Do you have to attend degree course?
Is it necessary to attend a course at University for several years to be able to get a degree, or can you just take the final exam and get it?
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The time was you got your lower degrees just by sitting an exam and you did not need to go to tutorials and seminars. Now it is all about continuous assessment so you have to be there to be assessed, in some places every week!
Even with "distance learning" there is often a requirement to turn up occasionally.
Or you can just buy a degree off the Internet!
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there isn't just one final exam, and even 30 years ago when I did my first degree your second year results counted towards the final classification awarded. In my time it was examinations in June but now the exams are done at two times (usually January and June) following the two semester pattern. Depending upon course and university on course assessment may also count. Also nowadays attendance at lectures is closely monitored with some universities requiring students to swipe in their Id cards on arrival and students are kicked out for serious non attendance.
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Surely the £9000 fees are for students enrolled for a three year course. I am not sure distance learning fees are as much although of course there are usually over a longer period. One of my Son's is currently doing another MA but fortunately being supported by his employer.
David
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If you already know all the stuff, then why take the course? Also it is impossible that an 18 year old will know all the stuff isn't it?
However I see where you're coming from with about the £9000 charged by the Universities. Like you I think this should be scrapped and the money required to run a University course be funded by the taxpayer and not the student.
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BTW you do realise that this £9000 fee is set by the government not the Universities? It's actually a £9000 capped limit or what universities can charge up to, but most do. Unless you live and study in Scotland where there is no charge.
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It is currently over £9000 per year, per student, so students come out loaded with debt. Repayment only kicks in once a certain salary threshold is reached. Some OU degrees cost thousands of pounds to fund as well. I think the drop out rate for some courses is very high. Some pathways to a career are very clear via Uni, others not so clear.
Actually getting a job, something that the individual is truly interested and committed towards, then being lucky enough to have that employer fund higher level (degree, diploma) work orientated qualifications is possibly the most desirable way of career progression nowadays. Have to knuckle down at school and college to get the basics though, to get a decent work placement. Hard work as well, working full time and studying. But surely a better start not having the looming debt at the very start of your working and true adult life?
Young adults have to make some very deep decisions nowadays, at a very young age.
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If you think you know all the stuff you become a lecturer and find out you don't.
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Now that is a very good and very true point.
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So if you don't need to be taught what universities can teach you why do you want a degree?
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Some folk like letters after their name
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I left school at 15 went and got an apprenticeship did five years with 1 day a week at Brixton Tech and retired as a senior manger, who would have an open door, and could still give advise to staff if they had need of i t,where as later on it was "parachuted in""graduates" who were given managerial posts,who if there was a "problem" would consult their "spreadsheets"and if it did not appear on them they were flumaxed, getting down and dirty on the shop floor was an Alien enviroment , their attitude was/is Just order a new one (and now probably made in the Far East
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I would suggest that Ian, you're not totally clear what a university education actually gives you. It is not about facts and recall, or acquiring new facts and being able to recall them in an exam. In fact simple recall won't get you a degree anywhere in the UK. The actual subject in most cases doesn't really matter its the intellectual processes learned along the way and the fact that these are transferable skills to be used anywhere. That's what makes graduates so appealing to most employers. I suggest you google Bloom's taxonomy for a fuller picture but at the bottom end is simple recall and to apply that recall. These are covered at GCSE and A level, or most vocational qualifications like Btec or City and Guilds. Universities or higher education rather, looks and teaches at the higher thought processes.
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Yes I do. At the moment Apprenticeships are partly funded by the taxpayer. The employer will pay the apprentice a minimum wage (currently £3.50 an hour) and pay for their training, but employers can access government funding for wages and training. See https://www.gov.uk/apprenticeships-guide/pay-and-conditions for more details.
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QED
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The graduates I had to "instruct" in their roles had one stock answer that seemed to be"instilled"in them, when asked what their degree brought to the post it was "a degree proves one can absorb knowledge not the subject's that one studies"???) I Was glad that my retirement oportunity came when i was just 51
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Ian
Perhaps you could give us a bit more background information to your original question?
David
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The proportion of graduates that work in the field in which they qualified is very low. Somewhere less than a third as I recall.
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There does appear to be a theory that, having a degree means that you can do any sort of job.
This probably explains why you see BBC staff reporting on subjects that are not what they did as a degree e.g. the young lady who does the financial bit on BBC Breakfast did some sort of science degree - and this possibly explains why she is clueless about financial issues and her reports are embarrassingly superficial.
In answer to David's question, I gained my qualification by studying in my own time then taking the various exams and then used work experience followed by the final assessment to qualify, again in my own time.
As this qualification is 'higher' than a degree, I just wondered whether the same sort of route could be followed for degrees.
I have always believed that 'real world' experience is far better than the cosseted, detached from real life experience of university and therefore wondered if there was a better way of achieving degrees.
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I don't think University degrees offer a cosseted none realistic experience of learning. I did my degree over three decades ago, and was out in the field every year three months of each academic year, putting the lecture room theory and practice into place in a very challenging environment, where each day threw up a different problem, where complex relationships between individuals and established teams had to be negotiated, and where I had to produce an end product that didn't result in injury or death, and leave a sense of achievement in those I worked with. I was grateful for the feedback process from my lecturers and peer group students a well. The social side of being a student was very good as well....!
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My boss, who was a Partner with a firm of solicitors (he dealt in Commercial Property), and all other solicitors have to attend seminars all the time and build up a certain amount of points per year to keep their certificate. If they don't, then they lose their certificate and cannot practice. The seminars are all about updates in law and anything else
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I work at a university and for our course (medicine) plenaries are not compulsory. However many other components are such as clinical practice at GP and hospitals. I've always worried that a doctor wouldn't be able to diagnose an ailment because they didn't attend the lecture one day
.Students are continually assessed throughout the 5 years with final exams before graduating.
Aside from medicine, most degrees only prove you can work at that level and doesn't prove you are more clever than someone without one.
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Mmmmm, what are the words I'm looking for. . . .Err, ah I remember-self aggrandizement
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I'm very flattered that you see my route to qualification as something that might be bragged about, Rocky.
However, unlike many with degrees, I don't see it as something to brag about or to demand to be treated as 'better' than anyone else. It was just a way to advance in my career.
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