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Author Topic: Back to Uni at 40, argh...  (Read 42591 times)

Philly Q

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #30 on: December 15, 2013, 08:59:21 PM »
Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently

Hopefully at least one was a woman...

Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...

Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.

lmao, thats something my drummer would say.

And that's the sort of thing my dad would say in the 1970s.  :lol:
« Last Edit: December 15, 2013, 09:01:34 PM by Philly Q »
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Dmoney

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #31 on: December 15, 2013, 09:08:09 PM »
I wasn't being that serious. but still... "warm 'eads".

Alex

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #32 on: December 15, 2013, 09:23:44 PM »
Some members of rock society had a threesome last year apparently

Hopefully at least one was a woman...

Since it's "rock society" I very much doubt more than one was a woman...

Have you seen rockers these days? it's hard to tell. Either way you know what they say. Every hole is a goal.

lmao, thats something my drummer would say.

And that's the sort of thing my dad would say in the 1970s.  :lol:

As Woody Allen said, bisexuality does double your chances for a date on the weekend...
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JDC

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #33 on: December 15, 2013, 10:56:11 PM »
There is a lot of c--k but there are a few ladies in rock society, most of them are in relationships with the really tall guys in the society. They thought I was gay initially because these days I wear colours other than black.

The threesome involved 2 ladies and a viking with luscious locks.

jpfamps

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #34 on: December 17, 2013, 11:36:23 AM »
You could vote for Labour and hope that they'll review the whole university fees thing...

Short of studying in another country, you're out of options really. Normally only PhD students manage to get scholarships nowadays, though on very rare occasions, Master students get some funding from somewhere as well.

Fees became a major issue with the increase in student numbers with the aim of 50% of people getting a degree: a Labour target.

This massive increase needed to be paid for by somebody.

The Universities were dead keen on being able to charge fees as they thought they ultimately would be able to charge a "market" rate and increase their income; however many got a bit of a shock when students started to question the value for money they were getting now that they are "customers".

The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.

What I thought was particularly dishonest of the Blair government is that they went into their 2nd term with a manifesto pledge to not introduce tuition fees in that parliament, BUT it didn't stop them legislating to introduce tuition fees in the next parliament. Only a lawyer could justify that as not being dishonest.

Interestingly, this announcement came around the time that Ken Livingstone's ejection from the Labour party was rescinded when it was clear that he was going to win another term as London Mayor (he was banned from the Labour for 5 years which would have covered this election). Much as New Labour hated Ken, they would rather have him as a Labour mayor than as an independent.

At the same time Tony Blair was criticizing the press for being "cynical" over the war in Iraq.

The irony of it.........

Regardless, the issue HTH is another great Labour "education, education, education" policy, in that they won't provide a loan for fees for anyone doing a qualification at the same level  (or lower) than already have.

So if you already have a degree, you can't get a loan for the fees for another degree, even if it's in a totally unrelated subject.

Govts of all stripes are keen to promote labour mobility in our dynamic economy, and retraining in a different discipline would seem to be something that should be encouraged.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2013, 11:40:16 AM by jpfamps »

dave_mc

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #35 on: December 17, 2013, 05:46:56 PM »
Agreed.

I'd also say that, in addition to your point about more graduates meaning less of a financial advantage, even ignoring that argument (which is an excellent point I always make too) it's intellectually dishonest- some degrees have a far higher payback than others, and tarring everyone with the same brush ("you have a degree so you'll earn more!" "No I won't, my degree makes little difference!") is patently unfair.

EDIT: I have a feeling I've read that before labour got in, the tories were also trying to expand higher education. But aside from that, I agree with what you're saying.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2013, 05:48:37 PM by dave_mc »

Philly Q

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #36 on: December 17, 2013, 06:05:30 PM »
The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.

So very obviously true, if everyone has a degree then some of those graduates are going to have to end up collecting bins or working in McDonalds (especially if we get rid of all those nasty immigrants "stealing jobs from British people")

And yet it's a point which is hardly ever made when the subject is debated on Question Time and the like.  I suspect because politiicians are terribly afraid they'll be accused of wanting to hold people back, or deny education to the children of "ordinary working families".
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JDC

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #37 on: December 17, 2013, 10:10:01 PM »
Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees

Dmoney

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #38 on: December 18, 2013, 01:40:40 PM »
Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees

What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?

I have a first class hons degree in exactly what I do that was full of relevant learning. When I go for interviews I never get asked about it. The only place that cared was my first employer after uni and they asked for recommended students to interview via the uni because they had taken on a few graduates previously. I got my old job that way.

