilities to attempt to gain a degree. You might think you're paying too much for those facilities (and I'd suggest everything above 0 is too much) but breaking your fees down into contact hours is utterly meaningless.

 welshhoppo wrote:
N
That's how it should have worked. But it didn't work that way for some reason, I don't know whether Kent just didn't bother to implement it that way. But it was a right old pain and exceedingly unreliable.

I can't say for when you were there, but I worked as a Library Assistant at the University of Kent from 2011-2012, and it did work that way then. You reserved a book, and the person who had it was unable to renew it.

 Ketara wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
N
That's how it should have worked. But it didn't work that way for some reason, I don't know whether Kent just didn't bother to implement it that way. But it was a right old pain and exceedingly unreliable.

I can't say for when you were there, but I worked as a Library Assistant at the University of Kent from 2011-2012, and it did work that way then. You reserved a book, and the person who had it was unable to renew it.

I probably bumped into you there at some point as I was there during that time.

All I know is that every time I requested a book I was unable to actually get it for whatever reason. So I just ended up buying the books. I mean I bought them anyway.

I don't have a lot of good things to say about Kent, it wasn't the brightest period of my life and my depression was really bad during those years.

The style of teaching varies between universities and course. At Oxford, for instance, you get a lot of 1-2-1 or small group tutorial time with top-level academics on most courses. That is the Oxford style and you don't get it at many other places. They aren't going to be spoon-feeding people in these sessions though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The style of teaching varies between universities and course. At Oxford, for instance, you get a lot of 1-2-1 or small group tutorial time with top-level academics on most courses. That is the Oxford style and you don't get it at many other places. They aren't going to be spoon-feeding people in these sessions though.

Most Russell Groups have small tutorial sessions. It'd be a rare thing to have one-to-one at these, even at Oxbridge (and it's probably research students taking them a lot of the time, not faculty), unless you happened to have an extremely small course. I've taught groups of three at Glasgow, but only by coindidence. It's counterproductive in most circumstances in my experience unless all the students are really good.

As with A-level, I feel classes that are too small become very quiet and lack community, important questions don't get asked because there's not enough interaction between students. You want people to get on well for any group projects and for questioning and discussion. You can't do that when there's almost no one there. One to one tutoring is fine for people cramming for exams, not for debate and discussion or group work and competition.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I'm feeling better about being a history graduate now. So thanks guys.

Perhaps it's just insecurity. I always feel like a bit of an underperforming dope compared to the STEM grads. Especially my cousin. He's got a PhD in chemical engineering and he's got it made. Then there was my friend with his degree in quantity surveying who went to work in the gold mines of Australia. He's also got it made. They're both pulling down near six figure salaries.

And then there's me...delivering blinds for £12 an hour.

So what are *you* going to do about it? If you believe you are undervalued (which given that you have a degree is almost a certainty) then what is it about you that means you can't get a better paid, higher quality job? What job would you want to do and what do you have to do to get there and when are you going to start doing that? If you want to be a chemical engineering, why not re-join university and undertake a second degree?

Rather than say "my degree is useless", perhaps it would be better to ask what skills you gained and ask yourself what you are not using to allow you to progress?

 welshhoppo wrote:

I probably bumped into you there at some point as I was there during that time.

All I know is that every time I requested a book I was unable to actually get it for whatever reason. So I just ended up buying the books. I mean I bought them anyway.

I don't have a lot of good things to say about Kent, it wasn't the brightest period of my life and my depression was really bad during those years.

If you interacted with the team up on first floor in the Templeman building, you probably did! Heck, you quite possibly met Reds8n too, he works on campus.

Tangentially, I had a friend who swapped from Law to Classics whilst I was there. She'd done it for a year, but found it totally soul-sucking. Now she's a highly paid banker at Halifax.

Funny how these things turn out.

it suddenly dawned upon me that there was no real basis for the EU to have the power that it does in regards to law.

When I brought this up in a seminar, asking how does the EU have the right to do this, because I wanted to know in regards to the law, I was shot down and told that this was a good thing end of discussion and good day and anything else was wrong.

and if a policeman isn't wearing his helmet he can't arrest you !

Your birth certificate makes you a corporation..

..all you have to do is renounce your citizenship and say you're a sovereign citizen and then the police can't arrest you !





meanwhile....





.... least their age will be verified before they sign up right ?

 Whirlwind wrote:

Rather than say "my degree is useless", perhaps it would be better to ask what skills you gained and ask yourself what you are not using to allow you to progress?

The problem with humanities degrees is that they essentially help you to develop highly generic skills. They're topped any day of the week in the employment line by anyone with experience. Your choices are to carry on with academia, settle into a job in human resources/advertising, convert to being an accountant/solicitor, try and get your foot in the door of a graduate scheme (civil service, banks, consultancy, whatever) or go entrepreneurial. All of which are open to anyone with any degree effectively, STEM or humanities.

Although there is actually one new option. My girlfriend was looking about trying to figure out what to do for a masters (since the state funds them now), and I advised her to go and do one in librarianship. Why? Because she'd just done 3 years of Creative Writing at Holloway, and by that stage, you're either a writer or you're not. Doing a masters in it wouldn't do anything except stave off the inevitable. Librarianship though?

Way I see it, do whatever you want for an undergrad. Then go back for your masters and specialise in something that'll get you a job. It doesn't have to be librarianship, there are other options. But if you pick a masters that puts you ahead of the 'generic' graduates in a specific field, you can more or less walk into that field and get a good salary straight off the bat instead of serving lattes.

One of my colleagues did a social anthropology degree followed by a law conversion course. He's now our main project manager, looking after the development of digital interactive English Language Teaching apps.

I honestly regret going to University, I simply wasn't cut out for it intellectually (not that I'm not intelligent, but I lack the intellectual drive and interest to succeed at academia) or socially (undiagnosed Autism/Aspergers. Just got my diagnosis last month). I did far better in schools (11 GCSE's, 4 A's, 3 B's. 4 C's), probably because of the more rigid and structured learning environment. In schools, you are taught. In Universities, you're largely expected to teach yourself. I didn't handle the transition well.

I wish I'd done something vocational instead, like a trade school.

 welshhoppo wrote:
I was studying European Union law (so that a whole 12 weeks of my degree wasted off the bat.) But as I was going through notes it suddenly dawned upon me that there was no real basis for the EU to have the power that it does in regards to law.

When I brought this up in a seminar, asking how does the EU have the right to do this, because I wanted to know in regards to the law, I was shot down and told that this was a good thing end of discussion and good day and anything else was wrong.

Surely the basis would be the agreements signed by governments joining the EU, would it not?

EU law isn't going to vanish overnight in March 2019. In fact, the knowledge of dealing with it will be even more important when we are on the outside and have to cope with it without having any say in its creation.