So Whats Your Education?

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Interesting.

In my experience the people that are best at IT are most often Maths and Physics grads. Some Comp Sci grads are really good too, but a lot of them are just OK. Don't know why this is, but that's just what I've found. I've never met an arts graduate developer; interesting that you rate them as generally the best. Wonder where they are hiding. I read that Classics graduates used to do well in training courses to switch over into programing, but I guess there's not many of them nowadays.

Funnily enough a couple of them are Classics grads; the other two I can think of offhand are History and English.

Comp Sci can be a bit of a "poor man's" Maths or Physics, so it doesn't surprise me that those grads might be strong.

According to our MD (a history and english grad), history grads make the most money in IT. Don't know what the evidence is for that.

[Dames]

Errr , why have you not included CSE's ?

I have 6 , 4 x 4's and 2 x 3's of which I'm very proud.

D

[bluesteve]

o level english and five sh**y gcse

however i know many people like me with no degrees but who are successful i.e balanced work /family

life good holidays and the most important thing is they are happy with their life! we may not have £500,000

mortgages but they have a decent house , a good social life and dont work 14 hours a day and then do some more work at home .

I for one can anaylize? facts and figures and come out with the conclusions i want to believe, so please dont think no degree means no brains!

[E Powell]

54 year oldie

B.Eng, MSc, Phd, C.Eng, C.Sci

Finishing OU MBA

Ex Lecturer at red brick Midlands Uni

Holder of 4 patents in the field of aeroengine coatings & electroplated coatings

Bluesteve

I agree with you. Worked at one large aeroengine company in the E Midlands

had a graduate from Cambridge with a 1st couldn't read an engineering

drawing. Nice kid. Qualifications mean nothing its about how you apply yourself.

Edited October 10, 2005 by E Powell

[bears all]

Fellow of Trinity College of Music London; Bachelor of Laws (Nottingham); cycling proficiency (c.1968)

[WBFTB]

BEng(hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

I started uni after working full time as a technician where I got an ONC in Electronics. Then I had two choices...get sponsored to do a HNC, or, leave and go to uni full-time.

So I left and went to uni. Was it the right decision?

Some days I think it wasn't. Most days I think it was.

I was working for a nice friendly, local, company and I enjoyed the work, but the pay just wasn't there.

Now I'm about £11k in student dept and commute on a packed train every day and the job is not as enjoyable. But, the money is better.

It's not just about work/finance with uni though. It was a life-improving experience. Met good friends, gained confidence and developed personally as well as professionaly.

So I would do it again.

[Nijo]

BSc Mathematics with Computing (1997).

TBH the computing bit was there to prop-up my average grades - far easier than the maths.

No need since I don't work in IT anymore. These days I make a living from Betfair

Interesting. At the moment I'm raking in about £2 a week from Betfair.

In which areas do you trade?

[thomasthetanker]

I took Applied Self-Flagellation and graduated cum laude.

School of Hard Knocks followed by University of Life

[Live_in_hope]

I took Applied Self-Flagellation and graduated cum laude.

School of Hard Knocks followed by University of Life

I've a Beng (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, with the state of the engineering market, I wish I'd done summat else.

[gone west]

I've a Beng (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, with the state of the engineering market, I wish I'd done summat else.

You should become a landlord. I heard from a mate down the pub that BTL is the way to go. You don't even have to work. Just sit back and collect the rent and watch the value of your properties go up by leaps and bounds each year. You don't need an educashun....

[Guest Guy_Montag]

B.Eng (hons) E&EE

Not sure if it was worth it either. Should certainly have worked a couple of years before Uni to make me hungier. I got 2/2 but I'm quite capable of 2/1 or possibly even a 1st. Uni wasn't that hard, if I'd worked as hard as I worked at school I would have done much better. Too much booze & pot.

[OzzMosiz]

I went straight from school into a lowly paid IT job at 17. I had about 9 or 10 GSCE's (5 o-level Equiv)

I'm still working in IT kind off and my pay is about 13 times more than it was back then (it was pitiful).

I studied for a HNC in Computer Engineering / Studies a few years ago and fortunately passed.

All my mates either got dead end jobs or went to Uni and racked up the debts. I was working whilst

still being able to go out and have a great laugh getting sloshed

[Dancing Bear]

Another B.Eng Electrical & Electronic Engineering here too.

I worked with a large defense company while doing my degree, just got made redundant when i graduated.

Have since left the electronics industry as all the jobs seem to be heading east and i can't be bothered following them.

