university of (or) life?

[britgirl]

In another thread (Poppy Protest) 

 [quote user="cooperlola"]   Personally, I have never found that a bunch of degrees and bits of paper ever made anybody necessarily cleverer, more inteligent, more sensitive to others or a greater humanitarian.  A person's true character is obvious from their achievements, their deeds and their words, not their qualifications. [/quote]

I think for all those worried about being prevented from enjoying a university education, they shouldn't be, I agree with Cooper Lola, and add that the experience of U.o L. has been probably more entertaining.[:)] and a lot less expensive.

 

[cooperlola]

Well, of course as you no doubt realise, I would have said that, wouldn't I?

I reckon it is much harder these days as when I joined the railway at 19 (having spent the year since school qualifying as a riding instructor), I was not competing with a bunch of graduates for a job as a filing clerk!  What's more I was in an industry which was truly diverse and I ended up doing PR and Marketing because it turned out I was actually quite good at them - something which I would never have guessed at when I was at school. I doubt if the careers advisors at my comprehensive even knew what those jobs entailed.  They looked at the subjects you were good at and suggested you taught them (eugh[+o(]).

Nowadays people have degrees in these subjects, and judging by how poor some companies are at both,  a fat lot of good it's doing them!

[crossy67]

Maybe the soaring cost to the student will put people off getting a degree making them less common and more valuable?  It seems everyone has one now.  I have a few friends that have good degrees and very good jobs but none of them ever seem to have any significant amount of money despite their higher than average wages.  maybe the UOL teaches this better than real university.

[Rose]

My father was a very strict Victorian type of man who believed that

educating women was pointless [:(] so I left school at 16 with my O'levels and a

job at BT.  (Post Office as it was then).

I undertook further education

at college/night school and was lucky to get a year of management training

sponsored by BT as well... after which I decided to continue my study with the

OU.  By the time I was 28 I'd made up for lost time with my education... but I

had no debt and 12 years of working under my belt and on my CV. I started

working Freelance and then went on to start my own business which I sold at the

end of 2008.

My Dad was wrong to not allow me to finish my education...

but I don't believe it did me any harm.  In fact I do wonder if it simply made

me more determined?

[Gluestick]

In my book, the very best is a combination of the two.

Pointless having degrees and doctorates in endless "Ologies" and more letters after your name than the London telephone directory!

I most enjoyed working with mature part-time students on MBA courses: they had much more sense and realism.

Mainly since they had spent some years out in the big bad World earning a living.

My own conclusion is that formal study can aid the student and optimise skills they already possess: for example, no amount of study can create a sales person: they are born, not made.

And in the same vein, no amount of study can create a good manager: however, formal study can drastically improve a good manager and make them an excellent manager since it builds on what was previously perhaps, purely intuitive.

I had great hopes for NVQs: ruined by academics playing games.

Personally, I'm a product of both the university of life and formal education.

I used to have a notice hanging in the office: printed by me.

it said:

Quick! Ask the graduate to do it!

Before they forget how to do everything!

[:D]

[Rose]

I never managed an ology or letters after my name... but agree that formal study helped both on my CV's and doing the job.

[Judith]

Yes, the librarian at our college (where I was training in the same discipline) once said, graduates are OK once you've had them for 6 months and they've forgotten all they were taught!  It's all common sense, after all (he said).

I am becoming of the opinion that university or higher education is wasted on the young.  I suspect that it would be better for all that school leavers are obliged to find work for a set minimum period of time, (and I don't mean a gap year), though that is some use certainly if done properly), before then taking up their higher education in whatever form they then chose.

Being one of those who went straight to university (but brought up in a work ethic so did work - hard) I now wish I had had the opportunity to broaden my outlook and experiences before continuing my studies.  I don't think I suffered by going straight to higher education, it was what one did in those days, but more and more I read about youngsters today with no "nounce" at all, either before or at the end of their higher education days.  A bit of life experience might well  help them succeed.

[Alan Zoff]

I agree with the sentiment, Judith. Pity though that in reality a lot of kids will not get the chance of either university or a job. In my day (leaving school at the beginning of the 70s), we really did have a choice.

[pachapapa]

Whilst good university and further education are important, there is no substitute for practical experience particularly early in a career.

Recent events in chile with the mine rescue was for me a reminder, I was impressed with the management and technological skills of André Sougarret the mining engineer in charge of the rescue operation, So checked his CV noting that he started at Mantos Blancos before moving on to El Teniente. Good experience I thought with a smile. Been there got the tee-shirt! I moved from Chambeshi, Zambia to Mantos Blancos in the late 70s, taking over from Pedro Campino,[:)] who moved on to El Teniente and later the General Manager of Chuquicamata. And the famous drill that did the hole well that came from Doña Ines-Collahuasi, the General Manager there also did his time at Mantos Blancos. Great training and experience, bought me up to world class in less than 5 years, large scale surface and underground mining snug in my knapsack.

[idun]

Me and my friends are now all in our late fifties. It is only recently that a good friend told me that she had wanted to be a teacher and that her school had wanted her to continue her education. Her parents went to the school and had a right go at the Headmaster and said that the only reason he wanted her to stay on was to get more money for the school. She had to go to work.

These parents a couple of years later helped my friend buy a car.

