Bored at university!!??

www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/speaker-banned-warwick-university-over-10136555

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/banning-shouting-down-speakers-universities-risk

A men alliwed to be NUS "womens officers". Lecturers fired or campaigns to get them fired. Speakers banned. Its all been in the mainstream news SirChenjin

dogmatic extreme left groups are controlling universities and getting lecturers fired and speakers cancelled if they dare to express "triggering" views!

Really?! It’s quite the opposite in my experience - although I imagine that it will depend on the course. My son’s degree, for example, is linked to industry as are many degrees. The days of left wing lecturers are long gone in many fields - they need to generate income through research.

The subjects being lost as theyre not a direct funnel to a profession, and because they dont allow lecturers to churn our research, are of great value to society:

History, literature, philosophy: all good groundwork for understanding the human condition. Whether you use it in business, in caring profession, or to identify propganda at voting time, the study of these subjects have great value

Maybe if more people were still doing the hugely out of fashion geography degree, less people would still be buying houses on flood zones so dodgy developers would stop forcing rivers to bulge elsewhere?

Having lost the range of popular subjects, particularly the arts and "debating" subjects, dogmatic extreme left groups are controlling universities and getting lecturers fired and speakers cancelled if they dare to express "triggering" views!

An undergraduate degree was never traditionally about being "used" it was about building knowledge for knoeledge sake.

I agree with Bradford Lass that university is not always the right path.
There are many young people with a lot of debt pulling pints and serving tables.

A degree is sadly not always a passport to a great career.
I think too many graduates have little experience of life and may leave university with a degree but cannot apply themselves to using their qualifications.

My youngest now 25 went to university in Prague, he had never been to the Czech Republic before, but had worked for 6 months in India then in Kyrgyzstan so he had done some growing up!

He had no contacts in Prague but within 3 weeks had made friends and loved his new home.
I don’t think the year before he would have had the maturity or confidence to have started a degree in a different country.

A challenging year out in my opinion is worth a lot.

Agree wholeheartedly with everything Doodlebug says.

While of course it’s possible to be successful without a degree, nowadays they are standard requirements in many fields and certainly if you want to progress in your choice of career or profession you will need a formal qualification.

Bradford - you mention that your son works in IT security and has his own company. One of our neighbour’s works in IT security as does my friend’s brother - both are very senior in their companies and both have university qualifications. If it’s the same type of IT security then I imagine your son recruits similar people?

Personality, ability and inclination will get you so far but without that piece of paper you’re limiting the number of professions you can enter and the rung on the ladder to which you’ll progress.

A friend’s daughter started at a local university in the autumn, on a nursing degree. She originally planned to live in student accommodation, (to immerse in the student experience, although she only lived 20 miles away), but that went by the wayside when it transpired she would only be in lectures two days a week, and out on placements etc. the remainder. So she lives at home and travels in when required, seems like many of them do that also, probably because a lot live fairly locally.
Money wasted on accommodation if not needed much of the time.
Too much made of the student experience in view of the costs involved nowadays.

I don't think that anyone has said that university is for everyone, although I keep hearing people saying that it is said .

For a lot of young people it is a safe and useful way to bridge the gap between adolescence and adulthood, whilst broadening their horizons and learning more about a subject that interests them. Some will struggle, whether socially or academically, but others will have the best time of their lives, and build a strong foundation for adult life.

To do that, they need to be reasonably confident before going, and be prepared to make an effort to move outside of their comfort zone, which can be difficult, as moving away from home is out of the comfort zone for most 18 year olds anyway.

I found that often the students who waited a year or two before starting their courses did well, as they had grown up a bit, and had a better idea of what their priorities were before starting their studies. Having a bit of a nest-egg behind them after working for a while could also mean that they needed to work fewer hours, which also makes a difference to both social and academic success.

I also really object to degrees being called 'pieces of paper'. The certificates are pieces of paper, but they represent years of study at a relatively high standard, which has been graded by experts in the field. They take a lot of work, and it is very disrespectful to the young people who have gained them to write them off in that way.

A lot of people don't 'use' their degrees in the sense that they don't go on to work in the field that they have studied; but the transferable skills they gain at university (teamwork, leadership, research, critical thinking, meeting deadlines etc etc) make them employable and perhaps more likely to be chosen for 'sideways moves' into well-paid jobs.

Of course, some people can manage without degrees, and go on to be successful in all sorts of ways. That doesn't mean that those who have them are not 'smart and hard working', though. There is a huge logical flaw in that implication.

Oops, probably couldn't be

SirChenjin No one has helped my gd with any finance at all and she wouldn't take it if they did (she's from Yorkshire stock after all!)
She simply worked two jobs for three years, 6 days a week; was in a flat-share and lived simply to save up.

I'm not convinced paper qualifications are always the way to go although I accept they can open doors for some people. You probably could be a research chemist for instance unless you'd got at least a BA in the relevant studies.

Several of my son's friends obtained degrees but haven't used them.
They started off in entry-level jobs and worked their way up or sideways into well-paid positions. That's because they're smart and hard-working, not because they could wave a piece of paper.

My elder son has no qualifications at all and yet owns his owns IT Security business in Australia where he has several government and corporate contracts.

So I honestly think it's down to personality, ability and inclination.

Some young people are just not academic or cut out for university life and yet feel obliged to go as it's seen to be the goal their parents want them to aim for and would be let down if they chose a different path.

