How important is a Tertiary Education?

[the_bob_delusion]

Go.

[bella_again]

Seriously I am questioning whether doing  a degree really makes a difference. Most people I have meet esp in the social work field seem to have little concept of the real world.  Unis produce a lot of young people with no real life skills, turn them into case workers in child protection, agencies and disability and honestly most do more damage than good. I have found the highly educated are often more ignorant which sounds terrible but its just my observation over the years. Not to say there aren't excellent ones they just seem to be in the minority.

My question is do you think a degree is necessary? Is it really worth it? I know decent people with PHD"S and many with degrees that can't get work in some fields.

[curmu-curmu]

I totally agree with you there - too many social workers and their ilk have little to no experience in dealing with people - apart from what they've learned in classrooms.

Over many years working with them, I've found many Uni grads leave with unrealistic expectations of slaaries and work conditions, brought about by lecturers also unable to grasp real world concepts. I'm not talking about all, naturally, but there does seem to be quite a few in this category.

Uni teaches theory - research, documentation and hypotheses.

Real life/tech schools/tafe teaches how best to implement concepts into viability.

A tafe teacher told me many years ago, something I'll always remember.

"University teaches you why it's important to wash your hands after going to the toilet. Tafe teaches you not to pee on your hands in the first place!"

60 years old in a month - and I've never used my Uni degree in any of my 30-odd jobs! And no...it wasn't a BA.

[rabbitearbandicoot]

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@curmu-curmu wrote:

I totally agree with you there - too many social workers and their ilk have little to no experience in dealing with people - apart from what they've learned in classrooms.

Over many years working with them, I've found many Uni grads leave with unrealistic expectations of slaaries and work conditions, brought about by lecturers also unable to grasp real world concepts. I'm not talking about all, naturally, but there does seem to be quite a few in this category.

Uni teaches theory - research, documentation and hypotheses.

Real life/tech schools/tafe teaches how best to implement concepts into viability.

A tafe teacher told me many years ago, something I'll always remember.

"University teaches you why it's important to wash your hands after going to the toilet. Tafe teaches you not to pee on your hands in the first place!"

60 years old in a month - and I've never used my Uni degree in any of my 30-odd jobs! And no...it wasn't a BA.

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what was your Uni degree?

[curmu-curmu]

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@rabbitearbandicoot wrote:

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what was your Uni degree?

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Bachelor of Business Management.

Hated it from around year two, but finished it anyway, and have never used it in obtaining work - as I just don't like management roles. I've had 'em, and disliked every one! I'd much prefer to be on the coalface.

It got to the stage where I purposely left it off my resume, lest a recruiter put me forward for management roles!

[rabbitearbandicoot]

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@curmu-curmu wrote:

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@rabbitearbandicoot wrote:

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what was your Uni degree?

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Bachelor of Business Management.

Hated it from around year two, but finished it anyway, and have never used it in obtaining work - as I just don't like management roles. I've had 'em, and disliked every one! I'd much prefer to be on the coalface.

It got to the stage where I purposely left it off my resume, lest a recruiter put me forward for management roles!

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ME neither. They made me manager over 23 staff - all of whom had been mates up until that appointment. They were still mates but I found it hard to differentiate when neccessary. I liked the nitty-gritty of design, development and testing etc so didn't make a very good manager (my opinion). I found myself getting involved too much in the nuts-and-bolts of developments - which I loved, and the management meetings with GM and Board members etc involving the 'company politics' gave me the creeps.

I resigned and went out on my own - contracting. Loved that even more. I suppose then everyone was my boss (clients etc) but I found that the board meetings etc were more enjoyable because I then was in control of the subsequent developments and had a real hands-on exprience with design, development and implimentation. People asked for my guidance on multi-million dollar decisions and, for the most part, took my advice. I loved my working life - only wound up the business when S had her stroke. Ah! Well! Twelve years have passed and my most important decision these days is which side of the toast do I put the butter.