IMO a kid who comes out of school with a few good A levels will be far far ahead of most graduates if they just get a job on the ground floor and work hard over those 3 or 4 years.

[CASHKING]

Morning all,

Don't post often, but read all your excellant views. Sold in May this year and now living in small village called Silverton just outside Exeter.

Did a degree in Forestry in Central Africa through FAO organisation and then a Masters in Timber Technology

at Brunel University in 1993.

Have a nice day when so many are not.

[StainlessSteelCat]

BSc Biochemistry. PGC in Open and Distance Learning via OU (eventually MA if I can persuade company to keep paying for it)

[Sold up and Renting Abroad]

Bsc (hons) Engineering Degree from a proper university at a time when A levels were bloody hard (which meant no one got 6 at straight 'A') and when going to University meant you were one of the top 1% of the population.

So there !

Oh yeah, and if your parents weren't flush enough, they actually used to pay you a fair bit of dosh up front just to go and have the time of your life for 3/4years, so you were actually squids in. Whoaa !!

How times change !

Edited October 11, 2005 by Sold up and Renting Abroad

[Marina]

Do you guys with a degree feel special?

You should do. I read in the Daily Mail today (wife bought it) that 3 Asian youngsters kicked a graduate to death. Presumably the fact that he was a graduate was somehow significant.

Kicking a non-graduate to death is presumably not quite as serious.

[oracle]

The poll has only been going for two hours and already the largest majority of people on this website are from technical backgrounds.

I'm not sure what this means, but my take on it would be that technically educated people have be trained to look at facts, figure and graphs and reason. With this evidence being so strong this may not be surprising.

indeed....technical subjects require a bit of lateral thinking sometimes.I know it sounds weird as the techie lives in a world of pure logic,but how that logic is applied to seemingly surreal circumstances is the basis for the modern world we live in.

...it's always been that way.had it not been for the inquisitive mind and a off-beat view of the world then humanity would still be living in caves and eating berries off trees....no knives,forks,spears,fire......mobile phones.....washing machines......etc..

...the rest of the world might think we're a bit odd,but it's only because we are superior.

....then you have the likes of salesmen who are just bullsh1t merchants who can flog what we have invented.....just think what would happen if we kept our little secrets!!!mwwaah aaah ahh ahh!!

....by the way I'm BEng(hons) Electronic engineering

[Smell the Fear]

Quote Oracle

"The poll has only been going for two hours and already the largest majority of people on this website are from technical backgrounds.

I'm not sure what this means, but my take on it would be that technically educated people have be trained to look at facts, figure and graphs and reason. With this evidence being so strong this may not be surprising.

indeed....technical subjects require a bit of lateral thinking sometimes.I know it sounds weird as the techie lives in a world of pure logic,but how that logic is applied to seemingly surreal circumstances is the basis for the modern world we live in.

...it's always been that way.had it not been for the inquisitive mind and a off-beat view of the world then humanity would still be living in caves and eating berries off trees....no knives,forks,spears,fire......mobile phones.....washing machines......etc..

...the rest of the world might think we're a bit odd,but it's only because we are superior.

....then you have the likes of salesmen who are just bullsh1t merchants who can flog what we have invented.....just think what would happen if we kept our little secrets!!!mwwaah aaah ahh ahh!!

....by the way I'm BEng(hons) Electronic engineering"

Perhaps it's because (as has frequently been discussed here) you engineers are poorly paid compared to other professionals. The lawyers, doctors, dentists, bankers, accountants etc don't give a toss as they can still afford somewhere, or at least feel that their earnings will hit £100k at some point, and they will be able to afford a decent house. Meanwhile the engineers have no such future to look forward to, and have realised that if prices don't drop, they will be living in rented accomodation for ever.

I'm not trying to wind anyone up - I'm broke myself at the moment (Law graduate, qualified accountant, currently studying for another degree in an unrelated area).

[large]

37 years old, 12 O Levels, 5 A Levels, B.Sc. Hons 2.1 Chemistry, Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry.

I worked in research for Pfizer, then went into sales and ended up in a medical advisory role before taking a year out to look after my partner after an operation and write a novel that had been burning in my mind for a number of years.

I love this site becuse of the intelligent observations and discussions that take place hear. Members of HPC are genuinely free thinking, and that is rare in todays mass media dominated society.

[Tinks]

"The poll has only been going for two hours and already the largest majority of people on this website are from technical backgrounds"

That seems quite an extrapolation! but then I've a BA (French), 2 MA's (Education and Teaching English Language) and an MSc (Organizational Behaviour).

