So Whats Your Education?

[jellybean]

Seems to me that a Phd is nowt special nowaday's. A bit like a degree was in the old days. At the end of the day you get payed on how valuable you are and that's only loosly correlated to education. However the girls behind the counter in the local garage were impressed when they saw the doctor on the credit card and regulalrly request private consultations. Worth three years in a basement any day.

[Spaniard]

I have a BSc Economics but I don´t make a fuss about it...What I am really proud of is that my English is quite close to fluent and my English grammar is better than that of many Britons (I am a true Spaniard, writing from the deliciously chaotic Madrid). I speak German as well of which I am specially proud.

[gone west]

especially proud.

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000287.htm

Especially or Specially?

This is a favorite question of grammar checkers. Most of the time there is little or no difference between the words especially and specially.

Special is a common adjective. Specially is its adverb form. Special means "particular, distinguished in a distinct way, or designed for a particular purpose." Specially means "particularly, in a disintguishing manner, or for a particular purpose."

Especial is an uncommon adjective. Especially, its adverb form, is much more common. Especial means "exceptional, noteworthy, or particular." Especially means "exceptionally, in a noteworthy manner, or particularly."

In the sense of "particular" or "particularly," the words mean pretty much the same thing. Often they can be used synonymously. However, if you want to stress the exceptional or noteworthy quality, then especial or especially is a better choice. If you want to stress the distinctive purpose of something, then special or specially is the word you are looking for.

Example: This program has specially designed macros for word processors.

(A distinctive purpose)

Example: He did especially well in All-Star Game.

(A noteworthy performance)

Must try harder.

[Spaniard]

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000287.htm

Must try harder.

Don´t you make mistakes?

I still consider that my English is very good (taking into account that ENGLISH IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE )...even if I make minor mistakes when writing.

You could be more polite.

[gone west]

Don´t you make mistakes?

I still consider that my English is very good (taking into account that ENGLISH IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE )...even if I make minor mistakes when writing.

You could be more polite.

Relax and don't take everything you read on forums seriously. Your English is far superior to my Spanish so well done you. Friends?

[The Masked Tulip]

A degree from the University of Life, a diploma from the school of hard knocks and three gold stars from the kindergarten of getting the cr*p kicked out of me! (Blackadder)

[RedHotChippyLeper]

Anyway, back to the original point.As many others have said in this thread, higher education qualifications are now ten a penny - the world and his wife have a degree these days.On average, your degree is unlikely to earn you more than 12K in your first year following graduation (unless it's vocational).I think people choosing their degrees are becoming a lot more savvy now as they have to be, which is why they're scrapping many subjects in Unis all over the country due to falling demand.If I was applying now for a course, I'd never do the degree I chose.I was lucky enough to get a grant for mine (last years of the grants system), and wouldn't fancy paying up to 15K for the course.I'd definitely choose something vocational, which is what I'm having to do now anyway via a postgrad course.

Despite this, I loved doing my degree and feel very priveleged to have been able to do it.It seems like an incredible luxury when many people in the world can't afford a cooking pot, the ingredients for a meal, or face being blown to pieces/shot when going about their daily business.

I have a BSc in Information Systems (Computer Science with emphasis on systems analysis).

I agree with homebird here, and i know some people here are saying they would not do a degree if the had a 2nd chance. I really enjoyed my uni life and feel my degree was worthwhile. Im one of the few IT people i know with an actual computer science degree rather than philosophy or engineering. It has stood me in good stead and given me the background knowledge and ability to diversify in my field. I have been picked over others for courses and positions because of it as well.

Of course i was also in one of the last years to get a grant. So my debt was a meager £4k when leaving. Perhaps one of the reasons degrees seem easier and so many people have them is due to the cost now. I remember how many wasters were at my uni with me (i was one, sometimes wonder how i passed) and i cant believe that that number has fallen. So maybe when people have to spend/borrow £5k a year there is a greater necessetiy to pass them. Just a thought, i havent really researched any of this.

Debt is a serious problem though for graduates as somebody posted earlier that graduate positions dont pay as well as they used to. Especially in IT these days.

In fact a graduate these days must be kacking themsleves at house prices. Graduate with £15k debt, get a £15-£18k a year graduate position, buying a house would be a ridiculous concept for years and years. The best bet is to live with mum until your 30 i suppose...

Edited October 24, 2005 by RedHotChippyLeper

[Big ££ from property 4 ever]

Rassclot!

