Is having a degree the new GCSE?
- Thread starter _angel_
- Start date
_angel_
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LilMissHissyFit said:
Why does anyone assume you need intelligence to be a manager or graduate for that instance?
Why would you assume a shelf stacker in general couldn't go on the management trainee programme anyway?
A degree in an arts subject these days seems to be the new 'O level' for the middle classes, who can afford to buy their qualifications. Recent threads here about plagiarism and folk trying to buy dissertations make me think that, increasingly, they're devalued and overpriced.
The fact you automatically dismiss the shop staff as mainly 'not bright enough' speaks volumes about your opinions of them.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
errr go back and read my post 'madalene'
here we go, shit stirring again... people really do have the measure of you dont they?
do you actually shop in supermarkets???
Tell me, what grade is the degree you were awarded and from which institution again???
here we go, shit stirring again... people really do have the measure of you dont they?
do you actually shop in supermarkets???
Tell me, what grade is the degree you were awarded and from which institution again???
pembrokestephen
New Member
Having just completed my degree, the title of this thread looked...interesting.
So, a few thoughts.
It's nice to see the old "class" hobbyhorse being rolled out again. Yes, it's unfortunate that we have a higher education system that's so dependent on people being able to finance their way through it, and perhaps that's where the jibe about "middle class" comes from. I come from what would probably be called a middle class background, though by comparison with many of my middle class peers, it was a pretty impoverished one, though that's not why I didn't go straight from school into university, but went and worked in a shop instead.
And yes, I can say from personal experience that a lot of people who work in shops are too thick to go and do a degree. If it were otherwise, then a lot of people would be wasting their time at university trying to get a qualification they simply weren't intellectually capable of. That's why I take issue with the government's insistence that 50% of the population should go to university, because I don't think that 50% of the population has the intellectual capacity to study at the level currently required in universities. Short of some kind of brain enhancement, the only way that all those people could come away with degrees would be to dumb down the degree, just like we've done, to some extent, with GCSE.
And I think it's unfair and cruel to raise the expectations - if that's what is being done - of people that they can go to university and study to degree level when their personal capabilities are likely to be much more oriented towards different types of learning. It's not even about thick/not thick - some people just aren't academically inclined, and trying to shoehorn the whole lot into an academic "one size fits all" system can only result in trouble. Far better that someone whose natural aptitude fits them better for a practical skillset is educated in an appropriate way to prepare them for using those skills in a productive way than that they are lured into training in them in a format that is unrewarding to them, and ultimately, probably, futile (I'm thinking of nursing as I write this: a uniquely practical job/vocation which it seems ludicrous to me is now presented as an academic training at degree level).
Employers will ask for the skills they want to get the people they need to do the jobs. If Morrison's wants to demand graduates, then why shouldn't they? They may well end up with a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears know-alls who aren't competent to run a bath, far less an out-of-town superstore, but that's Morrison's loss, surely? (though I feel somewhat sorry for the staff who might have to work for such people while the experiment continues towards failure). Perhaps, when they've fallen flat on their faces, they may modify their requirements to suit.
When I hear gripes like this, I often wonder what the real motivation behind them is. Is, I wonder, the complainer cross because a job they wanted has been denied them because they didn't have the qualifications required? I think that's often the case, and I think that's a pity, because there are some very real and significant things wrong with our education system, and about which a useful debate could be had. But not while the whole thing is clouded over by personal agendas, whether it's non-graduates carping about being denied opportunities, someone using the education system as just another stone on which to grind a particular political axe, or just another tilt at the hoary old class windmill.
So, a few thoughts.
It's nice to see the old "class" hobbyhorse being rolled out again. Yes, it's unfortunate that we have a higher education system that's so dependent on people being able to finance their way through it, and perhaps that's where the jibe about "middle class" comes from. I come from what would probably be called a middle class background, though by comparison with many of my middle class peers, it was a pretty impoverished one, though that's not why I didn't go straight from school into university, but went and worked in a shop instead.
And yes, I can say from personal experience that a lot of people who work in shops are too thick to go and do a degree. If it were otherwise, then a lot of people would be wasting their time at university trying to get a qualification they simply weren't intellectually capable of. That's why I take issue with the government's insistence that 50% of the population should go to university, because I don't think that 50% of the population has the intellectual capacity to study at the level currently required in universities. Short of some kind of brain enhancement, the only way that all those people could come away with degrees would be to dumb down the degree, just like we've done, to some extent, with GCSE.
