Are all degrees created equal?

Lollymcd · 05-05-2010 12:12AM

I knew there was a reason I decided not to start smoking all those years ago!

Fremen · 05-05-2010 12:15AM

TCD is known outside of Ireland, so people (in the UK, for example) tend to assume it's better than DCU or the various UCD/UCC/UCG colleges.

It's not really better, just older and more famous. The main Irish universities are more or less on par with each other at undergraduate level.

4zn76tysfajdxp · 05-05-2010 12:32AM

phasers wrote: »

Oh please, girls in my secondary school were doing that in second year

:eek::eek::eek:

Oh my god, the girls in your school were smoking in second year?

Giblet · 05-05-2010 12:35AM

Any idiot can get a degree.

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 12:43AM

Fremen wrote: »

TCD is known outside of Ireland, so people (in the UK, for example) tend to assume it's better than DCU or the various UCD/UCC/UCG colleges.

It's not really better, just older and more famous. The main Irish universities are more or less on par with each other at undergraduate level.

thats the important part of what you said

a university does NOT get its reputation from undergrads so there is very good reason why trinity has an international rep in certain fields

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 12:47AM

Giblet wrote: »

Any idiot can get a degree.

in ireland

Thirdfox · 05-05-2010 12:50AM

Trinity is ranking within the top 50 in the world (according the THES by the Times). No other university in Ireland comes close, (UCD is in the top 200).

That's not to say the education provided by others isn't as good (or even better) - DIT is the only place in Ireland where one can study optometry I believe. But reputation wise, people have heard of TCD across the world (we're the poorer, less elegant sister of Cambridge and Oxford) whereas, type UCD into Google and you'll find the University of California, Davis...hence the rename to UCDD (the double Ds of Dublin

)

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 05-05-2010 12:56AM

I didn't find it difficult to get a degree, but doing something you like is a lot easier than doing something for other reasons. I guess a lot of people pick a subject they are interested in? There are classes I hated and I found difficult beccause of that, boring, monotomous, not a challange.

I would percieve a degree from a university to be better than one from an IT...

Fremen · 05-05-2010 12:58AM

The THES rankings are pretty arbitrary though. A small change in their methodology leads to a huge change in rankings. All you can really conclude is that Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale are great. The rest, even MIT and Princeton, change position often enough year on year that you can't really make a fair comparison.

Fremen · 05-05-2010 01:00AM

Daxton Obedient Tomcat wrote: »

I found difficult beccause of that, boring, monotomous, not a challange.

I would percieve a degree from a university to be better than one from an IT

I take it you didn't study English Literature?

Penisland · 05-05-2010 01:04AM

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I went to Daddy's Business School because I didn't bother studying.

:pac:

Believe I posted this exact same comment in another thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rossie1977 · 05-05-2010 01:05AM

Daxton Obedient Tomcat wrote: »

I would percieve a degree from a university to be better than one from an IT...

why??

for me personally having seen both sides (IT for my undergrad and a university for my postgrad) the lecturers in the IT were of a much higher standard. the IT guys and gals had years of real-world experience working in the sector they lectured

my classmates that had come through uni for their undergrad couldn't believe we had 35hrs of lectures every week for 4 years in the IT, they had less than half that for 3 years

Little Acorn · 05-05-2010 01:08AM

I've heard before that IT'S are valued more for actual hands on experience, whilst universities are more valued for having more theory based knowledge.
If this is truly the case (and it might not be-just something I've read in a few places),
-would an undergraduate IT degree, coupled with a university masters or phd, be more impressive to an employer than a uni degree + uni masters etc.?

Edit; Just saw post above mine, what are your experiences with employers?

Fremen · 05-05-2010 01:12AM

Little Acorn wrote: »

-would an undergraduate IT degree, coupled with a university masters or phd, be more impressive to an employer than a uni degree + uni masters etc.?

