Young and jobless graduates - BBC

[Happy82]

The BBC seem to be leading the charge for unemployed graduates at the moment, this morning they had two examples on the news, one who decided to start his own business after failing to find a job and seemed quite switched on (I'm guessing he did a science course going by his business in bicycle oils) and the other seemed your typical sociology graduate who didn't seem all the ticket and blamed her lack of experience for failing to get a job. However the BBC did not mention what they actually studied (hence my guessing which is probably not far off)

Surely, the area of study for the examples should be mentioned? It will give potential students an idea of whether a degree is worthwhile on the jobs market, or a waste of time. As it stands, many graduates seem to think they're entitled to the same job opportunities as a medical or law graduate with their social science /equestrian / street dance degree, and I just feel that if students were aware of the non-degree courses and how they're perceived by a potential employer, they might think twice about going for certain courses.

[Zod]

Are there statistics for proportion unemployed by degree discipline? I suspect they would tell a completely unsurprising story.

[odyssey2200]

Graduate with meaningless degree in yogurt weaving studies, returns from gap year to find no £100k job waiting for him, shocker.



No doubt the BBC will blame Thatcher or Climate Change.

Edited by odyssey2200 on Wednesday 16th November 11:29

[hornetrider]

Happy82 said:

Surely, the area of study for the examples should be mentioned? It will give potential students an idea of whether a degree is worthwhile on the jobs market, or a waste of time. As it stands, many graduates seem to think they're entitled to the same job opportunities as a medical or law graduate with their social science /equestrian / street dance degree, and I just feel that if students were aware of the non-degree courses and how they're perceived by a potential employer, they might think twice about going for certain courses.

Half the BBC's employess will have done Media/Arts degrees so they're hardly going to slag themselves off, are they?

[Happy82]

Zod said:

Are there statistics for proportion unemployed by degree discipline? I suspect they would tell a completely unsurprising story.

I did search for statistics on it a while ago but came up with nothing, I guess it's a way of protecting courses and jobs in the education sector?

[Odie]

Happy82 said:

Zod said:

Are there statistics for proportion unemployed by degree discipline? I suspect they would tell a completely unsurprising story.

I did search for statistics on it a while ago but came up with nothing, I guess it's a way of protecting courses and jobs in the education sector?

Their are and I was suprised by the result. No idea where i found them.

[Fittster]

Happy82 said:

Zod said:

Are there statistics for proportion unemployed by degree discipline? I suspect they would tell a completely unsurprising story.

I did search for statistics on it a while ago but came up with nothing, I guess it's a way of protecting courses and jobs in the education sector?

Who exactly did you think should have those statistics?

[Benny Saltstein]

If you punch in a course and university into this site it will give you a breakdown of where people end up in employment or otherwise.

http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/englishIndex.do?t=20...

[Happy82]

Fittster said:

Happy82 said:

Zod said:

Are there statistics for proportion unemployed by degree discipline? I suspect they would tell a completely unsurprising story.

I did search for statistics on it a while ago but came up with nothing, I guess it's a way of protecting courses and jobs in the education sector?

Who exactly did you think should have those statistics?

I'd have thought a university would have an interest in the job prospects of their students, Worcester Uni were claiming that 90%+ of their graduates find jobs straight away so it was either a made up figure or the data was collected. If it was collected, it would be common sense to put it against an individual degree for promotion purposes.

[Happy82]

Benny Saltstein said:

If you punch in a course and university into this site it will give you a breakdown of where people end up in employment or otherwise.

http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/englishIndex.do?t=20...

Cheers!

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON Sociology 25% w/grad job

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON Chemistry 85%+ w.grad job

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON Physics and Astronomy 75% w/grad job

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON Law 60% w/grad job

[lauda]

One of them also went to a decent Russell Group university and the other to a former poly which was only (fairly) recently given university status.

I'll let you guess which one went to which.

Just another example of why it was always a stupid idea to send such a large proportion of school leavers to university in the first place.

[scenario8]

Sorry to dispell PH myths about la-di-da degrees - Simon Nash of Green Oil (the manufacturers of the bicycle oil that was used as a case study this morning on BBC News) studied a BA in Philosophy and Politics at the University of Southampton.

http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/alumni/our_alumn...

It is possible to study Arts and Social Science and also be a driven entrepreneur. He's quite an interesting guy, to be honest, but I'm quite surprised to see him being praised on PH as his politics aren't exactly in line with the general view on these fora.