[***super_nova***]

How do you compare people with and without degree?  Obviously a graduate straight from uni will not have the life experience of somebody who left school at 18 and worked for 20plus years.  You need to compare like with like. 

Yes, graduate need to learn how to apply their education in real life.  But at 20 something the graduate would be much more likely more capable than somebody straight out of highschool. 

There are some people, who despite of not being educated, were able to come up with some ingenious invention.  Education is about giving people leg up, they are taught what others already established, and they can then build on that.  Just imagine what the uneducated genius could have come up, if he did have an education? 

[bright.ton42]

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@i-need-a-martini wrote:

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@rabbitearbandicoot wrote:

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Yes, me too. I have hired and then had to fire 'tertary qualified' people (IT)  because they had no idea of how things really work in a hands-on envronment. Give me a person with a bit of nouce every time.

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But "hands on skills" are not the role of a university. "Hands on" is what vocatinal tertiary education is for. Even doctors and lawyers don't learn the ins and outs of their profession at university. The "hands on" is done only once they commence an internship.

Doctors and lawyers (and anyone else at university) should be there to learn to use their minds and to think beyond the realms of what a textbook says. And that is where I disagree with you rabbit - universities do make you more intelligent because they make you think differently, deeper, wider than the average person. To imagine other possibilities, question research, cultivate creativity. As I said, these are principles that 99% of people could only learn at university.

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If the above is the observation of a university trained mind then it   is  truly  flawed. The last sentence is just sheer nonsense.

Below  is just a small sample of fine minds,   people who 'imagined other possibilities,  questioned research,  cultivated creativity' without the so called benefits of tertiary education.  Many were thrown out of high school.

Abraham Lincoln

Mark Twain

Thomas Edison

Woody Allen

Jane Austen

Carl Bernstein - top reporter of the Washington Post of Watergate fame

Ray Bradbury

Helen Gurley Brown

Andrew Carnegie

Winston Churchill

Charles Dickens

Bobby Fischer .... Grand Master of Chess

Bill Gates

Benjamin Franklin

P D James

David Ogilvy -  sold kitchen stoves then became head of one of the most

    famous and creative ad agencies in the world

George Bernard Shaw

Harry Truman

8 American presidents did not go to college

The list is endless.

I am not criticising tertiary education as such but I am critical of the supposition that it is the only way to produce fine, creative and analytical minds, as the above examples prove. 

[the_bob_delusion]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am not denigrating university education. I understand it has a vitaly important role for some occupations.

If I was employing some-one to research and develop a new food crop plant, I would consider university training ( theoretical understanding ) essential in a candidate. If I was employing some-one to take the developed plant to the market, promote its use and have it adopted in a commercial sense, I would prefer a non university trained person with common sense and practical life skills. Something that is sadly lacking in university trained people. Both types of skills are equally important and neither would be successful without the other.

Martinis suggestion that people can not develop creative thinking and an enquiring mind without Uni education is a load of closed minded, arrogant  piffle.

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Mind telling us what occupations?

[curmu-curmu]

Hmmm - eerily similar story to mine! Except that I gave up my career to care for an elderly MIL, as the OH doesn't drive, and MIL flatly refuses to move out of her family home, so I travel across a couple of suburbs each day to ensure she behaves herself. The MIL, that is - the missus will never behave herself!

[curmu-curmu]

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@the_bob_delusion wrote:

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@chameleon54 wrote:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am not denigrating university education. I understand it has a vitaly important role for some occupations.

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Mind telling us what occupations?

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Gee, Bob. What a thought-provoking question!  LOL.

Not much use building a bridge on a whim and a prayer - and hoping it'll stay up! I guess it would be good for an engineer to have some understanding of stress, load-bearing and weight distribution first - learned thru Uni studies, and when I had a triple bypass some 10 years ago, I'm glad my surgeon had a little understanding of human anatomy before he opened me up!