And I think it's unfair and cruel to raise the expectations - if that's what is being done - of people that they can go to university and study to degree level when their personal capabilities are likely to be much more oriented towards different types of learning. It's not even about thick/not thick - some people just aren't academically inclined, and trying to shoehorn the whole lot into an academic "one size fits all" system can only result in trouble. Far better that someone whose natural aptitude fits them better for a practical skillset is educated in an appropriate way to prepare them for using those skills in a productive way than that they are lured into training in them in a format that is unrewarding to them, and ultimately, probably, futile (I'm thinking of nursing as I write this: a uniquely practical job/vocation which it seems ludicrous to me is now presented as an academic training at degree level).
Employers will ask for the skills they want to get the people they need to do the jobs. If Morrison's wants to demand graduates, then why shouldn't they? They may well end up with a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears know-alls who aren't competent to run a bath, far less an out-of-town superstore, but that's Morrison's loss, surely? (though I feel somewhat sorry for the staff who might have to work for such people while the experiment continues towards failure). Perhaps, when they've fallen flat on their faces, they may modify their requirements to suit.
When I hear gripes like this, I often wonder what the real motivation behind them is. Is, I wonder, the complainer cross because a job they wanted has been denied them because they didn't have the qualifications required? I think that's often the case, and I think that's a pity, because there are some very real and significant things wrong with our education system, and about which a useful debate could be had. But not while the whole thing is clouded over by personal agendas, whether it's non-graduates carping about being denied opportunities, someone using the education system as just another stone on which to grind a particular political axe, or just another tilt at the hoary old class windmill.
Callie
Pivoting
pembrokestephen said:
Perhaps its because people percieve this to be unfair - when jobs which historically could be done and were done by people with few academic qualifications are now only employing people with a basic level of qualifications which are still not available/suitable for some members of the population.
what changed to change the entry requirements? is it the work? the salary? the expectations of someone in that role?
why are so many jobs that were once taking on school leavers and training them up now only looking for graduates? what about the current school leavers - 16 year olds who for whatever reason leave education - surely this is making this a whole lot harder for them and totally limiting their opportunities?
cyberfairy
http://unicycle-emptiness.co.uk/
Thus causing a fractured seperate society between the haves and have nots. It's getting frightening. Mentioned this before but been looking for work up here for a while now-have good degree, refs etc but there are so many people after same job that employers can just pick people with bloody MA's for shop work. Applied for job working weekdays and Sat at museum, mostly in gift shop at six quid an hour. Thought with knowledge of history, childcare, etc would be walkover. 90 other people applied from job centre alone and they picked someone better qualified than me!Callie said:
pembrokestephen
New Member
Perhaps it is. But - given that the supply of graduates is finite - it's also limiting the opportunities of these employers. And my guess is that it won't take very long for a more forward-thinking employer to recognise that there's an opportunity in there amongst non-graduate school leavers to get them in at the ground floor and train them up the Company Way, and the pendulum swings the other way. Thus are wheels reinvented.Callie said:
It's not fair, no, but nothing ever was, and nothing was ever done about it by people pointing it out as unfair, either. That's not a reproach to you - just how it tends to be in the world of Big Business.
But if I were to want to complain about unfairness, I'd be talking about how our social setup is so heavily - and increasingly - biased to handing the marketplace over to these vast conglomerates, at the cost of local enterprises, which probably wouldn't be interested in hiring graduates to run their shops - just people who could do the job, be polite, and maybe count well enough to give the right change. Even there, I don't think "unfairness" is ever going to be a great platform from which to challenge that stuff.
Callie
Pivoting
I know all about the world of big business - Im not sure what companies have to gain by taking on graduates over people they have trained themselves, I would have thought it would be cost ineffective. You take on a graduate, they expect better pay (dont always get it though 
) and you still have to train them. Is it more cost effective?!
) and you still have to train them. Is it more cost effective?!untethered
For industry & decency
Callie said:I know all about the world of big business - Im not sure what companies have to gain by taking on graduates over people they have trained themselves, I would have thought it would be cost ineffective. You take on a graduate, they expect better pay (dont always get it though
I think you're reducing the risk by employing graduates but it can't be eliminated entirely.
