Chip on my shoulder? Third level graduates.

pragmatic1

Lots of hate towards graduates on this thread.While there are many, many idiots in college, theres also a fair few that are quite intelligent believe it or not.

SparkyTech

Id rather not be in college to be honest, am only there to get the slip of paper I can show to HR managers. I like certain elements of my course but on the whole I hate academica. The snobbery and ego in university's from some students (and their expectations of the job market) is mindbogglingly off the mark. Its like all these people doing masters for the sake of masters afterwards cause DEY TOOK URR JOBBS and they don't know what the hell else to do with their lives. Life experience is just as important as however many letters you have after your name. (/cynical rant!) :rolleyes:. And having a degree does not define the be all and end all of you as a person.

Aoifey!

Poor Craythur wrote: »

I often wonder this too. A girl I was in school with got an excellent LC but everyone was shocked when she did Arts in Galway. She wanted to do Irish, so why not?

I know a girl who got 500+ points and went on to do Forestry. The looks on everyones faces when she told them what she wanted to do was priceless.

no_bother

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

When a graduate says something stupid people find it surprising as it requires an above average degree of intelligence to complete a university education.

As for yourself, with the increased affordability of university since the mid nineties, a lack of a university education often showed a lack of ambition or a lower intellect. Of course there are exceptions (like yourself) but generally this holds true and its where the prejudice stems from

I am unsure what you are basing this on - To pass a university degree course does not necessarily imply an above average degree of intelligence at all - simply - and not always - an aptitude for the course being studied. And as for a lack of university education showing a lack of ambition / intellect - rubbish - it may reflect this - but equally it may reflect circumstances - if you do not live in a university town it is quite an expense still to go and if your family and peers do not value a university education / need the money you would earn by going straight into a job then often that is what you do.
I have many friends who did not go to college and were not given the opportunities that I was - in early 90s - who really could have got so much out of it - but it just wasn't an option.

Oranage2

SparkyTech wrote: »

Id rather not be in college to be honest, am only there to get the slip of paper I can show to HR managers. I like certain elements of my course but on the whole I hate academica. The snobbery and ego in university's from some students (and their expectations of the job market) is mindbogglingly off the mark. Its like all these people doing masters for the sake of masters afterwards cause DEY TOOK URR JOBBS and they don't know what the hell else to do with their lives. Life experience is just as important as however many letters you have after your name. (/cynical rant!) :rolleyes:. And having a degree does not define the be all and end all of you as a person.

Ha this:

worked in a job where i had to talk to students and the common thought was that when they leave college they'd be straight into a 40k a year job - always brought a smirk to my face.

* im a student too.

Little Acorn

I'm studying science because I need the degree to get into the type of work I want to do. My boyfriend has no formal qualifications, and is one of the most intelligent people I know. He worked as a blocklayer. My main interest in science is the biological fields, but he knows a hell of alot more than me and most people when it comes to
physics, astronomy, history, politics, and also knows heaps about different creatures and their environments. He's like a walking encyclopedia on these subjects!:pac:
He also has very good social skills, is great at diffusing tense situations, and has a great knack of getting his own way, or getting out of trouble if he's pissed someone off, the jammy bugger.:D He's just one of those people who everyone finds likable.
Another friend of mine who also has no degree knows so much about poetry/literature, he reads mountains of books, and lots of obscure stuff that I've never heard of before. He is very philosophical and I have many great debates with him. He also writes his own poetry and short stories, which are always really good.
Aside from my friends I've met through college, none of my closest friends have degrees, and are a lot more interesting to talk to than a lot of the people I have met through college. That's no offense to my college friends,they are lovely people, it's just that my other friends are abit older and have more life experience probably.

Mary28

Some people are always going to find something to look down on other people for - 3rd level education, address, accent, way you dress, car you drive, race and so on. This is hardly the worst offender, 3rd level education. Yes I do know what you are talking about and it's something I did myself a long time ago until I realised I was being a moron. You'd be doing well to make it through life continuously underestimating people for not having a 3rd level education. Surely past a certain age it doesn't matter to you/anyone? I think most of us can say the richest and most sucessful people we know are self made and often follow careers not in their original line of study. Degrees are handy to have under your belt when looking for many types of jobs and this is why they are held in esteem.

parker kent

People on the thread that are either strongly for or against graduates are talking BS. No of course you don't need to be a graduate to be intelligent. But the idea that there vast swathes of non-graduates who can "buy and sell" graduates is ridiculous.

