Higher earners ‘to retire at 70’

I can see a degree in media studies being quite useful when it comes to blocked toilets.

Yes, but it's only a paper degree.

Rob Graham

That'll be what's blocking the toilet, then.

What's a jumped-up poly? IME when they were polys they knew their place and made no pretence that they were the same as universities, often specalising in hands-on technology courses which met the needs of prospective employers

But now that they are all called Universities, there are a lot of people who don't know which is which.

tim

Speaking as someone who got an accounting degree from a polytechnic, it was possible to learn a lot but also the poly did seem more concerned about ensuring that poor quality students completed their degree.

No.

Rob

Exactly. Exactly. They produced people who could live in, and were needed by, the real world. Nowadays the world is filled with people with get-you-home degrees like media studies and are totally unemployable.

We need physicists and chemists and engineers and other people who are prepared to use their brains to achieve something that would be useful to the country, instead of media studies.

Rob Graham

In message , "tim (moved to sweden)" wrote

Around 30 years ago I attended two technical colleges - they both pretend to be universities these days.

Not at mine, half the intake were dumped at the end of the first year. I admit that the one or two who struggled in the final year passed when they probably shouldn't have, but I believe that this sort of thing happened in red-bricks. The degree was a sort of certificate that the course had been completed rather than a final exam had been passed (and this was the attitude of several of the companies interviewing - the final result wasn't important to them). This was, of course, the time when graduates walked into a graduate level job.

tim

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Rob graham said

We also need plumbers, builders, and electricians. However I'd agree we don't need media studies grads. Even the BBC seem to have worked that out, finally. 8>.

"Rob graham" wrote

The trouble is that those disciplines lead to jobs which are often difficult to do well, and where poor performance is obvious as such. This in turn means that the exams which prepare you to do such jobs, and to get degrees in the relevant subjects beforehand, must be demanding, and it must be possible for people to fail these exams. AFAICS this latter concept is utterly unacceptable to today's education "professionals".

AIUI, al-BBC has never been particularly enamoured of media studies grads, and has always preferred people with intellectually demanding degrees, ideally but not necessarily in relevant subjects such as politics or literature. Until major universities start offering meeja studies degrees and you need 5 A* A-Levels to get in to read them, nobody is going to take it seriously.

Eng Lit is a relatively recent introduction at Oxbridge - the 1920s I think - and was questioned at the time as possibly being insufficiently demanding for the same reasons as meeja studies now. Since it's always been bloody difficult to get in to read it anywhere good, it still commands some respect as a degree choice (or so I have found).

Basically these courses stand or fall on the quality of the people reading them, and media studies people are muppets while Oxbridge philosophers are usually not. In fact, any course ending in "...studies" is usually a muppet course, IME.

"Alan" wrote

Typical of John Major, really; he figured that all he had to do to create 30 more universities was rename 30 polys.

"John Redman" wrote in message news:d7338v$te8$ snipped-for-privacy@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...

I know. It's going to take a radical rethink to turn all this PCness round. When it does it will be for the benefit of everybody (in general, not necessarily in particular). I'm thinking of starting a political party, basically the Non-PC Party, but can you think of a better title? It would sweep away the race relations board, sexual relations board, board for telling you what words you can't use these days, medals for everyone no matter how badly they perform, etc, etc. It would bring back the stocks for minor offences, amputation for major.

Rob

Agreed. However, I'm not sure that they are the ones who will go into the history books as the ones who propelled Britian forward - and I say this with the greatest respect to them. Physicists and chemists and engineers are the ones who are likely to do this, and because of our prawn-headed education system, there ain't many of them any more. I don't know who thinks who has gained by this. Who is there in this country who has the brains and education to actually work something out from first principles for himself - and possibly fail in the process?

Rob

Yes, half were dumped at the end of my first year. But they also took on people who'd passed a foundation course in other polytechnics that were obviously not up to it but they seemed to get them through with a pass degree while better students were having nervous breakdowns in their attempt to get good degrees.

I hear a lot of people with degrees get jobs in call centres "while they are looking for a proper job".

Join "The Sensible Party"!

I haven't actually formed it yet and someone has got the domain name but that won't stop me.

If I just had enough time to spend on it I think we could do well.

How many politicians do anything that will take a bit of time? They wont want something that can be judged too quickly because then their incompetence will be even more obvious.

They want something that wont take too much effort on their part but will not be judged by the majority until after they have resigned due to fraud or something similar.