Student Fees

[DangerousMike]

Futuo said:

DangerousMike said:

a degree in accounting is not worthwhile!

http://www.gaapweb.com/Browse/All-chartered+accountant-Job-Results.html

seems to be some jobs there, are there many unemployed Chartered Accountants

accounting is 100 % worthwhile, but you don't need a degree in accounting to be an accountant, do you? You do another degree and then train as an accountant.

[Bing o]

DangerousMike said:

Futuo said:

DangerousMike said:

a degree in accounting is not worthwhile!

http://www.gaapweb.com/Browse/All-chartered+accountant-Job-Results.html

seems to be some jobs there, are there many unemployed Chartered Accountants

accounting is 100 % worthwhile, but you don't need a degree in accounting to be an accountant, do you? You do another degree and then train as an accountant.

Yes, but accounting also covers general business areas as well. I know that my business degree was ahead of the accountancy course in the year 1 Accountancy module.

[DangerousMike]

Diderot said:

Futuo said:

DangerousMike said:

a degree in accounting is not worthwhile!

http://www.gaapweb.com/Browse/All-chartered+accountant-Job-Results.html

seems to be some jobs there, are there many unemployed Chartered Accountants

It's ok Futuo, this is the way most scientists think. They really need to get their own house in order first... they have had it far too good for far too long where funding is concerned.

not sure where this slightly personal attack has come from, but if you look at the productivity of UK scientists then we actually are the most productive... we do better science per unit funding than those in the US, germany japan, etc. Science funding has increased since 1997 but it was previously at very low levels.

[Diderot]

DangerousMike said:

Diderot said:

Futuo said:

DangerousMike said:

a degree in accounting is not worthwhile!

http://www.gaapweb.com/Browse/All-chartered+accountant-Job-Results.html

seems to be some jobs there, are there many unemployed Chartered Accountants

It's ok Futuo, this is the way most scientists think. They really need to get their own house in order first... they have had it far too good for far too long where funding is concerned.

not sure where this slightly personal attack has come from, but if you look at the productivity of UK scientists then we actually are the most productive... we do better science per unit funding than those in the US, germany japan, etc. Science funding has increased since 1997 but it was previously at very low levels.

Depends how you view productive (in the case of the CRU or the Met Office, it's rather 'creative').

It wasn't a personal attack btw, just a riposte to your (rather typical from a scientist) denigration of arts subjects.

[DangerousMike]

I am all for arts subjects - but I wouldn't include accounting as one. Accounting is a vocational course. There are many real degrees that will teach you skills required to be an accouncant, and after doing them you can train as an accountant to learn how to be an accountant. Any physical science, maths, engineering, maybe even biology (which can be quite numerate) would be good preparation. Follow that with some accountancy training and you will have a much broader skillset than somebody who just did a degree in accountancy and then went to be an accountant.

[Diderot]

DangerousMike said:

I am all for arts subjects - but I wouldn't include accounting as one. Accounting is a vocational course. There are many real degrees that will teach you skills required to be an accouncant, and after doing them you can train as an accountant to learn how to be an accountant. Any physical science, maths, engineering, maybe even biology (which can be quite numerate) would be good preparation. Follow that with some accountancy training and you will have a much broader skillset than somebody who just did a degree in accountancy and then went to be an accountant.

Agreed. Although, if you did engineering, you'd not be able to string two sentences together. See what I did there?

[Futuo]

Seems I'm a bit out of touch, I thought if you were a Chartered Accountant then you'd done that as a degree and not Art History.

[youngsyr]

Futuo said:

Seems I'm a bit out of touch, I thought if you were a Chartered Accountant then you'd done that as a degree and not Art History.

I'm a Chartered Accountant and my degree is in languages. What's more, I joined the same firm and training programme as a few others who had accountancy/business study degrees and I qualifed at the same time as they did, well excluding the guy with a business studies degree that failed the first set of accountancy exams and was kicked out.

I'd say if you're going to train to be a CA, the last degree you'd want to do is accountancy. It's boring enough as a career, why wreck your time at Uni with it as well?!

[DangerousMike]

its the same with lawyers as I understand it - from what I know not many people will get the top training contracts if they did a degree in law, I have heard that the best firms prefer people to have done another degree and then a law conversion course.