The top 3 percentages are BA, MA & PHD. Thats a great result.

What I'd like to know is this:

________________________________________________________________________________________

How many of the above work from home with hours to suit their needs?

How many of the above work less than 30 hours per week?

How many of the above earn £40k +

How many of these take their kids to the park 5 days out of 7?

_________________________________________________________________________________________

In my limited property related experience my graduates freinds are usually: ten a penny, working like pigs, blinkered, non risk takers and happy to work loads for other people for peanuts.

[Sledgehead]

Rassclot!

The top 3 percentages are BA, MA & PHD. Thats a great result.

What I'd like to know is this:

________________________________________________________________________________________

How many of the above work from home with hours to suit their needs?

How many of the above work less than 30 hours per week?

How many of the above earn £40k +

How many of these take their kids to the park 5 days out of 7?

_________________________________________________________________________________________

In my limited property related experience my graduates freinds are usually: ten a penny, working like pigs, blinkered, non risk takers and happy to work loads for other people for peanuts.

Two words : rising market.

... as in , "anyone can make a fortune in speculation. All you need is no experience and a rising market."

That's a little maxim you might wish to record for future reference: it might actually mean something to you then.

Anyhow, here's what I really want to talk about:

TOMORROW NIGHT (Monday 31st Oct) InsideOut ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/ ) is screening undercover footage of what has been going on in our universities under Blair ( Quote from marker : "this is crap, but I'll pass it" ). Chris Woodhead, former Blair schools inspector give ssome choice quotes also. Don't miss it if you care about education.

(PS : I note that the BBC have been forced to run with a "kids are better @ english now than they were 10 years ago" story. Study is by Cambridge Assessment, who I have just discovered i sthe same as the old University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate - maybe they should know ... then again, do they assess a large propertion of examinees, or only the elite?)

Edited October 30, 2005 by Sledgehead

[gone west]

Rassclot!

The top 3 percentages are BA, MA & PHD. Thats a great result.

What I'd like to know is this:

________________________________________________________________________________________

How many of the above work from home with hours to suit their needs?

How many of the above work less than 30 hours per week?

How many of the above earn £40k +

How many of these take their kids to the park 5 days out of 7?

All of the above apply to me. Never made money from property until I STR'd. Can't stand dealing with other people (tenants) and the unforseen headaches of being a landlord. There are other ways to make a living in this world besides property.

[algor]

BSc, MSc and 3rd of the way through a PhD.

With my current grant I'm doing better than a few of my working friends and could probably afford a house if that damn graph would go back to being linear.

[paulbds]

Dental Degree (Manchester 1978)

Several Memberships from Royal Colleges

Working as Specialist in NHS Trust

Ham radio Licence (GW4AMZ)

Grade 5 Piano

Grade 1 Violin

(Would do it all again - -enjoy the job)

Agree with gone west - -can't stand dealing with tenants...most are OK but the odd one that causes hassle - -real pains in the a**

any other dentists on the site?

[TWOPEY]

Passed 3 A levels but never entertained the idea of uni. Only stayed on at school because I was too idle to leave .

When i did , I was donig cash in hand at a jewellery manufacturer.

left that to work in the civil service but got bored after a few years so did a course in computer programming and now work in IT.

Dont really have an opinion either way on degrees. Some people with them are excellent at their jobs , some are crap.

PS making a living on betfair ? Good luck.....

[search4]

Yup, I think this site attracts mostly educated people, as they're the ones who would go out of their way to find and understand the facts.

Oh, and I have a BSc (hons).

[search4]

I always thought that this site has attracted a high level of educated people and people with true cop-on who were not academic?

And I think it would be interesting to see what’s the breakdown.

So I’ll get the ball rolling, I have a BEng, MSc, and am currently doing a PhD in hydrocarbon pipelines (part time). And I work for an oil company.

It only a poll, two clicks so don’t be lazy!!

Bobbio

Personally I don't think my degree (Biochemistry) from a red brick medical school was at all worthwhile. A friend of mine failed all of his O levels yet has an IQ of 175. So much for high/low achievers at school.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

On 12/10/2005 at 18:43, Wuluf said:

I did some comp. sci courses in Lambda Calculus, Relational Theory, Formal Methods and Computability. NOT easy I can tell you..