Good luck to him.

http://www.green-oil.net/environment.html

I accept the UK needs to enthuse young people into studying science and engineering to a greater extent than now, and industry has a role in getting more young people into apprenticeships. Outside of the very best students and the very best courses it is a very difficult situation out there for graduates in almost all disciplines. This story is being carried by media outlets other than the BBC.

[covmutley]

Not sure what you are saying about his degree? Fairly well established academic course I thought?

Labours social justice policies pushed people to university, resulting in a generation with skills that dont match the real economy.

In increasing uni fees, I expect demand for wishy washy courses to decline, restoring normal (and sensible) service without the government having to actively tell people they are not up to university standard. (I mean academic only, not overall ability etc. btw)

Also, re: bbc made earlier, I would expect that most have english degrees, not media degres, no?

[Eddw86]

Benny Saltstein said:

If you punch in a course and university into this site it will give you a breakdown of where people end up in employment or otherwise.

http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/englishIndex.do?t=20...

Interesting link.

An oft not considered advantage of good unis is the career advice, pressure culture (in a good way) & the quality of employers that come to the university. Similar to in schools.

Go to a top university & the careers advice is top notch & students are pushed to apply & given more consistent, high profile advice on how to round the CV and given opportunities to do so. As such it creates an environment where the students peers are applying early, doing certain extra curricular activities, and aiming for the cream of the crop employers.
Likewise they will have employers - such as IBs doing careers fairs at say LSE not at London Met which all helps perception, education & drive.

This helps create a culture of students with not only better quality degrees as a result of the education given & better job prospects as a result. But also more chance & greater knowledge & understanding of landing the plum grad jobs because of the above.

Which is fair enough - that is after all what you go to the best unis for!

However at the end of the day it still depends on the person having the ability & desire to actually apply for the jobs rather than waiting for them to come to them - I know too many students who were not prepared to spend hours on a grad job app to make sure it's just so & who are whinging about how Uni was a waste of time...

[Victor McDade]

The sense of entitlement from the graduates on Newsnight yesterday was incredible. They literally expected the government to create all these jobs for them just because they were 'graduates'. They bemoaned the job centre offering jobs which were beneath them because afterall they were 'graduates'.

[lauda]

There is certainly a mindset among some graduates that by getting their degree, they've done the hard work and now the good job is just theirs for the taking.

I interview graduates for my firm and by the time they've got to me they've already had to demonstrate a high level of academic achievement (240 UCAS points and a minimum 2:1) and have had a telephone interview with HR. It never ceases to amaze me how many candidates have made no effort to research the firm or fail to demonstrate any commercial awareness at all (and I'm no exactly expecting them to give me a detailed plan on bailing out the Eurozone).

I don't want or need someone who can put a man on the moon, I just want switched on people with some common sense and good communication skills who I don't think are going to embarass me or the firm when I send them out to see clients. Much more difficult to find than you would expect when there are apparently so many high quality graduates desperate for jobs.

[Cupramax]

odyssey2200 said:

Graduate with meaningless degree in yogurt weaving studies, returns from gap year to find no £100k job waiting for him, shocker.

[Eddw86]

Victor McDade said:

The sense of entitlement from the graduates on Newsnight yesterday was incredible. They literally expected the government to create all these jobs for them just because they were 'graduates'. They bemoaned the job centre offering jobs which were beneath them because afterall they were 'graduates'.

As said, most (not all) will be the ones who haven't tried to make themselves employable and dare I say it havent made the effort to make those applications damn good.

I graduated during the downturn when many employers were squeezing the grad budgets & thus jobs yet I & most of my mates who made the effort have good jobs, some got grad schemes, others used contacts from work experience/ placements & became contractors and eventually got perm roles whilst others did further qualifications or took low paying jobs to get experience & are now earning good money in the City. Many of them have been able to move employers easily if they desired - jobs are there if you're worthy of employing.

Some however sit on FB & whinge about how hard it is & unfair...

[iphonedyou]

Happy82 said:

Surely, the area of study for the examples should be mentioned? It will give potential students an idea of whether a degree is worthwhile on the jobs market, or a waste of time.

From a sample of two?

[Happy82]

iphonedyou said:

From a sample of two?

Sadly, only two students now exist due to the increase in tuition fees so the data pool is quite limited.