50,000 A-level Students To Miss Out On Place At University

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

Meanwhile thousands of young British hopefuls have their careers crippled in favour of foreigners who contribute a paltry sum to the uni coffers.

Education education edu... er.... well done again Labour. If you funded it properly in the first place you wouldn't be handing our kids' futures to foreigners.

Now, if only there was a patriotic party that put Britons forst I could vote for...

[symo]

Thanks for the leads, seriously..! I studied electronics & electrical at Edinburgh, decided to get into electronics but discovered I'd rather be doing something electrical/power-based. I've heard of the EDF graduate scheme though having no real experience with electrical I'm going to find it tough.

Anything else you can add is much appreciated - sorely need a new job come the end of the year.

Engineering does look a bit messed up here (as does housing, education.. .the whole nation!) - I'm training for the police, also. If I can't get any engineering or police jobs I'll be buggered.

PM me and I will send you my email address I have a friend at one of those companies HR department.

Man, that is sad.

I did not know that Brunel had hollowed out it's science/engineering faculty. Back when I was studying it was well repsected in these fields. Just goes to show how hollow Nu-Britain is, I guess.

Unfortunately this is true. There is a great article in PE the IMechE mag saying how long will we bail out companies that employ a few people and concentrate wealth in a few rich hands than bailout companies who bring in foreign revenue.

I remember the first year of my degree, and it was a shock, it was like a job, 9-5 generally with a lot of work until 9PM to keep up. I generally do think people go to uni now to large it for 3-4 years rather than learn. I believe Business studies courses are endemic of this.

Is it not notoriously difficult to get into the oil & gas industry? I turned down an offer from BP two years ago (big mistake in hindsight) and Rolls Royce (nuclear controls engineer - another big mistake!!). Re-applying for these big jobs in September when grad roles open up again, even though I'm not a (fresh) grad!

Engineering at Edinburgh is also taking a dive. When I was there the electronics class was about 60 strong... 7 years on it's about 20 or less, I hear..

Oil & Gas industry like the tenacious (sic) so the tricj is to be annoyingly persistent and emphasise the parts of your experience relevant eg PLC programmaing is pretty much the same everywhere, however the O&G industry wants to see experience of alarms, shutdowns (you get the drift)

It is either too much like hard work for todays students or they have very sensibly decided not to bother with it as there are no prospects. Or a bit of both.

There is work but a lot goes to foreiign contractors (who are generally poor) mainly due to the smaller and smaller pool they can recruit from. The irony is foreign firms love UK engineers. I got offered an interview for £1000 a day in Algeria, I would have taken it then they said Algeria

[better-than-expected]

I am willing to wager that none of the courses for engineering, physics, chemistry, maths,biology, bio-chemistry etc are full and I suspect many will remain unfilled owing to the hard work involved. How many of this 50,000 would be willing to years course for foundation engineering for example to get onto a real degree.

Well i am at essex uni doing a biology degree and this year the places are very limited.

[symo]

Well i am at essex uni doing a biology degree and this year the places are very limited.

but not full. Engineering courses never fill in general.

[alexw]

It is either too much like hard work for todays students or they have very sensibly decided not to bother with it as there are no prospects. Or a bit of both.

I'm not an engineer: I'm a scientist, so I have no VI in saying, IMHO, the engineering courses were generally the most demanding of all back in my day. And I'm not just taling timetabled work, although generally engineers had more of that in a week than most arts and humanities did in a term.

From what i have seen in the sciences its a mixture of two reasons.

First there is those who mainly cared about money, who when these fields were somewhat decently remunerated relative to others for the effort required, were willing to follow this career path. These have all but gone now. Much easier and more rewarding to become a consultant/manager/cityspiv.