Of course some non-graduates could buy and sell some graduates in certain circumstances. But this reverse snobbery is ridiculous. The idea is almost coming across that people with degrees are helpless, impractical buffoons who cry at the thought of wiring a plug.

niallers1 wrote: »

I've seen plenty of good people being discounted and passed over or not even given an opportunity becuase they don't have a degree..

The OP is right, some people and alot of HR people who are the gatekeepers to jobs can be snobby/snotty and look down at people without degrees.(more fool them) .It's sad but true. But then again maybe people who have this attitude are just deeply unhappy with themselves and their own lives..

How would assess potential employees? When people send in CVs and attend interviews you only get a snapshot of the person. If you were in HR and got 20 applicants, how would you whittle them down to 1 person? You have to use some criteria to separate people. Degrees are one such method. A degree doesn't automatically prove you are Captain Awesome. But it does nonetheless show that the person has met certain standards. That is not necessarily bad thing.

There are all sorts of issues I have with education. I wish people got into careers that suited them. I wish there was a system that put people into the jobs that suit them. I see no difference in somebody mastering carpentry, medicine or teaching. They are all worthwhile careers and we all need somebody to do those jobs.

But lets not discredit people who went to university with reverse snobbery. And people who did go to university and who did well, do deserve credit. It does not necessarily mean they are incredibly intelligent, but if you took a sample of 1000 people with 1.1 or 2.1 degrees and compared them to 1000 people with no degrees, what group would have a higher amount of intelligent people?

Edit: By the way, I know my above question leads to further question re sampling. I'm not saying it is methodologically perfect!

This is most certainly the dumbest load of shlte I've read ina while. It's one thing to have a discussion on how a degree isn't as important as it's thought to be.. Which is true imo. But to start slagging off degrees and people who have them is completely retarded.
Talking about life experience as if people with degrees don't have it or never will? They're only delaying working life by 3/4 years.

parker kent

Deleted User wrote: »

Talking about life experience as if people with degrees don't have it or never will? They're only delaying working life by 3/4 years.

Sure we'll be too busy crying in the corner, hungry and naked since we are so helpless. We won't have time to get life experiences....

kowloon

I used to see a lot of snobbery in engineering against 'Orts' students, took part in some of it. The general concensus was that they were mickey mouse courses with no practical value.
As it turns out, practically nothing I learnt had any value either, and it was just a bit of paper to get me into a job where they trained people up.
Now I do history . (I enjoy it, but I'm rubbish at it)

cullen5998

The more educated you are the better really.

You DO have a chip on your shoulder.

Im doing a degree and I also think im better than you:)

pragmatic1

Deleted User wrote: »

This is most certainly the dumbest load of shlte I've read ina while. It's one thing to have a discussion on how a degree isn't as important as it's thought to be.. Which is true imo. But to start slagging off degrees and people who have them is completely retarded.
Talking about life experience as if people with degrees don't have it or never will? They're only delaying working life by 3/4 years.

Yeah a lot of bull**** on this thread. Everyone I know who went to college worked their way through it. Most of my friends left school early and done trades. They were on huge money while the rest of us were continuously broke. To be honest they didnt make the same sacrifices to get where they wanted.

Little Acorn

Deleted User wrote: »

This is most certainly the dumbest load of shlte I've read ina while. It's one thing to have a discussion on how a degree isn't as important as it's thought to be.. Which is true imo. But to start slagging off degrees and people who have them is completely retarded.
Talking about life experience as if people with degrees don't have it or never will? They're only delaying working life by 3/4 years.

I see what you're saying. When I mentioned life experience in my post, it is actually relating to age as my college friends are aged 18 -21 and alot are just moved out from home [I'm in first year], whereas my other friends would be 24-35, so naturally will have some more experience with alot of subjects. I don't think people with degrees are dumb. I am doing one myself, and hope to a masters and phd in the future, and I think I have fairly good social skills too!:pac:
I agree with both the OP and yourself regards the snobbery. It definitely does work both ways. I'll be honest though, I've witnessed it more towards people who aren't in college or don't have degrees. I posted in agreement of the thread with examples that you definitely don't have to have a degree to be intelligent. I know that there are lots of intelligent people in college too, some of my classmates are geniuses at maths and physics and help me out if I'm stuck. [I have to do maths and physics for 1st year].
Leaving college, and now having gone back, I've experienced the snobbery from both sides.

kowloon

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Yeah a lot of bull**** on this thread. Everyone I know who went to college worked their way through it. Most of my friends left school early and done trades. They were on huge money while the rest of us were continuously broke. To be honest they didnt make the same sacrifices to get where they wanted.