I doubt it. A lot of employers just see a degree as a piece of paper saying "This guy has some basic level of competence". It doesn't matter too much where it comes from. They use it as a kind of first-pass filter to make sure they get a decent selection of interview candidates. It's then that they test you to find out if you know your stuff.

sock puppet · 05-05-2010 01:12AM

PeakOutput wrote: »

in ireland

It doesn't seem to be just an Irish problem. This was posted in another thread somewhere.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html

That's just Computer Science graduates now but if true it's pretty shocking and doesn't say much for CS graduates in the US.

rossie1977 · 05-05-2010 01:14AM

Little Acorn wrote: »

Edit; Just saw post above mine, what are you're experiences with employers?

my experience is a degree is a degree with employers, if you have a 2.2 degree or better from either an IT or a university they look upon it as the same (as long as its in a certain field obviously)

don't fool yourself into thinking ITs are less theory based, they ain't, my degree was business at undergrad but we had at least 25 hours of theory lectures a week

Thirdfox · 05-05-2010 01:14AM

Fremen wrote: »

The THES rankings are pretty arbitrary though. A small change in their methodology leads to a huge change in rankings. All you can really conclude is that Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale are great. The rest, even MIT and Princeton, change position often enough year on year that you can't really make a fair comparison.

Perhaps not between LSE and TCD for example... but it is relevant that other than Trinity, only UCD makes it into the list at all...actually apologies to the UCD brethren, it seems that they have made it into the top 100 this year (89) - a jump up from 108 last year.

However no other university from Ireland makes it into the list - though we are punching well above our weight I'd suspect if we are calculating by universities per capita.

So I accept that there would be very little between no. 5 and 10 or even 20...but I would argue that there certainly is a difference between 43 and not getting into the 200 (personally I've studied at uni number 52 and 90 and like you say found very little difference to Trinity on the education side of things). The fact that number 90 had roughly 7 billion dollars of an endowment did make a difference when it came to other facilities though

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 05-05-2010 01:15AM

Fremen wrote: »

I take it you didn't study English Literature?

Ha, nope. What did I spell wrong this time? Monotomous I guess, monotonous? Meh feck it :P

rossie1977 wrote: »

why??

A mixture of ignorance and conditioning. That's how it was perceived by many of my mates growing up, even before we applied for courses. I have a degree from an IT by the way

for me personally having seen both sides (IT for my undergrad and a university for my postgrad) the lecturers in the IT were of a much higher standard. the IT guys and gals had years of real-world experience working in the sector they lectured

my classmates that had come through uni for their undergrad couldn't believe we had 35hrs of lectures every week for 4 years in the IT, they had less than half that for 3 years

Our course had about 15 - 20 hours of lectures a week, but we had serious amounts of projects to do. Each college has a different approach.

Scarinae · 05-05-2010 01:18AM

muffy wrote: »

My opinion on this is that many institutions have courses that other universities do not offer, or a particular course in an institution may be the best in the country, but on a whole that institution my be "less respected" than others.
For example- the course I study is the best course in the country in the field, but my college, DIT, isn't as respected as say, Trinity, by some. But at the end of the day, employers in the industry I want to work in will recognise my course as the best, and will probably know alot of my lecturers, etc.

That's true - for example, UL is one of the best places to go if you want to do Physio, Sports Science etc, and I've heard that they have fantastic sports facilities as well. I've also heard that DCU is excellent for their language studies. It depends what you want to do really. Other courses are only offered in some places - I think nutrition and dietetics can only be done in DIT or UCC, while architecture is UCD or DIT (I may be a few years out of date on this, did my LC in 2005)

rossie1977 wrote:

for me personally having seen both sides (IT for my undergrad and a university for my postgrad) the lecturers in the IT were of a much higher standard. the IT guys and gals had years of real-world experience working in the sector they lectured

I have a friend who has done music in Trinity and in DIT - she says the course in Trinity is much more theory-based and academic, while the DIT courses are better if you want to do performance. There are advantages and disadvantages to both courses. The best thing to do when you're applying is to find out what is taught on the various courses and find out what is best for you and what you want to get out of it, not base your decision on th college's reputation/which is the easiest to commute to etc

--LOS-- · 05-05-2010 01:23AM

Lollymcd wrote: »

Are all Irish universities the same? Are some colleges respected more than others? If you pay for your third level qualification are you desperate or privileged?