Then there were those who mainly entered these fields as they found it interesting and challenging. There are still some of these types left but the numbers have vastly decreased. The problem is the opportunities whatever the vested interests say, just are not out there. And what opportunities there are have become increasingly unattractive, being risky short term contracts requiring highly capable individuals whilst paying 30k at max. Whats caused this you may ask... well i hear toshiba, glaxo, motorola, P&G, unilever, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, GE, SAP, Intel, Alcatel, HP, Sony, Motorola, sun, philips, cisco, bayer, samsung, dow, dupont, pfizer, BASF, J&J.....etc....etc....etc.... all now have major low cost (cheap worker) R&D centers in china. Going into the sciences in the uk is now a mugs game.

[guitarman001]

PM me and I will send you my email address I have a friend at one of those companies HR department.

I remember the first year of my degree, and it was a shock, it was like a job, 9-5 generally with a lot of work until 9PM to keep up. I generally do think people go to uni now to large it for 3-4 years rather than learn. I believe Business studies courses are endemic of this.

Oil & Gas industry like the tenacious (sic) so the tricj is to be annoyingly persistent and emphasise the parts of your experience relevant eg PLC programmaing is pretty much the same everywhere, however the O&G industry wants to see experience of alarms, shutdowns (you get the drift)

Have pm'd you, thanks

Same with my degree - I never had the great student lifestyle as I was so busy studying - then coming home at 6pm and rewriting notes/revising!

Unfortunately no experience of much related to oil & gas like you say - making the effort to learn, though.

[Cicero]

A couple of years back I took an A level for job development reasons: After what amounted to 30 hours study with a Letts revision guide I got an A (heaven knows what i'd have got if I'd had the chance to resit modules and boost my marks). Makes me wonder what me/my school wasted my time on when I sat my original A levels back in the mid 80s, as 2 after years of full time study and I didnt get any A's.....

Edit to add: Me too, Warwick Watcher.

What subject did you sit?

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

50000 miss out? To paraphrase Monty Python/Life of Brian, “You lucky bastards!â€

Thomasross20: http://www.rolls-royce.co.uk/careers/searc...r_vacancies.jsp

A friend is going for a chat with them next week, be warned, pay and benefits are not that competitive.

[Neil B]

Babcocks are recruiting.

EDF are recruiting.

Unfortunately you need some experince of power generation to get a foot on the ladder. Contracting is a great way to go if you can deal with the fact you are a gun for hire and ultimately can be gone in a week. Your best bet is to try Alstom in Leicester as I believe they are still looking and all experience with wiggly amps is usable. At the moment we have a real shortage of people who are familiar with MV and HV and cabable of sorting out site design work for switchgear.

... And there still will be a shortage - EDF pay cr4p wages to HV design engineers. 30k/year in central London.. Helllllooo?

[guitarman001]

This is the thing, right... I'm on ~£28k right now in electronics up in Scotland. Girlfriend has paid off her mortgage. I may actually be better off doing something else paying less and staying here. £30-35k sounds about right for average engineer's wage (which is shocking!)

Neil B - do you or a friend work for EDF? I'd never move to London, especially not for £30k.

50000 miss out? To paraphrase Monty Python/Life of Brian, “You lucky bastards!â€

Thomasross20: http://www.rolls-royce.co.uk/careers/searc...r_vacancies.jsp

A friend is going for a chat with them next week, be warned, pay and benefits are not that competitive.

Thanks for the link - I never saw that last time I was on the site, only the graduate programmes and controls direct entry programme. I turned them down two years ago as they deferred me to the controls rather than the graduate programme - I was up against Oxford & Cambridge grads whose CVs looked sickly compared to mine, so was pretty p!ssed off at the time. The girlfriend isn't keen on me moving down south but I have to do something with myself.

Anyway, thanks to everybody for helping and taking part in the discussion, find this all really interesting!

Edited August 20, 2009 by thomasross20

[General Melchett]

What subject did you sit?

Business studies.

Back in the 80s, phys/chem/bio.

So there's another can of worms right there.

[Deft]

We always struggle to find good graduate level people for our jobs (Pharmaceutical R&D). Maybe because it's a bit niche and there aren't many directly applicable undergrad degrees. Not masses of permanent jobs at the moment though, but some out there if you look.

