would you like fries with that degree?

[minestrone]

The ability that employers have to hire dirt cheap foreign graduates for rock bottom wages is a significant factor in youth unemployment.

[vwdan]

Even most of the infrastructure support guys have a degree.

I'm not questioning your experience, but I'm infrastructure through and through and I see relatively few degrees in this world. I've only ever had one agent tell me I need one in the last 10 years - experience and relevant qualifications count for everything. Even if I had a degree, I'd drop it off my CV in favour of work experience and industry certs.

[vetran]

I'm not questioning your experience, but I'm infrastructure through and through and I see relatively few degrees in this world. I've only ever had one agent tell me I need one in the last 10 years - experience and relevant qualifications count for everything. Even if I had a degree, I'd drop it off my CV in favour of work experience and industry certs.

its a huge corporate , a degree is part of the hiring criteria.

I agree in previous lives I have hired some great infrastructure guys with just experience.

I'm unusual not having one.

[Mich the Tester]

its a huge corporate , a degree is part of the ritual dance of moving paperwork around and ticking boxes.

ftfy

[VectraMan]

When I went to uni in the late 80s I was under the impression that my 3 years study would be a passport to a world of opportunity.

My hopes were dashed when I graduated just in time for the early 90s recession.

I never thought that. I went to university because that's what people said I should do, and graduating in 1992 certainly wasn't easy, but I wasn't under any misapprehension that I was in any way entitled to anything good because I had a degree. It was all just part of the same treadmill as O-levels and A-levels.

I honestly don't know what I'd do now. The thought of £50K of debt must be terrifying.

[d000hg]

It's necessary to embark on one though, and it's much the same with Mathematics, Physics or any other hard science. The problem is with the expectation that degree courses turn out fully formed worker bees IMO. They never did that.

My point was not that a degree turns out a complete worker, but that it turns out someone hireable in that field. If you want to actually work as a chemist/physicist rather than just get a degree and then take a job in an unrelated or tangential field, a plain BSc doesn't really cut it. Whereas a regular Maths/CompSci would - but then Engineering is a whole separate thing nearly as bad as medicine!

[Mich the Tester]

I honestly don't know what I'd do now. The thought of £50K of debt must be terrifying.

Indeed. They're implementing the same policies in NL too now. The one hope I have is that this leads to a growth in, for want of a better phrase, 'open source/freeware education'.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I finished my Software Engineering degree in 2005 and I don't think it served much of a purpose other than having someone to tell me what books to read in which order. And maybe a foot in the door for my first job.

I did ****-all and got a 2:1 (a lot of the other guys got firsts but nearly killed themselves for it), and I'm pretty sure with the self-learning and info available on the web these days I could achieve more starting from scratch now, in my own time, than i did in 3 years at university.

I know LOADS of chimps with degrees.

**edit** I did ****-all for the degree, but i did my own stuff and ended up a far better programmer (not that programming is all the course was about) than the other guys with their firsts.

I got my first job by showing the boss a rudimentary MUD engine I'd written. He was surprisingly impressed.

[d000hg]

You could say that about any degree, since everything taught at degree level is in text books. But most people would not do as well with a reading list, being taught things directly and being able to ask questions is more powerful than self-study.

Even world-renowned academics still like talking to each other and meeting up in person rather than just reading each other's papers. Human interaction is important.

[minestrone]

Software is a bit of a noddy degree though.