How to get 82% WRONG and still pass...

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

I find Maths in an extremely good indicator of how logical and bright someone is. This paper, of any, should not be dumbed down!

G.C.S.E maths or A-level maths?

I went from an 'A' at gcse to an 'E' at A-level

 

[Lammy]

I don't care what anyone says, Degrees and A-Levels are feckin hard!

Most people who dismiss them don't have them. Hmmmm....

 

[Barrel of Fun]

G.C.S.E maths or A-level maths?

I went from an 'A' at gcse to an 'E' at A-level

I went from A to D, with a C at AO Level in between.

I wasn't being serious, just a bit of baiting…

 

[Zesh Rehman]

that is a load of bollocks, maybe with 100% mark coursework

 

[bristolseagull]

Yes, well 18k actually.

yeah, well done,

thank you for proving my point


YOU CANNOT GET A FIRST JOB PAYING OVER 20K WITHOUT A DEGREE



thanks GG

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Rubbish.

A degree, no matter in which area, shows a certain degree of learning. People who havn't taken them must surely understand the standard of education involved. They may be getting more vaired, but that doesn't mean they are getting any easier.

Please don't overstate the power or importance of a degree. They're good to have but not essential. The vast array of courses on offer mean that differing levels of application and intelligence are required to get one. A degree in engineering is certainly a more worthy and more difficult qualification to get than something like...Politics or Media studies.(apologies to anyone with a politics degree)

 

[Skint Gull]

I don't care what anyone says, Degrees and A-Levels are feckin hard!

Most people who dismiss them don't have them. Hmmmm....

I don't doubt that they are hard but it doesn't automatically make somebody who has one cleverer or better for a job than someone who doesn't!

Of my group of mates 3 went to Uni and I would say (not being big headed as anyone who knows us all would say the same thing) that i'm AT LEAST as intelligent as all 3. Difference being I preferred to work my way up and start earning at 18 rather than spend 3 years getting a huge debt and to have every piece of work I did ripped up as soon as it was marked!

Eg. I worked for an insurance company who took on Graduates on a fastrack scheme where they should be branch managers within 6 months of starting, making them at least 22 before they would be a BM. I started at 18 and was a BM at 20 because I was good enough, putting me at a better position when I was 22 than graduates my age who had just started with said company as I had 2 years BM experience to take elsewhere!

Degree's are essential for certain jobs but I wish the f***ing government would stop saying everyone should go to higher education, probably 95% of available jobs in the UK do not need degree level education!

 

[Northstander]

There are a lot of people out there who are not academic and still have a high level of intelligence.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what a degree means, but just coz you havent got a degree does not indicate a lack of capability!!

I interview people at my place of work with degree's and on occasion have shown they have zero intelligence, yes they can write an essay/dissitation (well done!) but when it comes to life/work experience, I'll take the man without all the time if he has the experience!

FACT!

 

[Wozza]

I would NEVER employee someone without a degree*.

*Unless she had really big tits.

 

[Lokki 7]

Don't get me wrong, I understand what a degree means, but just coz you havent got a degree does not indicate a lack of capability!!

But no one has said that. Basically because it would be a very stupid thing to say. As is the opposite, in saying that degrees are worthless.

 

[Northstander]

But no one has said that. Basically because it would be a very stupid thing to say. As is the opposite, in saying that degrees are worthless.

Apologies, should have read it clearer!

Perhaps I should have gone to school

 

[itszamora]

I believe I have seen El Pres say that a degree nowadays is equivalent to 5 O' levels.

What a total load of bollocks. Your generation incessantly harping on about how much brighter everyone back in the 'good old days' really pisses me off. There is no way a 16-year-old in the 1960s would be able to survive my degree course, end of.

 

[Da Man Clay]

Why do you think that?

 

[The Large One]

A motto that has never let me down "Work smarter not harder"

But you're neither smart nor hard.

It might not have let you down, but isn't that principally because you haven't applied it?

 

[The Large One]

What a total load of bollocks. Your generation incessantly harping on about how much brighter everyone back in the 'good old days' really pisses me off. There is no way a 16-year-old in the 1960s would be able to survive my degree course, end of.

Not quite a flounce, but certainly a prelude to one.

 

[itszamora]

Not quite a flounce, but certainly a prelude to one.

What's your view then TLO? Are we as a society so much stupider nowadays that we're educating people to the standards of a 16-year-old from 40 years ago and calling it a degree?

 

[Uncle Buck]

It is a ludicrous system. I took my first GCSE in '95 at 14 and all of the rest the year later.

Was it Maths a year early or were you in Matt Smith's RE class which was actually allowed to do RE as a GCSE.

 

[Turkey]

That'll be a 'higher' paper then.

They have 2 or 3 different levels of paper.

So if your not very good at maths you can take an easy paper where the top mark you can achieve is a C but have to get 70/80 (guessing here) percent to achieve the C.

If you're good and take the higher paper the C is a lower % but its still very hard. It's not just simple maths, its all tough algebra etc etc.

I had a bad final term in GCSE maths and after some poor pre-exams dropped down a level to give me a better chance of getting a C (even though I needed a hig % to get it). Got my C and got a B in higher Statistics.

 

[RM-Taylor]

f***ing HELL, I only got a 'D' when I was predicted a 'A' at the beginning of KS4 .

 

[The Large One]

What's your view then TLO? Are we as a society so much stupider nowadays that we're educating people to the standards of a 16-year-old from 40 years ago and calling it a degree?

I have no idea.

One, I'm not yet 40. Two, I didn't go to university. Three, depending on the nature of the degree, it's hard to compare them. If you're doing a Classics degree, you're in a better position to compare and contrast as opposed to, say, a Media Studies degree or even a degree in any of the sciences - i.e. working in fields where there is an ever-evolving subject matter. But I'll say this...

You're trying to compare whether people who came out of university 40 years ago are more or less intelligent than people graduating now. I would say that our education system - from nursery age through til, well, death I suppose (working on the assumption we never stop learning), is geared to preparing people for the society in which they will be growing up and into. That has always been the agenda since structured education systems were set up thousands of years ago.

For the sake of this argument, the graduates of the 1960s were educated to a level which was relevant to them. One must also bear in mind the university system has historically been there for the benefit of the elite, the privileged and the well-connected - i.e. the middle classes and upwards. It's only been the past 30 years or so that Oxbridge has been allowing pupils from Comprehensives who are not part of the educational elite into their colleges. So a comparison is always harder. I'm generalising , but you get my drift.

Slightly off-topic, when I left shool, my friends at the time really berated me for not going to Sixth Form or University, telling me that for a few years' study, I could walk into a £20,000 a year job (2007 equivalent - about £35,000) straight from studying. That sense of automatic qualification for that kind of employment opportunity is VERY rare, though they wouldn't have it.

I went straight into a job at a publishers at 16. When I was in my early to mid-20s, working as a compiler in a publishing house (although my title was actually 'Editor'), I was always looking around for new jobs. Every one that I was capable of doing and/or that interested me wanted someone who was educated to a degree level. I found this totally unfair, bearing in mind I didn't go to university. My options were always limited.

Job ads haven't changed that much in the intervening 10-15 years, and what I feel many employers overlook when they make this rule (and I can sort of understand why they state this stipulation), is that it precludes someone with experience. What they are really after is someone straight from university whose experience of real-life work is limited and they cn manipulate to their own ends rather than having to release that person of all ther 'bad habits' they've learned in the big wide world.

So university qualifications ARE very important, but don't think for a second that (unless you are on a vocational degree course) the job you are going to get on leaving university has anything to do with the subject matter you studied. Unless you're REALLY lucky. Or unlucky.