At the same time, you can't have a chip on your shoulder over people making good money on sites during the boom. The clever ones saved what they could and are doing what they want to do now.
I always see it that no matter what happened to you in the past, it made you who you are now. You might have had a harder time while your mates were bringing home obscene amounts of money, but if you're happy with who you are now, then it was no loss.

pragmatic1

kowloon wrote: »

At the same time, you can't have a chip on your shoulder over people making good money on sites during the boom. The clever ones saved what they could and are doing what they want to do now.
I always see it that no matter what happened to you in the past, it made you who you are now. You might have had a harder time while your mates were bringing home obscene amounts of money, but if you're happy with who you are now, then it was no loss.

No I dont have a chip on my shoulder regarding how much money friends made during the good times. I could have done the same but chose not to because I enjoy what I do.

What does annoy me is when people try and minimise the effort it takes to get a good education. This whole students are impractical and have no knowledge of the real world mentality.

kowloon

pragmatic1 wrote: »

No I dont have a chip on my shoulder regarding how much money friends made during the good times. I could have done the same but chose not to because I enjoy what I do.

What does annoy me is when people try and minimise the effort it takes to get a good education. This whole students are impractical and have no knowledge of the real world mentality.

And like I say, in choosing to do what you wanted you're the person you are now. People might try and put you down but you don't need to let it get to you because you know what it means to you. Does that make sense?
Nobody who puts down your choices, excepting constructive criticism, deserves your time.

As for the impractical, lacking life experience put downs: Nobody has much life experience leaving school anyway, and a campus isn't a bubble that insulates people from life.

pragmatic1

kowloon wrote: »

And like I say, in choosing to do what you wanted you're the person you are now. People might try and put you down but you don't need to let it get to you because you know what it means to you. Does that make sense?
Nobody who puts down your choices, excepting constructive criticism, deserves your time.

As for the impractical, lacking life experience put downs: Nobody has much life experience leaving school anyway, and a campus isn't a bubble that insulates people from life.

I'm not talking about myself. I'm sticking up for students because skilled graduates is what drives our economy.

kowloon

pragmatic1 wrote: »

I'm not talking about myself. I'm sticking up for students because skilled graduates is what drives our economy.

embracingLife

Here is an example of "other people's perception" which I experienced.

A few years ago I was at a wedding and most of the people were university graduates although there were mostly in their mid-30's they behaved as though they just left baby infants. Anyway, when I was talking to many of them, when asked what each person's job was and I told whomever I was speaking to my job-which was a trade-the common response from the graduates was...."ooohh, you're a tradesman??!!" usually followed by a guffaw! Wtf?

Yet for all these people the only topic of conversation was "how much money they were supposedly making/foreign holidays/property they were buying & selling". When I tried talking about other topics,the conversation was quickly changed back to the money. When they got bored of me not taking the hint about money talk,they literally walked away!

Only a handful of the people there were normal down to earth people who talking about everything else in life apart from money.

Oh yeah, there were all medics-doctors,dentists and some bankers/stock brokers. The medics were talking about money more than the finance people!

So much for people's perception of other's education!

kowloon

Think what you met there was a bunch of money obssessed gob$hites, they come in all shapes in forms.

Gunsfortoys

I have to say, I do come across this a lot.

I simply respond with "so what job are you in now then?" That usually shuts them up.

elefant

I think there's a big difference between getting a degree and getting a good degree.

I'm studying English and Law, and I want to do a post-grad in English. If I wanted to just get a bare minimum pass in my English degree I'm pretty confident I could do this without attending any lectures all year and just reading a few lecture slides the week before the exam. A lot of students do this, and personally I think it is a shame. I think exams should be marked harder between the 40-60% marks. The difference between a 35 and 40 is nothing compared to the difference between a 65 and a 70.

As it is, I want to get a first. This takes a lot of effort and work. And I'm confident that when I get my degree, whether it is a first or a high 2.1, I will have a better knowledge of English literature than people who haven't done a third-level degree in English. This isn't snobbery, I think it is common sense. I've spent 4 years studying English texts and various areas of English literature. It doesn't make my opinions on life, or whatever, more important than anybody else's, but I feel it will entitle my opinions on English literature to have a certain added weight to them.

To sum that up, I'd have a lot more disdain for a person who wasted their opportunity (and tax-payers' money) to garner a proper education in college by seeing it as 'just a bit of craic' than I would for someone who did not attend college and has become a skilled trades-person.

Poor Craythur

Poor Craythur wrote: »

Well, I have a very good degree in a hard science subject from a good uni, but all I want to do now is something creative and practical. I realised less than a year after finishing my degree whilst in my hard won graduate job that science was not for me at all.