Computer Science is a branch of mathematics.. The most famous unsolvable computation prroblem (well maybe 2nd after the turing test) is in essence a mathematical one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (Note this part "Relationship with Gödel's incompleteness theorem" and refer to the related entschiedungs problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem

"The question goes back to Gottfried Leibniz, who in the seventeenth century, after having constructed a successful mechanical calculating machine, dreamt of building a machine that could manipulate symbols in order to determine the truth values of mathematical statements. He realized that the first step would have to be a clean formal language, and much of his subsequent work was directed towards that goal. In 1928, David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann posed the question in the form outlined above.")

Computing straddles everything from Hardware (Engineering) to Information Systems Design and so statements about the content of Computing degrees need to be more specific about the type of course they are referring to..

Computer Technology is the result of the application of Computer Science (and Maths and EE etc).. Just as Car Manufacturing is the application of many scientific disciplines.

 

How much has tech moved and computer 💻 users dumbed down since this thread was started?

[Sackboii]

Holy thread resurrection…!

[hotblack42]

8 hours ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

How much has tech moved and computer 💻 users dumbed down since this thread was started?

Most of our users are graduates & at least 90% not dumb. Stockbroking doesn't generally suffer fools.

I have A levels + IT/business certifications over 35 years.  Latest is COBIT foundation.

Son has MPhys which seemed to open the IT door fairly easily last year & a chunky payrise after 5 months.

I'd do a hybrid Business/ IT BSc these days working through the summer breaks & ensuring work was in place immediately after finals.

A degree costs a lot of money, you need to start earning decent money ASAP to have any chance of FIRE in 50s

[Brendan110_0]

Only educated to A level, got job and bought house in 3 years, all of my friends that went on to university now have £250,000 mortgages while mine is already paid off. I have a nice private pension pot, my friends only started paying in when the people pension forced them to so playing catch up big time.

I'm retiring at 55, they will work until 68 minimum.

The question people should be asking in this country is why we're being made poor. Wages are shocking compared to mid 1990's (inflation taken into account).

[Gbob]

I wonder how much AI will change the education system. A couple of teachers I work with have already started receiving suspiciously good essays that they think might be from GPT4.  Most private tutors will be out of a job within the next 5 years as they are replaced by a personal AI teacher bot tailored to your particular child. Just download the models for the subjects and exam board you want to learn or revise. How far will that infiltrate up into higher education?  Will a university education be valued more, or less in the future? 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Gbob

[TheChangeIsCast]

I've got a degree in mechanical engineering, along with an NVQ L4 which I did as part of an engineering apprenticeship when I was younger. Also got a MSc in Construction Project Management which I did a few years ago part-time on top of the day job. Regret doing that one, the time and money would have been better spent elsewhere, travelling for example. Couldn't give a monkeys about any of my academic qualifications to be honest, and I'd never dream of have them listed after my name like some people like doing. In my field, experience and competence is what counts, not qualifications.

The qualifications I'm most proud of, and value the most, are the qualifications relating to mountaineering and climbing that I've accumulated over the past ten years. My mountain leader, rock climbing instructor, and especially my winter mountain leader qualifications. I use these both as a yardstick in personal competence, and also to make additional money from part-time (guiding people in the mountains is not work to me). The winter mountain leader in particular is a tough qualification to gain, and it took 60 Scottish winter mountain days (a day only qualifies if it's full on snow and ice conditions, a minimum of 5-8hrs out in the mountains) over a period of 10 years, including a tough 6 day training course finally followed by a very tough 5 day assessment last winter. 

[winkie]

10 hours ago, Sackboii said:

Holy thread resurrection…!

......lots of old avatar names there, wonder if any are still around.....where they are, what they are doing, before the days of social media, twitter, facebook etc.

Edited July 28, 2023 by winkie

[Shrink Proof]

So Whats Your Education?

 

The University of Life and YouTube videos. The guys that make those films have been able to discover so much stuff that's escaped the so-called experts. Anyway, thanks to all that Real Education I'm not just a leading virologist, I'm now completely clued up about climate science too. Professors, pah!

[winkie]

10 minutes ago, Shrink Proof said:

So Whats Your Education?

 

The University of Life and YouTube videos. The guys that make those films have been able to discover so much stuff that's escaped the so-called experts. Anyway, thanks to all that Real Education I'm not just a leading virologist, I'm now completely clued up about climate science too. Professors, pah!

Agree we have the ability to educate ourselves a lifetime long of learning......learn in the workplace, on the internet from books, tv, learn from friends and family and from each other......no certificate is required, a piece of paper to show others what might know.