[Sledgehead]

I have an arts masters and a science one. (History and Computing Science). I have to say that the arts degree was by far and away the harder one. That involved real thinking, the construction of complex arguments, the honing of rhetoric, and independent thought and work habits. The Comp Sci degree involved turning up to the lectures and a spot of revision at the end.

Hah-hah-ha-hah!

You arts graduates do amuse me. You sound like a news presenter whose grasp of science is so slight they call geneticists "scientists". Oh yes: we have the fashion designer Stella Mccartney, the percusionist Evelyn Glennie, the novelist Barbara Cartland, the poet Ted Hughes, the tenor Pavarotti, the playright Ben Elton, the comedian Jack Dee, the film director Guy Richie, the footballer David Beckham, the golfer Tiger Woods, the sailor Dame Ellen McArthur, the actor Pierce Brosnam, the artist Damien Hirst, the chat-show-host Johnathan Ross, the dancer Darcey Bussell, the animator Nick Park, the sculptor Mhairi Vari, the architect Norman Foster and so on, and .........

.....

........

......the scientsit Stephen Hawking

and that's about it, isn't it? Oh yes: every tiny parcel of life outside of science you can divide and subdivide into clearly understood roles, but science? Well, it's science innit! Computer science, biochemistry, physical chemisty, organic chemistry, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, newtonian mechanics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, geophysics, climatology, whatever-ology : All science, innit. All the same.

"turn up to lectures and a spot of revision at the end, sorted..."

I have a degeree in chemistry and a master in software engineering. Wanna guess how much science is in computer science? In my experience, seven letters : s-c-i-e-n-c-e. So please don't go running away with the idea you're Max-F'ing-Planck. The reason why you you are able to spout ignorant jibberish about the degree of difficulty of science vs arts degrees is :

1 ) because you don't know any better;

2 ) because of brilliant minds operating in the field you deride and dismiss. Minds that were capable of making leaps into realities the rest could not even envision.

Construction of rhetoric did NOT play a part. Rhetoric is a tool for the preservation of entrenched belief, not a means to new understanding.

Now stick that up your finely honed argument!

Edited October 12, 2005 by Sledgehead

[padders]

11 GCSES, 4/1/2 A-levels, BA in economics (and a bit of philosophy)

Edited October 12, 2005 by padders

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Hah-hah-ha-hah!

You arts graduates do amuse me. You sound like a news presenter whose grasp of science is so slight they call geneticists "scientists". Oh yes: we have the fashion designer Stella Mccartney, the percusionist Evelyn Glennie, the novelist Barbara Cartland, the poet Ted Hughes, the tenor Pavarotti, the playright Ben Elton, the comedian Jack Dee, the film director Guy Richie, the footballer David Beckham, the golfer Tiger Woods, the sailor Dame Ellen McArthur, the actor Pierce Brosnam, the artist Damien Hirst, the chat-show-host Johnathan Ross, the dancer Darcey Bussell, the animator Nick Park, the sculptor Mhairi Vari, the architect Norman Foster and so on, and .........

.....

........

......the scientsit Stephen Hawking

and that's about it, isn't it? Oh yes: every tiny parcel of life outside of science you can divide and subdivide into clearly understood roles, but science? Well, it's science innit! Computer science, biochemistry, physical chemisty, organic chemistry, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, newtonian mechanics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, geophysics, climatology, whatever-ology : All science, innit. All the same.

"turn up to lectures and a spot of revision at the end, sorted..."

I have a degeree in chemistry and a master in software engineering. Wanna guess how much science is in computer science? In my experience, seven letters : s-c-i-e-n-c-e. So please don't go running away with the idea you're Max-F'ing-Planck. The reason why you you are able to spout ignorant jibberish about the degree of difficulty of science vs arts degrees is :

1 ) because you don't know any better;

2 ) because of brilliant minds operating in the field you deride and dismiss. Minds that were capable of making leaps into realities the rest could not even envision.

Construction of rhetoric did NOT play a part. Rhetoric is a tool for the preservation of entrenched belief, not a means to new understanding.

Now stick that up your finely honed argument!

1) Take a deep breath.

2) Read my post again.

3) Think.

You'll then realise I wasn't dissing science, merely responding to the oft-heard charge that Arts degrees are easier than Science ones. You're making two basic mistakes of logic: you confuse a comment about Arts and Science degrees with the arts and sciences themselves; and you mistake a statement of evidence based on personal experience with a universal assertion.

[libitina]

I and my fellow dummies thank you for your kind compliment young Bobbio.

Hear, hear. Though I am currently at college and hoping to go to Uni next year.(as well as being a Mum and working part time)