Obviously, the range of graduates and degrees is massive, but in general, a graduate is likely to:
- have a higher standard of literacy and numeracy vs. the average non-graduate
- have demonstrated the ability to complete a three-year course
- have some demonstrable knowledge in a particular subject area.
I'm not convinced that a new graduate at 21 is likely to be more mature than a 21-year old that had been working since they left school. Work tends to require a fair bit more self-discipline than many degrees, but this somewhat depends on the degree.
All that said, I don't like the trend for a degree being a general qualification for a job where no specific one is needed. I'd say at least half of current university students would be better off in career and life terms getting a job at 18 that had opportunities for progression.
untethered
For industry & decency
lobster said:
To a degree, it might be a factor of people applying for more jobs given that it's easier to find vacancies on the intermaweb.
cyberfairy
http://unicycle-emptiness.co.uk/
People like my mum go on about enough work for everyone but unless you give up all your expensive training to work for minimum wage there isn't. I was really upset last week as heard someone nearly in tears on job centre phone to employer-a trained paediatrition who had been made redundant selling herself but from what looked like it, to no avail. She left in tears.lobster said:
cyberfairy
http://unicycle-emptiness.co.uk/
The job centre ones are shocking though-I have seen ones for rubbishmen who must have clean driving licence and be able to operate heavy machinery for 5.90 an houruntethered said:
pembrokestephen
New Member
I don't know. But you'd think that Morrison's HR would. And if they've got it wrong, Morrison's bottom line is going to know about it.Callie said:I know all about the world of big business - Im not sure what companies have to gain by taking on graduates over people they have trained themselves, I would have thought it would be cost ineffective. You take on a graduate, they expect better pay (dont always get it though
pembrokestephen
New Member
When I was an unemployed (well, between-jobs and on the sick, but unemployed from the point of view of getting my mortgage insurance paid) and attending at the jobcentre, I used to check out the IT jobs, just for a laugh. "Exploitative" wasn't the word, and I'm not sure if any of these putative employers were really serious about getting an IT person from a jobcentre. Me, I was just there to tick the boxes.cyberfairy said:
cyberfairy
http://unicycle-emptiness.co.uk/
Some of the job centre jobs board on the illegal as well as exploitative. I got a job as a care worker a few years back going to elderly people's houses and 'chatting to them as well as performing basic household tasks' for a fiver an hour. On my one day induction was told that travel was unoficially included in the hourly rate which meant that to get from persons house to the other in a journey taking thirty or forty mins meant only a few minutes at someones house. I complained and was told it was normal and 'they were too far gone to notice the difference'. I saw women covered in piss get flung into bed in five mins and then left, old naked men wandering around filthy homes eating rancid fish and much loved plants and even cats not bothered being given water.pembrokestephen said:
I quit within a week after what I had seen, was utterly in shock, sobbing when I got home and wrote a huge report detailing everything I had witnessed and sent it to jobcentre. No-one ever got back to me and company I think still operate.
_angel_
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LilMissHissyFit said:
You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. Why am I shit stirring??? Really?
Yes I do shop in that Morrisons, the reasons I was interested in the management training advert is because that particular store has got to be one of the worstly run places I have ever shopped.
For example, they only have crappy little placcy bags and none of those 'bags for life' you get in other places.
They have frequently not had staple vegetables in, in season (I coldn't get a cauliflower half of last winter).
They think it acceptable to sell damaged goods at full price, unlike say ASDA where they would be discounted.
Yeah I've got a 2:1 in History with afro-asian studies, from Lancaster University, if it is at all relevant?? I don't think that qualifies me to run Morrisons supermarket, but my observations as a shopper there qualify me more.
_angel_
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pembrokestephen said:
Firstly, I have a degree not that it is relevant to the thread or my point.
Yes there IS a class element in this because, as I pointed out, when I left school (way back in the mists of time) it was possible for someone to leave at 16, not be particularly academic and get on a trainnee programme for management and move on in life, now that opportunity is denied to anyone without a degree and it's unfair, when the degree is really neither use nor ornament at the end of the day.
This is rubbish. Having a degree is nothing to do with intelligence anyway.
