University degrees

Looking back, we were so very lucky. They paid us to do our degrees with a grant. We did have to do well in our exams to be able to go to uni but once you passed you could get scholarships and a grant which you never had to pay back. The standards were quite high, possibly higher than these days but most of us had plenty of time to have a wonderful time, it wasn’t all swotting.

Ro60 my comment was in response to biglouis. It was not intended to derail the thread but address their remarks about particular courses and 1970s universities. Many of the changes being discussed are a result of the post 1992 universities, the former polys, tech and specialist colleges who now are universities in their own right with their own degree awarding powers.

My son has a first class degree in Accounting and Finance from the LSE. A very difficult subject. Nothing whatsoever to do with bookkeeping.

Beswitched

I used to work for a public sector organisation and am still in touch with ex colleagues. There has been a lot of frustration regarding young people coming in with degrees in this that and the other and being promoted ahead of very experienced and talebted staff who are older and left school at a time when going on to University from school was not the norm it is nowadays.
Many of these young people do not have the judgment, wisdom and management skills that really only come with experience.

Older workers can be less flexible, set in their ways which can make them more difficult to manage. New graduates learn quickly and can be molded to work exactly as the management want, they are also expendable.
It happened to me, experience was not wanted, everything had to be done according to a script - literally, wether the script was wrong was irrelevant, in the end I gave up.

I started my working life convinced I was God's gift to the accountancy profession. I did a degree that gave me an exemption from some of the professional exams.

However in the mid 1960s, trainee accountants with degrees were rare beasts and the majority were doing their training straight from school. I gave up my training after 6 months, for a variety of reasons and moved into industry as an economist.

I think the subject we were discussing was how degrees have changed in recent years.

Just saying…
It needed saying Alygran

I think the person who dismissed Accountancy as a Mickey Mouse degree probably didn't know the difference between Accountancy and book keeping.

Chartered Accountants often train after doing a first degree in another subject/subjects then, after several more years of study, have to take more examinations and some years of experience to become a professional Chartered Accountant. That may not end there as, to progress, further professional qualifications eg in tax law etc may be taken.

I don't think there are degrees in book keeping. NVQs, maybe.

I do, however, think that there is a lot of nonsense being talked on this thread.

Alygran I did the same degree subject as you, except at my university it was called 'Business Studies'. I decided against accountancy and became a business economist.

In the early 1960s very few women did Economics, or business studies.

I think the person who dismissed Accountancy as a Mickey Mouse degree probably didn't know the difference between Accountancy and book keeping.

It's usual in care that you pay back for any training you've had (the training that nobody believes we do) if you leave within a certain time frame.

Someone who runs his own business told me once that he stopped apprenticeships because they were so expensive to run and once they were trained many of the apprentices just moved on to other companies. The same is true of specialized inhouse training courses. Years ago it was likely that an employee you trained would be around at least long enough to make it worth training them. Now younger people move around much more. On top of that there are so many h&s/team working/security/other courses that companies have to run for every employee, apart from any specialized training.

My OH told me once that new employees stay for an average of about three years and his company is now finding it less expensive to take retired employees back on contract than it is to hire and train young people.

Oh my! I have a degree in Accounting and Finance from a red brick university. Not a Disney character in sight. Lots of business modelling, economics and law. This was in the mid 70s when women were hugely under represented in both higher education and the professions.
I went on to qualify as a chartered accountant with a major international firm and after my children went to school I had a highly successful and well paid career in a polytechnic that became a University. I know many of my students went on to have similar satisfying and worthwhile careers in a whole range of areas
Just saying…

Oldest grandson was successful in gaining an apprenticeship with a major oil (I know,!) company a few years ago. As well as salary they paid for him to attend university alongside his job. After 4 years (Scotland) he graduated with an engineering degree and no student debt. It can be difficult to gain a place on these apprenticeships but they seem like an excellent model fir more organisations to adopt.

I assure you it isn't.

Ok, if that's not what you are getting at, I apologise. It's just the impression I have gained from your posts.

You seem to be attributing an agenda to me that does not exist.

I think we shall have to agree to disagree as I'm really getting tired of this.

Your attitude is similar though. 'Experienced and talented' staff being usurped by people with 'degrees in this and that' is not unlike Accountancy and Education 'Mickey Mouse' degrees in its dismissive attitude to graduates.

N0o Doodledog that is not the issue . I was employed in a specific niche post and wasn't affected by this.

I was agreeing with the poster above me.

Ah, so now we have it. It is resentment against younger, better-qualified people that is behind these posts - I thought so.

What you say is right, inasmuch as it is much more common for people to have degrees now as in the past. On one hand, this means that those without them might find career progression more difficult, which will be frustrating. On the other hand, though, in the days when fewer people had degrees, those who did, talented or not, were pretty much guaranteed a managerial or professional role if they wanted one. Nowadays things are far more competitive, so it's not as though young people just walk into guaranteed career progression.

Also, there has been expansion in the number of people going into HE for decades now. When this was less of a norm, and as has been said several times on this thread, there were other opportunities for those without qualifications to gain them. Graduates didn't replace 'on the job' learning overnight. Those who went into jobs with neither a degree nor the opportunity to gain work-based qualifications will be thin on the ground now, or very much at the older end of the scale. It doesn't make sense to compare career starters with older employees, as it has always been the case that 'newbies' are inexperienced and need time to bed in.

I used to work for a public sector organisation and am still in touch with ex colleagues. There has been a lot of frustration regarding young people coming in with degrees in this that and the other and being promoted ahead of very experienced and talebted staff who are older and left school at a time when going on to University from school was not the norm it is nowadays.
Many of these young people do not have the judgment, wisdom and management skills that really only come with experience.

Back in the 1960s many professions, including law and accountancy as well as engineering had multiple paths of entry according to your level of education

This is true! I was a qualified librarian - qualified under the older system which it was possible to study for full time or piecemeal. Then in the late 1970s these micky mouse universities began to churn out kids with micky mouse degrees in "Library Science" "Education" "Accountancy" and so on. Short sighted employers began to prefer these applicants over qualified staff with many years of experience. We were told they had a "bit of paper" we did not have. In many cases the degrees were only 2/2 quality and therefore inferior to the older professional examinations in those careers.

I know that many of my colleagues who remained in librarianship were eventually made redundant and changes in the profession and local government financing crises caused libraries to be closed. They were not cash generators. I went on to uni as a mature student and gained high academic honours but never returned to librarianship.

A degree now is worth little compared to its value in the 1980s.

There is considerable kudos to be gained by schools in the public sector who encourage promising sixth-formers to apply to Oxbridge. My DGS (17), at a very successful comprehensive, has applied to Oxford and achieved a conditional offer of a college place. His cousin, a year younger, in a different 6th form college, has been given information about apprenticeships (as well as university entrance) and is keen to pursue those opportunities further. Time will tell, of course, and it will be interesting to follow the subsequent careers of these two bright young men.

Galaxy

We dont want things like drama and theatre being taught though, where will it end

What, stuff like Shakespeare?
Shocking!

Galaxy

We dont want things like drama and theatre being taught though, where will it end

What, stuff like Shakespeare?
Shocking!