[youngsyr]

Diderot said:

DangerousMike said:

I am all for arts subjects - but I wouldn't include accounting as one. Accounting is a vocational course. There are many real degrees that will teach you skills required to be an accouncant, and after doing them you can train as an accountant to learn how to be an accountant. Any physical science, maths, engineering, maybe even biology (which can be quite numerate) would be good preparation. Follow that with some accountancy training and you will have a much broader skillset than somebody who just did a degree in accountancy and then went to be an accountant.

Agreed. Although, if you did engineering, you'd not be able to string two sentences together. See what I did there?

A degree in accountancy is a bit of a misnoma, as far as I can tell. Just as with Chartered Accountancy training, you are taught a lot more than just pure accounting, such as:

- Business management
- Company law
- People management
- Tax law
- Economics
- Corporate governance
- Marketing

The idea behind the training is that you come out a well rounded business advisor, not just a number crunching machine.

[briSk]

youngsyr said:

Futuo said:

Seems I'm a bit out of touch, I thought if you were a Chartered Accountant then you'd done that as a degree and not Art History.

I'm a Chartered Accountant and my degree is in languages. What's more, I joined the same firm and training programme as a few others who had accountancy/business study degrees and I qualifed at the same time as they did, well excluding the guy with a business studies degree that failed the first set of accountancy exams and was kicked out.

I'd say if you're going to train to be a CA, the last degree you'd want to do is accountancy. It's boring enough as a career, why wreck your time at Uni with it as well?!

true. but then why bother studying anything other than IT or languages or law. certainly no point doing much else if you know you want to be an accountant..

___

i get a bit pissed off with all the 'media studies' stuff. but no one ever says 'why the hell do we have 'posh media studies' (aka 'classics'). same st slightly harder way of going about it..!

[DangerousMike]

classics informs us about the way our ancesters used to live their lives, media studies doesn't serve that function really because we know about how we live our lives (eat dominos and watch big brother, if yiou do media studies i expect).

[youngsyr]

briSk said:

youngsyr said:

Futuo said:

Seems I'm a bit out of touch, I thought if you were a Chartered Accountant then you'd done that as a degree and not Art History.

I'm a Chartered Accountant and my degree is in languages. What's more, I joined the same firm and training programme as a few others who had accountancy/business study degrees and I qualifed at the same time as they did, well excluding the guy with a business studies degree that failed the first set of accountancy exams and was kicked out.

I'd say if you're going to train to be a CA, the last degree you'd want to do is accountancy. It's boring enough as a career, why wreck your time at Uni with it as well?!

true. but then why bother studying anything other than IT or languages or law. certainly no point doing much else if you know you want to be an accountant..

___

i get a bit pissed off with all the 'media studies' stuff. but no one ever says 'why the hell do we have 'posh media studies' (aka 'classics'). same st slightly harder way of going about it..!

I'd disagree entirely, history, philosophy, literature to name but a few are all worthwhile subjects for study regardless of your chosen career (assuming you even have one when picking your degree course aged 17 or 18).

[briSk]

DangerousMike said:

classics informs us about the way our ancesters used to live their lives, media studies doesn't serve that function really because we know about how we live our lives (eat dominos and watch big brother, if yiou do media studies i expect).

wouldn;t you say that all the useful bits of classics are covered by 'history'..?

(i just don;t, and never will, 'get' nor understand the legitimacy of 'studying for studyings sake'. certainly not anything 'ex poste' anyway! maybe the sciences where someone might accidentily stray towards doing something useful..but knowing what people did 'just for a laugh' at other people's expense isn;t on. personally i think physics and biology etc should be subsidised and then it should decrease until you end up with ste like media and classics).

[DangerousMike]

i think that learning for the sake of learning is totally acceptable (and should be encouraged). If you haven't experienced the joy of learning stuff for its own interest then I would consider your life to be quite unfilled (you might not though! - which is fine).

It comes down to a philosophical question about the purpose of education. Under labour, school, colleges and universities have very much been twisted towards creating "citizens" and preparing people for the world of work. Personally I think universities (good ones) have always equipped people for the world of work. I don't consider it to be the job of schools to teach citizenship etc., just to provide knowledge! Labour basically uses the national curriculum to create "worker drones" and tell people what to think when they are too young for many of them to question it (witness the number of politcal causes that are put across in lessons at schools).