When I worked at Sainsburies briefly a few years ago I must have still been young looking enough to pass as a student and kept being asked what I was studying. When I announced I wasn't, the conversation abruptly stopped with the expression of "oh christ you must be braindead" - rather than just skint and in need of some money over christmas.
untethered
For industry & decency
_angel_ said:
The range of intelligence of people with degrees is quite broad, but you really have no idea how many people struggle with GCSEs, let alone anything higher.
pembrokestephen
New Member
Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but life is unfair. Business has never operated on a premise of fairness, and the only possibility that it might is because it makes bad PR when employers treat their staff so badly that it becomes newsworthy, or it affects their bottom line in some way. Insisting that a store manager has a degree isn't ever going to be newsworthy enough to make a difference, but it might, in the fullness of time, have a bearing on the bottom line._angel_ said:
You seem to premise your entire "class issue" on the fact that someone has to be of a certain class to get a degree. That's bollocks. I wouldn't advocate people just randomly deciding to run up £15k of student debt on a whim, but nobody's going to stop you going to university because you're, say, working class. Perhaps what you mean is that it's a poverty issue, but that's a completely different question: certainly, when I was 18, living in a middle class family, my parents could not have afforded to support me in university in the way parents nowadays would have to, because we didn't have the money.
I think your complaint is a bit agenda-led, to be blunt about it.
You commit all kinds of major logical errors, maddalene, and you do it time and again. You're forever taking someone's "some" and conflating it to "all"._angel_ said:
What I said was that "a lot of people who work in shops are too thick to go and do a degree". I didn't say all. I worked in a shop, and I am evidently not too thick to go and do a degree, because I went and did one. And I can think of many people with whom I worked who probably would have been capable of doing the same. But I can think of a great deal more who, while lovely, hard-working and capable people, simply lacked the intellectual capacity to study academically at that kind of level. That's why those people were working in a shop, not because they came from the wrong side of the tracks.
All your anecdotal claim demonstrates is that some people are just as quick to jump to negative judgements about the fact you were working in Sainsbury's as you are to jump to similar judgements about the motives of people who don't just fall over themselves to agree with you.
Having a degree has a great deal (though not everything) to do with intelligence: it's so self-evident that I struggle to find good examples of why, because, given your propensity for illogical thinking, if I cite, say, poor reading skills, you'll probably say "But dyslexics have poor reading skills and can be intelligent".
So I won't bother trying to persuade you: suffice it to say that most people reading this will, I am sure, recognise that to study at degree level does require a certain level of intelligence.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
Of course it has something to do with intelligence. The majority of degrees arent achievable without it.
And as for shit stirring your constant misquoting of what people have said when you recap in a desperate attempt to start other people argiung is really childish and rather boring these days.. try another tack dear.
and when being a shopper qualifies someone to manage a supermarket please, let the public at large know wont you? Im sure everyone will be clamouring for jobs
And as for shit stirring your constant misquoting of what people have said when you recap in a desperate attempt to start other people argiung is really childish and rather boring these days.. try another tack dear.
and when being a shopper qualifies someone to manage a supermarket please, let the public at large know wont you? Im sure everyone will be clamouring for jobs
pembrokestephen
New Member
*sigh*_angel_ said:
But it does not automatically follow, just because you know some people who are intelligent without degrees that people of lesser intelligence can have degrees.
This is a classic example of the huge great chasms - not flaws - in your logic that pepper your contributions, and make debating with you so frustrating.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
_angel_ said:
well thats lovely isnt it? It doesnt mean you can get a degree without any. perhaps you should encourage them to enroll on a degree?
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
They still will- as I said in my post.. which you then chose to completely disregard while making allegations about me claiming something I didnt say.._angel_ said:
so yes. SHIT STIRRING
untethered
For industry & decency
_angel_ said:
That wasn't my point.
I was saying you do have to be reasonably intelligent to pass a degree, not that people without degrees are by definition unintelligent.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
_angel_ said:
and as usual once youve misquoted people and alledged people have said things they havent you act all innocent and shocked.
Pathetic... more and more people have the measure of you these days.
Time for another name change soon i suspect.
_angel_
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untethered said:
I think I'd phrase it as *you have to be reasonably literate to pass a degree* and basically parrot fashion what your lecturers say.
I'm just thinking about the er intelligence level of some of my fellow students.
There was one lass - lived with my mate who expressed bewilderment at the fact Leeds had electricity. I wish I was making it up.
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