I don’t think we do that, do we? It’s great your DGD is in a position to travel and work in lowly paid jobs (is someone helping her financially with that choice)) but as you say, at some point she’ll want to settle and work - and unless she wants to work in an unskilled job for peanuts she’ll do some form of education and achieve a qualification.

My DC and the majority of their friends have chosen courses which will enable them to travel once they graduate and earn decent money. They’ve taken part in things like the Erasmus programme and Canp America and have met people from a wide range of cultures. A university education has provided them with a wide range of experiences already and will set them on a career trajectory that will take them as far as they want to go. It’s not a case of wonderful experiences or university.

Here's a different take on university and young people.

My grand-daughter, over from the UK spent the evening with me.

She could have gone to university and was urged to by her Mum and step-Dad, both teachers, to do so but instead of getting on "that treadmill", chose to take a mundane job, save and travel to England.

There she did any job she could get beginning with clerk and being a barista at night. She moved on to Portugal and worked in a backpackers then to Spain.

In February, she goes back to the UK and on to Austria, working in a pop-up hostel where she'll also be able to ski.

Then to the Oktoberfest in Munich before returning to a job as a courier dispatcher in London.

Like many people (even educators) she doesn't agree with the goal-based, idea of going to university to prove her worth and earn more money.

Meeting and helping people, sharing their lifestyles and learning about other cultures gives her a rich education.

Later, if she really has to (because our hidebound money-orientated society put pressure on the young to get a "good" job) she may train for some sort of qualifications but right now she's having a ball, doing a health and wellness cultural course and absolutely loves every moment of her interesting life.

I know this wouldn't suit everyone but I think we put too much prerssure on our young people with the idea that university is the only way to go.

It’s less than eight years since my older son was at university (Maths) and he made lots of friends that he’s still in touch with. My younger son (Engineering) has also made close university friends, but they are fewer in number. Both had regular exams throughout each semester so they had to study very hard, but they found time to socialise away from the drinking culture that seems to exist in every university. Neither of them spent a lot of time on their phones (still don’t) and they both had very active interests that they pursued.

There are two sides to Uni life. One is the studies - and she did choose that course, so it must be something that drew her. Are her lectures and tutorials also boring? It doesn't bode well for her studies if finds that a drag too.

The other side is the social life, and that is whatever she makes of it. Every university has societies and clubs for any subject you can think of, most of them initiated and run by the students themselves.

If there isn't one for her interest, she could spend some of her free time seeking others who will join her, and starting one up - or even starting it up and then recruiting others to it. Just two people can be a pioneering focus for a group, gathering others like a snowball.

Yes that’s true - but with more foreign students and less drinking overall the landscape has changed. We used to spend far more time socialising in the Union drinking cheap cider, but the traditional students union with £1 pints of cider is long gone.

Its not just overseas students who dont socialise with alcohol though. Lots of domestic teens don't drink.

My uni days revolved around drinking establishments. Even if you didn't drink much yoursrlves that was where people congregated. People who lived outside of halls went to halls parties to drink. Those big halls parties dont happen now

My granddaughter has struggled at Uni too. She is quite shy and not a drinker or party girl so has found it difficult.. The communal kitchen areas are left dirty which again she finds hard. Must be different where she is notanan

Overseas students have SUCH a short window to secure onward study or employment or else they cant stay, so they often treat their undergrad course as one long intervirvew. So that they get taken on as post grads or as research assistants. They are really under pressure to secure the next step straight away.

Agree notanan Add in the number of foreign students who pay exorbitant sums of money and often don’t socialise with alcohol in the same way we did and who weren’t there in the 80s when I was at university and it becomes a very different environment.

Also some courses have a much higher proportion of not necesarily mature students, but not fresh from school.

When I was at uni you had a lot of kids there partially becausr they werent mature enough for the real world yet. Uni gave you some extra growing room. Things wouldnt "get serious" until 3rd year.

But its hit the ground running now. And the flip side of students being consumers, is unis covering themselves incase results arent achieved. So they are MUCH hotter on recording attendance and participation in online coursework, tutor groups and other non weighted course related activities.

Halls used to be cheap so people often had "fun" trashing them.
They are really expensive now.

Plus university now is like a professional workplace. Students are out to impress so they get the good work experience placements etc. If you imagine, doing what we did at uni "in out day" in your office or work break room: thats kind of the reaction you would get for behaving like that as a uni student: it would go down like a lead baloon and people would distance themselves from you.

There is no "mix" of swats and "piss heads" and everything in between: ALL the kids are swats, because at that price, they wouldnt go if they werent!

There is good and bad in that.

Be aware that halls of residence are quite different nowadays - they tend to be self contained flats, for individuals or small groups. There are often communal kitchens and eating areas but many (most?) have en-suite facilities. If you get on with your flat mates ie the 4/5/6 people who you share the communal area with and have similar lifestyles then it can be great - but with so many students working part time or having a lot of free periods which require self study then they can be like ships that pass in the night, especially if they’re thrown together with people who aren’t similarly minded.

A lot of it has to do with the cost.
There are no "beer degree" students any more (just there for the social life, not bothered if they barely scrape a 3rd).

Most students nowadays take their course very seriously. They are there to get their moneys worth. Its a totally different atmosphere. Few drink. Mucking about and missing lectures is frowned upon by peers.

If a student isnt committed to their course they will be bored. Students study between lectures its not all "lets hit the SU and day drink". Students do talk to each other, but in study groups, about their coursework!

Its hip to be square now.