I went to university because I wanted to study chemistry, because I was very interested. I didn't really consider what career I would choose afterwards. I lvoed my course, but I remember talking to a great many students who didn't enjoy the work they were doing. I could never understand people putting themselves through a degree just to gain the qualification they needed for their chosen career - I would never be able to do it!

[Futuo]

So are you saying all Lawyers aren't LLBs?

Things must have changed as when I went to Uni I did Optics and became an Optician, it's the only way you can become an Optician, you can't study Literature and then do a bolt on Optics conversion, there's too much to learn to do it that way. Same as Dentists and Doctors.

[briSk]

DangerousMike said:

i think that learning for the sake of learning is totally acceptable (and should be encouraged). If you haven't experienced the joy of learning stuff for its own interest then I would consider your life to be quite unfilled (you might not though! - which is fine).

It comes down to a philosophical question about the purpose of education. Under labour, school, colleges and universities have very much been twisted towards creating "citizens" and preparing people for the world of work. Personally I think universities (good ones) have always equipped people for the world of work. I don't consider it to be the job of schools to teach citizenship etc., just to provide knowledge! Labour basically uses the national curriculum to create "worker drones" and tell people what to think when they are too young for many of them to question it (witness the number of politcal causes that are put across in lessons at schools).

I went to university because I wanted to study chemistry, because I was very interested. I didn't really consider what career I would choose afterwards. I lvoed my course, but I remember talking to a great many students who didn't enjoy the work they were doing. I could never understand people putting themselves through a degree just to gain the qualification they needed for their chosen career - I would never be able to do it!

I do know where you're coming from. It's tricky for me because something like chemistry is 'important'. If you'd stuck at it you might be able to help cure cancer. if you didn;t it might have given you excellent skills for being an 'IT architect'...

[DangerousMike]

briSk said:

I do know where you're coming from. It's tricky for me because something like chemistry is 'important'. If you'd stuck at it you might be able to help cure cancer. if you didn;t it might have given you excellent skills for being an 'IT architect'...

along the right lines there brisk http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7965364.stm

I see what you are saying about 'important' but I think the arts are important too. We all appreciate art (TV, films, music, theatre, literature) to different degrees but if people weren't given the chance to study such stuff, we could probably have a much poorer selection of such art. I do think it enriches our lives, just in a much less quantifiable way than science (which as you hint at has lead to massive improvements in our quality of life over the last few centuries).

Edited by DangerousMike on Thursday 22 April 14:07

[ninja-lewis]

DangerousMike said:

i think that learning for the sake of learning is totally acceptable (and should be encouraged). If you haven't experienced the joy of learning stuff for its own interest then I would consider your life to be quite unfilled (you might not though! - which is fine).

I agree that learning for the sake of learning is perfectly acceptable but is it the same thing as studying for the sake of studying? Perhaps there's a difference between those who go to university simply to learn and those who go simply because it is the done thing expected of them/everyone else goes.

Because it seems the problem isn't the students who want to learn anything but those who perhaps should not be there (because they've been poorly advised).

[youngsyr]

ninja-lewis said:

DangerousMike said:

i think that learning for the sake of learning is totally acceptable (and should be encouraged). If you haven't experienced the joy of learning stuff for its own interest then I would consider your life to be quite unfilled (you might not though! - which is fine).

I agree that learning for the sake of learning is perfectly acceptable but is it the same thing as studying for the sake of studying? Perhaps there's a difference between those who go to university simply to learn and those who go simply because it is the done thing expected of them/everyone else goes.

Because it seems the problem isn't the students who want to learn anything but those who perhaps should not be there (because they've been poorly advised).

I wouldn't be surprised if there were many current students who would agree that they shouldn't be there and would actually prefer not to be there, racking up huge debts that will take them a decade or more to pay off whilst not being guaranteed a job when they graduate.

The problem is that Labour have created a situation where even average 21 year olds have degrees and employers in certain industries have dealt with the situation by dictating that all applicants must have a degree, leaving those that have the ability to do a degree, but no particularly wish to, in a bit of a no-win situation.

I doubt that anyone would argue that a non-vocational degree makes a person more able to do the job, it certainly didn't in my case, but with the way the education system is at the moment with all and sundry gaining straight 'A's, it's difficult for employers to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It seems that many employers are now relying on the universities to do this for them, i.e. they'll only accept applicants from graduates with a good degree from what the employer perceives to be a good university. Having a good degree from any old poly simply isn't enough.