Be Excellent To Each Other

I worked on the make up counter at Boots.

No shit.

I worked in the Post Office. and finished work at 12 so got to go home and watch the world cup and eat McRibs.

True story, bro.

Heh.

Anyway, in hindsight I'm glad I did work experience in a shop, as it taught me one valuable lesson: it's boring, shitty work and I don't want to to settle for that route in life. I can do better, more fun things than that with the only time I'll ever exist.

Same here. It seemed to combine all of the sucky, soul crushing elements that you could possibly have in a work environment.

What do you do now Malaboobs?

Web + graphic design for a cartographer. I enjoy it, even if the pay is balls.

Well that's the main thing. And you can always ask for a payrise

Sure, but we've been struggling a bit lately. It's on the rise again now, though, so hopefully my long-overdue payrise will surface.

I hardly think that's representative of how degrees are graded nationally, esp. 'good' ones that don't involve gender studies, arty farty bollocks or sociology et al - at least I'd fecking well hope not. That being the case, Grim...'s idea seems like a pretty darn good one to me; nothing like a bit of negative incentive to concentrate one's mind, especially if despite all the fees now payable, you're STILL being subsidised by the working, hard pressed UK taxpayer.

A few of things.

1 - MailiA - don't make me give you an old tomato!

2 - As far as I understand it, the new rules actually end paying anything up front for the student, which would actually encourage people from poor backgrounds to study, as they don't have to pay anything to study unless they end up successful, which ultimately is a win, right?

3 - The figures bandied about are the maximum allowed. Surely not all courses will go for that? And if they try, and it does come to pass that people decide not to go to University, surely the market forces will bring down costs? Universities will want their places to be filled, and will adjust their economic models accordingly (one would hope).

4 - Saying something should or should not be done purely based on how things were in the past is a futile argument. The argument should be in no way about "Former students had X,Y and Z... it's not fair"; it should purely be on whether it is a good/bad/necessary idea.

South Africa put on a good tournament, don't you think?

As for people with degrees and without, I left school (and home) at 16, to start full time working life at £35/week on the shop floor as a trainee sheet metal worker. (I had worked in a large department store for 3 years before that, on Saturdays and school holidays). Now, in my early 40s, I am a millionaire with my own business - and I know plenty of others like me. I spend my time overseeing those with any number of Engineering degrees because, at the end of the day, it is experience and ability that count, not qualifications - can you do the job or can't you?

Had I spent my formative years learning stuff I didn't actually need to know, instead of really important life and real world lessons (or worse still, dossing/getting pissed & laid), things would've been very different for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all degrees are bad or a waste of time and money - just many of them. As you say, Labour's whole bullshit 'everyone must do a degree else they're a failure' idiotic mantra lies at the heart of it all. Most young people doing degrees should actually be doing vocational apprenticeships/HNC type qualifications instead, and learning a profession/trade - just like we used to do very successfully in fact.

Fucking Hell Cavey, that's pretty

So, these Teen angels of yours....

I'm only 43 mate.

(And still got chatted up by some 22 year old bird during the recent Halloween festivities - until I got introduced as 'Father in Law'. The comment was, 'shit, I thought you were well hot' )

Statements like this make me think that there's something seriously wrong with me to be able to look back at my time running a Gamestation and think of that as being - in terms of actual enjoyment - the best job I ever had. Of course, retail management in a videogame store is probably a different ball game from being a sales assistant in Boots. Also, the pay was an absolute joke, which is why I no longer work there.

For the record, I did numerous work experience placements whilst at school and at Uni, in local newspapers and eventually a national magazine called 'Later'. That, and being shortlisted for an interview by the BBC were as close as I ever got to following a career in journalism. I'm not sure if I'm even capable of proper professional writing anymore (reading my posts back here sometimes is proof enough that my writing skills have plummeted over the years). Nowadays I don't doubt for even a second that I could be in a much better career now if I'd just not bothered with Uni.

A target based and league table ranked education system has led to many students who are academically unsuitable to university study being funnelled into uni anyway as they're never given any other option it seems.

I have to deal with students every day who've settled in a course that holds no interest to them and they're just slogging through simply because they were fed into the system at age 11 and never turned their head to look at other options. Of course, worse than that is those students who you don't see. Those that don't show up. Those that fail or drop out but still have the loans and the fees to pay.

I often wonder if I'd be doing better than I am if I went to university (for the record, I was accepted into Brighton, but couldn't afford to go. Zounds, etc).
I'm thinking 'probably not' for a couple of reasons - I'm not very good at being a student (I'm always thinking of other shit when I should be listening), but, mainly, because I wouldn't have got together with Mrs Grim..., and she was the main driving force behind my career (I was earning £14k being a 'software tester' before she dragged me to London).
But, of course, I could have walked into a job at Yahoo! with my bad-ass degree.
In fact, thinking about it harder, I didn't go and interview with Yahoo! because Mrs Grim... couldn't live in America.

Tough one.

Meanwhile, I have a BSc and a PhD[1] and wouldn't be anywhere near as good at my job without them -- although that's far more to do with skills than it is knowledge. What's your hiring policy around qualfications, Cavey? My current employer's new policy is we won't interview anyone with less than a first, which would rule out almost all of our senior devs (including myself).