I have a science degree and work as an engineer, in the last 5 years I have been a validation engineer, a manufacturing/project engineer, quality engineer and back to being a validation engineer. Before all that I was a technical sales engineer for a water treatment company specialising in boiler water and cooling tower dosing systems. Before that I was a process tech in a bio pharma plant. Science is a great 3rd level course as many engineering courses are as dry as a nun's _ _ _ _ :pac:

couldntthink

I agree with the people who pointed out that reverse snobbery is also stupid. Obviously third level education is a vital part of any economy and no part of my OP suggested that I have a problem with third level education in itself.

I have respect for anyone who works hard for what they want in life, be it education, money, family, or whatever. I don't assume people are smart because they went to 3rd level and I don't see why people should assume people who haven't done 3rd level are not smart.

Did anyone notice the pages of replies made by people discussing their degrees?:rolleyes:

On the whole, I'm not really that put out by any of it. Just felt like a rant and thought afterhours was the best place for it.

In one way I am grateful for the fact that I can make a decent living doing what I like to do. I spent a year in South Africa recently. Of all the English speaking white South Africans I met, not one didn't have a degree. A lot of them were stuck in jobs they hated because without 3rd level your chances of a good job are extremely limited. I also found the majority to be about 10 times more snobbish than anyone in Ireland when you tell them you are a tradesman. I mean some were genuinely shocked. So no matter what is said on boards, or no matter what attitudes I see in Ireland, it will be nothing compared to SA.

oppenheimer1

Chuck Stone wrote: »

This post is full of prejudice and shows a distinct lack of 'intelligence' on the part of its author.

:rolleyes:

How exactly? Since the mid nineties, the excuse of affordability of college for most has been a severely reduced issue. This is because the vast majority live within a commuting distance of University, and more live within a reasonable commuting distance of the ITs.

So whats stopping people from getting further education if it isn't really money? They either don't want to, which is generally a sign of lack of ambition, or they aren't intelligent enough to get offered a place.

Not every man is born equal, and unfortunately one half or the population is smarter than the other half.

ascanbe

couldntthink wrote: »

I agree with the people who pointed out that reverse snobbery is also stupid. Obviously third level education is a vital part of any economy and no part of my OP suggested that I have a problem with third level education in itself.

I have respect for anyone who works hard for what they want in life, be it education, money, family, or whatever. I don't assume people are smart because they went to 3rd level and I don't see why people should assume people who haven't done 3rd level are not smart.

Did anyone notice the pages of replies made by people discussing their degrees?:rolleyes:

On the whole, I'm not really that put out by any of it. Just felt like a rant and thought afterhours was the best place for it.

In one way I am grateful for the fact that I can make a decent living doing what I like to do. I spent a year in South Africa recently. Of all the English speaking white South Africans I met, not one didn't have a degree. A lot of them were stuck in jobs they hated because without 3rd level your chances of a good job are extremely limited. I also found the majority to be about 10 times more snobbish than anyone in Ireland when you tell them you are a tradesman. I mean some were genuinely shocked. So no matter what is said on boards, or no matter what attitudes I see in Ireland, it will be nothing compared to SA.

That's because many would expect such jobs to be done only by 'kaffirs', i'd imagine. Despite the whining you sometimes hear about the new state, many of them still live in the privileged position that they/their family came to occupy under apartheid SA.

couldntthink

ascanbe wrote: »

That's because many would expect such jobs to be done only by 'kaffirs', i'd imagine. Despite the whining you sometimes hear about the new state, many of them still live in the privileged position that they/their family came to occupy under apartheid SA.

Absolutely. I did, on occasion, drag up that point while I was there. Needless to say I was outnumbered on that one. But it is a very complex subject that deserves a thread all to itself.

yizorselves

I can see where you're coming from TS. I went to college and got my degree and now I have a job which doesnt really relate to my studies. The company I work for is taking in these interns and a few of them are up their own arse. Its not something that annoys me much but i have noticed it.

There are people who have worked right after school in my company that are way more competent than Mr and Ms "I've got a degree fast-track me!".

Of course this doesnt apply to all. There are graduates who have studed their chosen course well and have the work experience to go along with it

TerrorFirmer

In this current climate, I sincerely doubt it. I have a degree, and trust me, I feel superior to absolutely noone, cotent in my 38 hour/week job that I acknowledge to be without educational merit and that I'm equally so lucky to have, and I'm damn glad to have it at that. Nothing more, nothing less, and it's the same for 90% of graduates out there.