Since then, nothing. People will ask me a lot of technical questions and test my awareness of their company in the marketplace as it were, but nothing else. The degree is a note to get in to an interview. I guess it's totally normal to see a degree on a CV but really odd to not see one I think. Doing what I do without the learning would have been very very hard though. I assume everyone that may compete with me is trained to a similar level, so it all comes down to what you can prove you know and your experience (which for me is usually very little! haha)

So what I'm saying is, my degree puts me at no advantage but I think if I didn't have it (or any degree) I would be at a disadvantage now within the job market I would be part of. I know I get paid a lot more than people doing the same job as me too, purely because I came to where I am as a fully qualified engineer rather than going through the companies own training scheme (which I think you need a relevant degree to get on anyway!) and landed a job at the end.






dave_mc

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #39 on: December 18, 2013, 06:44:04 PM »
^ Yeah, that's possibly true. It's got to the point (maybe) where having a degree is no real advantage, but not having one puts you at a massive disadvantage (at least for some jobs... for some jobs having a degree puts you at a disadvantage too as you're "overqualified").

The argument is that graduates earn on average over their lifetime, so can afford to invest in their future, obviously missing the point that the more graduate there are, the less of a financial advantage having a degree is. And of course if you earn more you (generally!!) will pay more tax.

So very obviously true, if everyone has a degree then some of those graduates are going to have to end up collecting bins or working in McDonalds (especially if we get rid of all those nasty immigrants "stealing jobs from British people")

And yet it's a point which is hardly ever made when the subject is debated on Question Time and the like.  I suspect because politiicians are terribly afraid they'll be accused of wanting to hold people back, or deny education to the children of "ordinary working families".

Yeah. :(

The paying more tax thing is an excellent point (that I also always make :lol: ), too. A lot of people act like it's not fair if you get to university for free and then make tons more money, as if everyone else is subsidising you and then you're living it up on everyone else's dime without giving anything back. Yeah, I mean if only we had a system whereby those who earned more paid more tax, that would solve everything.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2013, 06:45:58 PM by dave_mc »

JDC

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #40 on: December 18, 2013, 07:05:05 PM »
Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees
What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?

I feel the amount of places per a degree should be in some way related to the amount of job opportunities for that degree

jpfamps

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #41 on: December 19, 2013, 01:53:33 PM »
Pretty much 95% of the people at my uni are doing pointless degrees

What determines a pointless degree? Granted I think some probably ARE pointless, but I hope you don't mean any degree with BA on the end?



Too right. I have a BA!

Dave Sloven

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #42 on: December 24, 2013, 03:02:37 PM »
I have a PhD, that was completely pointless as I just studied what I was interested in (the history of political philosophy) thinking that because I was good at it I'd get an ongoing academic job in my field.  Wrong!  It also made me over-qualified for pretty much everything else, at least here in this incestuous little colonial outpost.

My advice for anyone contemplating a PhD is DON'T!
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HTH AMPS

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #43 on: December 24, 2013, 04:21:30 PM »
The irony of it.........

Regardless, the issue HTH is another great Labour "education, education, education" policy, in that they won't provide a loan for fees for anyone doing a qualification at the same level  (or lower) than already have.

So if you already have a degree, you can't get a loan for the fees for another degree, even if it's in a totally unrelated subject.

Govts of all stripes are keen to promote labour mobility in our dynamic economy, and retraining in a different discipline would seem to be something that should be encouraged.

This is particularly boiling my piss.  If I could get a loan for the fees, my plans would be doable financially (albeit tight).

Without the fees loan, its touch and go whether I can do this.  At this point I'm not sure that it is - catch 22 situation.

I could understand if someone had a loan outstanding from their previous degree, however I paid mine off within four years of graduating and it was voluntary as my salary was under the threshold.  I just wanted to pay it off asap.

At this point, my options are:

* sell my flat and move back in with the parents (freeing up the equity in the property towards fees).
* rent out my flat and move back in with the parents (the mortgage still gets paid and it costs me nothing to keep paying it off).
* re-mortgage to free up equity and rent out property (raises cash for fees, but I'm back at square one with my mortgage).

Sucks  :(


dave_mc

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Re: Back to Uni at 40, argh...
« Reply #44 on: December 24, 2013, 06:09:19 PM »
I have a PhD, that was completely pointless as I just studied what I was interested in (the history of political philosophy) thinking that because I was good at it I'd get an ongoing academic job in my field.  Wrong!  It also made me over-qualified for pretty much everything else, at least here in this incestuous little colonial outpost.

My advice for anyone contemplating a PhD is DON'T!

I did the opposite- I decided to do a phd in something i wasn't that interested in, because after leading me to believe i'd get to work with my 3rd year project supervisor (who was totally awesome and actually doing novel and really interesting stuff which got published in badass journals like nature), my uni then told me i wouldn't (mainly politics, because the previous year they'd let two people work with him). So at that point i had nothing lined up and figured i'd give the (funded) phd with a different supervisor a shot as i had nothing to lose. Bad idea, in hindsight. About halfway through it dawned on me that i had no interest in it at all and basically just couldn't do it any more. I just about managed to salvage an mphil out of it (admittedly with my new supervisor's great help and epic amounts of cajoling :lol: ) in pretty much the amount of time it would have taken to get a phd had my heart been in it.

So yeah, just providing the opposite view- while i'd agree with you that doing something which you love with no regard to how useful it is might not be the best plan, doing something useful which you hate is arguably even worse. At least you got your phd in the end. :lol:

I'd pretty much say only do a phd if you absolutely love what you're doing and it's useful, too.