Obviously it's hard to know. I would say that there are probably doors that are closed to you though, rightly or wrongly, because of your perceived lack of qualifications. Plus you had to ask me about that pathing algorithm once because you don't have formal computer science training. The fact that's only happened once shows you how incredibly infrequently formal computer science intersects with software engineering, but that's a different topic.

[1] plus ten GCSEs, five A-levels, and an NVQ, if anyone's counting.

Everyday I regret going to Uni the first time around. Aside from meeting MrsP, nothing good came of it.

What really harshes me, is I had the chance to go straight onto a HND Software Engineering course when I was 16 but decided I don't want to be with older kids.

There are undoubtedly degrees which are economically worthless, but culturally important - classics, for instance. However, there are also degrees which are economically possibly useful, but culturally worthless and not the sort of thing you need a degree for anyway - golf course management, or equine sports science or whatever.

Then there are the "good" degrees, like law, medicine, aero engineering, etc, which are basically vocational training but complex enough that they require several years of dedicated study.

I don't know - I'm very uncomfortable with the expansion of degree entrance that Labour oversaw (target of 45% of school leavers, or something), but I'm equally uncomfortable with moves that will undoubtedly deter the worse off from pursuing even the "good" degrees, because of the fear of debt.

Without the degree you'd probably have a better chance of getting into somewhere with the experience, but with the degree you'd have a better chance of progressing further within the company. Depends how high up you want to go really.

You are dropping dangerously into age discrimination territory, there, nikki.

Golf course management is a favourite of mine. Birmingham (I think) was running one a few years back, and I saw the chancellor of the Uni take a beating over it because it was the same year they cut the number of engineering places back. He replied "to get on our golf management degree, you need ABB and A-level and a handicap of under 20, and it has one of the best post-graduate employment rates of any course we run". Not much you can say back to that really.

Well, quite. As I said above, it's economically useful. But it could presumably be run just as easily as an NVQ or such - it's not degree material, to my mind. Then again I'm a massive snob, clearly.

Did I mention that my second degree was massively easy? As are most of them if you can read and are motivated. Most of the students I deal with fail on one or both of these points.

I'm a Chief Technical Officer, or Director of IT if you prefer*

I do see your point, but I disagree with it - I think my CV has less chance of being read properly (or even accepted) if I don't have a degree (although the experience and rather haughty job title has probably made up for that now), but experience is what's going to get me promoted quickly (that and being fucking good at what I do, of course).

*Astoundingly, I'm expected to go to board meetings

Oh, my.

Can't see that picture, Mali - what's it of?

Students on a plinth of sorts. Placard in the center reads "WE ARE YOUR FUTRUE"

Hipster students holding a placard saying “We are your futrue”

Oh, superb.

No man is an island, or an office.

how's that?

It's because I don't have a degree in spelling.

Please tell me that's a photoshop special...

(Oh, and Malia, I think I've explained the situ with my girls umpteen times now, they are my step children of some 15 years standing, okay? )

(Gaywood, I would address your post to me also, but then I'd fear you might then dredge up some jokey post of mine that's a year or more older about fireworks..., not exactly good form )

Heh. I'd probably forgotten.

Until proven otherwise, I suspect it probably was.

For real? It had a jokey smiley on it, it was clearly a relevent point in a discussion about taxing the rich, and I passed no judgment on your actions. So this invites the question: how far back am I allowed to go when replying to people then? I mean, I'm quoting a five-minute-old post now; I assume that's OK by you? Why is that different from quoting something a year old?

One of the placards read "Down with this sort of thing", apparently.

Careful now.

13 years, plus however long the current government have been in power

It's gospel now: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ndows.html

True dat. Despite Cavey's *constant* Labour-bashing, he's still got the gall to boast about his wealth, most of which I assume was accrued under the previous government.

*braces*

I'd hardly call it boasting; I was saying I had the worst possible start in working life (being homeless as well as only 16, in the lowliest possible employment), yet I and many people like me did okay without degrees, in fact disproportionately so? It was entirely relevant.

Plus excuse my saying so, but I'd hardly attribute mine and others' business successes to Labour - it owes far more to the 'self employed, self starter' culture of the Thatcher era. Up until then, the likes of me would spend our entire lives on the shop floor just like my old dad, what with the wrong school tie and all of that (not to mention 95% tax rates for high earners/risk takers).

FEEX
[edit]Too slow

What really begins to grind my gears is when people on protest that are smashing stuff up have a sign saying "F**K" instead of "FUCK". Actually, most of the time. it's completely cunting pointless, and detracts from the impact of the message. I mean, they said "piss" on Radio 4 at about 1445 yesterday. Even more so when The Sun does it, and has tits everywhere.

The ever-decreasing corporate tax rates under Labour must have helped, though.

The tax burden under Labour only increased over the years and our levels of Corporation Tax are among the highest in the world AFAIK. Plus, one only has to look at taxation rates for high earners under the 70s Labour administration also.

I think it's real: http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/a86f20e/