[Neil B]

Neil B - do you or a friend work for EDF? I'd never move to London, especially not for £30k

I used to work for them. Gave it up and changed career. 6 years of study and 4 in engineering training to be paid less than a head waiter...no thanks

[guitarman001]

Hate to sound like a nosey to88er... but what did you end up retraining as?

(Sorry for all the probing questions - I find what people do for a living really interesting, and I'm at a crossroads right now)

[Neil B]

Hate to sound like a nosey to88er... but what did you end up retraining as?

(Sorry for all the probing questions - I find what people do for a living really interesting, and I'm at a crossroads right now)

I didnt retrain as such I used an old skill and studied solidly for 1 year to become certificated.

I built my own consultancy.

Edited August 20, 2009 by Neil B

[Cicero]

Business studies.

Back in the 80s, phys/chem/bio.

So there's another can of worms right there.

Definitely.

Sad to note OCR exam board no longer offering "Three Sciences" for GCSE. Only a matter of time before these are replaced by a Generic "Scienceology" A Level.

You can almost hear the cries of the successful A grade students...."I'm a scientologist yaaaay!"

[guitarman001]

Wow, well done!! 8)

[symo]

To be honest the A level system for engineers is cack. BTEC is the route I wish I had gone down as I would have a better grasp of the practicalities of engineering before I arrived at uni. (Witness the perfectly designed (to a 3 safety factor) axle I created in my second year which my course leader looked at and said "The maths are perfect; but does it look right?" Which it did not; and also it was before I fully nderstood momentum of inertia properly but I digress).

[Neil B]

Wow, well done!! 8)

@thomasross20 - get in touch with me - Im always looking for new staff that have an engineering background - we engineers are like gold dust these days!

[symo]

@thomasross20 - get in touch with me - Im always looking for new staff that have an engineering background - we engineers are like gold dust these days!

I love engineering, it's like a little club that protects it's own.

[Neil B]

I love engineering, it's like a little club that protects it's own.

I think every career is the same.

From a personal point of view I dont have to go via a load of agents to find engineers as they are usually completely inexperienced and havent got a clue about a candidates CV qualities - if the candidate doesnt have a degree they bin the CVs!

[IwantaHome]

@thomasross20 - get in touch with me - Im always looking for new staff that have an engineering background - we engineers are like gold dust these days!

are you a recruitment consultant?

[Neil B]

are you a recruitment consultant?

nope (....spits on floor at the thought)

Recruitment Consultant:

Qualifications: Degree (Art history)

Skills: Can search on Monster.co.uk for words that I think are similar to the job advert

Edited August 20, 2009 by Neil B

[tedies friend]

I did an engineering degree. It was pointless. We don't make anything. I will soon stick a hosepipe from the exhaust to the car interior and do myself in.. I have given up. I don't want to be part of the system any more. but I digress...

My university, Brunel, used to be known for science and engineering, but has seen many of its engineering and science degrees halted. It is now primarily a social science and sport science university.

1 Our time will come have patience, bit like HPC we can call it Bullsh1t qualifications crash

2 Sh1t the bed, tell me its a lie,how will this country manage, I still have hope but its going to be a long tough road

Edited August 20, 2009 by tedies friend

[quinnbear]

...Any other teachers who took A level in the 80s - 90s out there care to comment ??

Oh absolutely! Every year it drives me mad that the A level results are better than last year. It's all rather like the Soviet union's ever-increasing wheat yields in the 1930s.

I did my A levels in '88 and I taught A-level for the last 9 years. It is far easier to get good grades now. It is not the case that the kids don't work, it is just the nature of what they are doing doesn't really separate the wheat from the chaff.

When I did A levels the kids who got 3 A grades were hardcore clever kids (I wasn't one of them!) Now it seems that distinctly middling students can get straight A grades. It doesn't really benefit anyone in the long run (a bit like HPI), but everyone feels good in the short term.

QB