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If a young person today asked if they should go to uni, unless their profession demanded it as mandatory it's most likely not worth it. You'll just end up with a lot of debt and not much else to show for it.
University degrees are unfortunately becoming like everything else: a complete scam.
what amazes me is that professions in the past that used to have apprenticeships or technical courses are now university course professions
and it's unnecessary and expensive and the pay hasn't increased either
another rort is making people pay for back ground checks, not only is that useless it doesn't help with anything other than covering bosses asses and bosses getting kickbacks
I remember a short course that was basically studying/cramming for a test to get an industry certification.
It was $500ish to take the course - and then you’d have to pay the same amount or more to take the actual test to get certified…
Yes a lot of uni courses shouldn't exist and really should be apprenticeships or a form of.
… the pay hasn’t increased either
Yeah, it’s pretty gross. Pay for receptionists temping has been about the same for 20 years. Pay for informally trained people who are expected to know what to do in a healthcare setting if a patient codes can be less than $25.
What does $25 pay for these days?
Going to Uni does also delay the lifelong 9-5 grind, I'd recommended it based purely on that, but you do get a piece of paper at the end that can give you a leg up and maybe more money if you picked something useful.
I'm not convinced these days it does give you a leg up to be honest except in professions where it's mandatory.
And while you might delay the grind, you may very well have to grind longer to pay off the debt incurred.
In short, folks should not be fooled into thinking Uni is some kind of golden ticket.
Completely agreed that it's not a golden ticket, it's only useful if it's a benchmark to entry kind of degree. You're not walking in to a hedge fund without one and zero experience unless you have connections. Degree and zero experience will work. Uni also helps build connections and foster independence (read: when hiring I don't want to hire a child, I want an adult with opinions).
Also the cost can be mitigated, e.g. go study in Scotland and return even more independent and free thinking.
Masters and PhD though IMO are purely if you're passionate about something that can't be learnt on the job and have time/money to burn.
The hedge fund example would fall under "degree mandatory" for the profession. Although this is not written in stone anywhere, in practice based on what you are saying it's effectively mandatory.
The Scottish system for free tuition is not available for most in Australia as you must satisfy three conditions:
- UK national or have 'settled status', with no restrictions on how long you can stay.
- Normally live in Scotland on course start date, short periods away for work, education or holidays are OK.
- Living in the UK for 3 years before the course start date.
Ok I'd like some opinions. What courses constitute as useful?
I can only speak for CompSci, although when hiring I don't give a shit if someone has the degree as I'd prefer to teach and have someone asking interesting/left of field questions - but lots of hiring people do care though and test you on the fundamentals.
Very easy money.
A uni degree in Comp Science. Usually what they teach you is out of date and by the time you are done something new has come along anyway.
I feel like in this field certifications probably hold a bit more weight.
Completely agreed on the practical aspect, but if you're going for big San Fran cloud companies you'll likely need to pass a leetcode challenge in the interview (pointless IMO) which means you better understand in detail low level data structures and algorithms. You'll never need that detail day to day, but barrier to entry.
Much of the university experience is about being onsite and getting the human interaction that comes with it. Depending on how much of that has become remote, they could be better off self-studying and obtaining professional certificates some other way
Join a sports club if you want human interaction, and save yourself the thousands in debt.
Yep, I say, with one assignment to go until I graduate from my Useless Degree That Needs a Postgrad Anyway.
It’s unfortunately a requirement from many employers even for entry level jobs. In my various workplaces I don’t think I’ve seen anyone under the age of 40 without one. Some older staff are still around who worked their way up in the days when getting a foot in the door didn’t require a degree. The irony is the people making the hiring decisions think their own capabilities are just fine without a degree, but expect new employees to have one.
I've seen jobs that just ask for a degree, not even a specific one. I've worked at a lot of places where everyone there has been to uni so it becomes more of a cultural signifier than anything
That would fall under "mandatory" then.
As for cultural signifier I've known plenty of people that went to Uni who honestly would forget to breath unless you reminded them.