My parents would have supported me if I had wanted to stay in education, no problem at all, I didn't want to, but hell could have frozen over before they would have ever helped me buy a car.

My friend got a good degree later in life and a thriving career, but was never a teacher.

[Bugsy]

Life for me, every time.

But what I wouldn't have given to have the knowledge I have now, when I was 21.

.

[Clarkkent]

I suppose I have had the best of both worlds. I left school with a small clutch of "O" levels, did some dead-end jobs, worked for a couple of world-famous American-owned companies (which turned out to be exemplars of bad management practices), was sacked by one of them (in retrospect - great relief) and eventually took a job as a van driver. Then, with my wife's support, I went to university.

My three years as an undergraduate were the best, most rewarding, most significant years of my life and everything that has happened to me since then has - to some extent - been in consequence. What I learned was what the university of life could not teach me: I learned to think. I learned processes of analysis, synthesis, argument and presentation. I learned to evaluate my own ideas and those of others. I stayed in education and ended up teaching in a "new university".

I ended up teaching aspects of business and management and I tried to convince my students that the process of learning was more important than the outcome.

I told one young man that he came to university to learn how to think - he told me that he came to learn business and management.

I told a cohort of students that the first thing they would hear when they started to work for a living was "we don't do it that way here" - they reported me to the head of department. But when, a year or so later, I went to visit them on work placement, they told me I had been right.

We send too many people to university, mainly because we - and they - are confused about what a university education is for. It is not training for a job - that is the responsibility of the employer. Almost every entry-level job can be done by anyone, irrespective of education. The university trains people for the roles they may undertake several years down the line when they are involved in strategy and planning.

[Panda]

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]I agree with the sentiment, Judith. Pity though that in reality a lot of kids will not get the chance of either university or a job. In my day (leaving school at the beginning of the 70s), we really did have a choice.[/quote]

I left full time education in the mid eighties when the job situation was much bleaker than it is now, there are jobs around today but those leaving Uni seem to have developed an idea that the job they have studied for will be waiting for them, that is sadly just not the case of course and many don't want to do just 'anything' to get some cash, which is what I did and I've never regretted it. 

[Chancer]

[quote user="Bugsy"]Life for me, every time. But what I wouldn't have given to have the knowledge I have now, when I was 21. .[/quote]

Whereas I knew everything!

Or so I thought [:D]

What I wouldnt have given to have the knowledge that I didnt know everything, looking back retrospectively that is.

[cooperlola]

I have no problem with the concept of a university education - I had plenty of graduates working for me and many were a joy to work with, but it didn't influence my decision to employ them - I was more interested in their personalities (very important in my job), their instincts and their track records. 

I'm not sure that things have improved since the days when, as Superman says, one went to uni' to learn how to learn, and a degree in the Classics was as useful as any other, even though there aren't many jobs where it has an obvious "use" as a subject.  I have friends who still work in the media, in PR and in advertising and in senior roles too.  All say they'd rather employ somebody who has drive and natural talent than a degree in Media Studies.

Edit : Even in the days when a uni' education was a rarer beast than it is now, I was astonished at how many graduates were unable to string a sentence together, which given the field we were working in was a bit fundamental.  I'm not talking here about minor points of grammar, punctuation and spelling, but simply an ability to write coherently.

[pachapapa]

Always a good thing that the "boss" knows ALSO how to do the job. My first 6 months working on the Witwatersrand was entirely devoted to learning and DOING all the occupations for expatriate african workers. But the double whammy!They didn't know nguni, I'd never heard of nguni.....but after 6 months I could speak it like a native. Curiously awakened a latent talent for foreign languages which I was able to expoit later.

[Alan Zoff]

How right you are about the importance of the boss knowing his job.

For all the blame laid at the door of unions in the 70s, many of the problems would have been avoided by decent management.

My (now deceased) former neigbour was a senior manager with a certain Midlands car company well known for its industrial troubles. He freely admitted to me that he should not have been in management. He had been an engineer who had been promoted as a matter of course because he had served his time and kept his nose clean.

He and his colleagues were staggered (and embarrassed) by the superior skills of their German counterparts when they were collaborating on a project.

Smashing bloke, and had probably been a great engineer, but he was a poor manager and was in that position because of useless top management above him.

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]He had been an engineer who had been promoted as a matter of course because he had served his time and kept his nose clean. [/quote]

Ah yes. The Peter Principle.

People are promoted because they are good at their jobs, but eventually they are promoted into positions for which they have no skills (their first level of incompetence) and here they stick. According to the Peter Principle the important strategic decisions are being taken by a group of people who are not competent to take them!

The higher up in the hierarchy one rises, the technical element in the job becomes less and the general element becomes greater. Career paths in British organisations used to be practically vertical, you stayed in the speciality in which you had originally trained. You were an expert in a narrow field, but your expertise became a smaller and smaller part of the job but you never received any training in management practice and principles. Happy days.

At that time, the American management development system was regarded with awe. There, management trainees (a species not widely known in Britain) ascended their organisations in a zig-zag pattern (a spell in sales, followed by a year in cost accounting, followed by a period in product development, and then time in production control ... and so on. Such people had an broad understanding of the organisation's activities but no in-depth knowledge of any specific activity.

I think it was Charles Handy who observed that in Japan about 80% of top managers wer graduates and 20% were accountants but in Britain about 80% were accountants and 20% were graduates.