Course they're not all the same, course some respected more than others.

opinion guy wrote: »

Ditto for DCU

Ditto

Fremen wrote: »

TCD is known outside of Ireland, so people (in the UK, for example) tend to assume it's better than DCU or the various UCD/UCC/UCG colleges.

It's not really better, just older and more famous. The main Irish universities are more or less on par with each other at undergraduate level.

TCD has its rep thanks to the arts department though, think that's what people have to remember.

In DCU until fairly recently the degree classifications differed to that of other colleges, can't remember exactly but for eg you needed more marks to get a 2.1 etc than other places, that has seen changed, just an example of the discrepancies there are between colleges.

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 01:41AM

Thirdfox wrote: »

Perhaps not between LSE and TCD for example... but it is relevant that other than Trinity, only UCD makes it into the list at all...actually apologies to the UCD brethren, it seems that they have made it into the top 100 this year (89) - a jump up from 108 last year.

However no other university from Ireland makes it into the list - though we are punching well above our weight I'd suspect if we are calculating by universities per capita.

So I accept that there would be very little between no. 5 and 10 or even 20...but I would argue that there certainly is a difference between 43 and not getting into the 200 (personally I've studied at uni number 52 and 90 and like you say found very little difference to Trinity on the education side of things). The fact that number 90 had roughly 7 billion dollars of an endowment did make a difference when it came to other facilities though

that is the only ranking system that has any irish uni in the top 100 though all the others iv seen have no irish in the top 200

personally i think we have the potential to do way better but this was already discussed in detail recently in a thread in politics

we have some great research departments all over the country but on a whole there is no reason why cant have a legitimate top50/40 college in the world and i think tis a damn shame we arent aiming for something like that as it forces me to go abroad to get that quality of education when id be happy getting it here if i could

irish people jsut seem to continue on in blissfull ignorance, paying 30K to do an mba in ucd is a perfect example. the mba in ucd has an absolutely rubbish reputation with employers outside of ireland and for the same price you can get into a top 50(maybe even 20 its been a while since i looked) business school

anyway as might be obvious this is a bit of a pet peeve for me as it affects me directly right now

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 01:46AM

--LOS-- wrote: »

TCD has its rep thanks to the arts department though, think that's what people have to remember.

eh what?

tcd have a great medical/biological research department just one of whoms projects was a major part in mapping the human genome

also they have created technology for nasa shuttles and sattelites

i would be the first to crtitcise our third level education system but credit were its due aswell

--LOS-- · 05-05-2010 01:51AM

PeakOutput wrote: »

eh what?

tcd have a great medical/biological research department just one of whoms projects was a major part in mapping the human genome

also they have created technology for nasa shuttles and sattelites

i would be the first to crtitcise our third level education system but credit were its due aswell

ye I don't dispute that for one second, but those rankings are like a most published list, TCD rates higher due to its arts department and of course due to their funding.

opinion guy · 05-05-2010 01:54AM

sock puppet wrote: »

That's just Computer Science graduates now but if true it's pretty shocking and doesn't say much for CS graduates in the US.

Ok you can't simply compare a graduate from Ireland with a graduate from the US. The Irish one has done 4 years of computer science from day 1 and not much else - maybe some business or a language. The US one has done two years of whatever the hell they like and 2 years split between a Major and a Minor. They are just very different systems. You can't do a direct comparison like that.

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 01:58AM

--LOS-- wrote: »

ye I don't dispute that for one second, but those rankings are like a most published list, TCD rates higher due to its arts department and of course due to their funding.

oh right sorry ye i didnt realise you were talking about the list i actuall am off the opinion its not a top 200 school at all and going by most lists thats the case but it is good in some areas and a first from trinity will definitely stand you in very good stead with the top colleges

--LOS-- · 05-05-2010 02:07AM

It's hard not to turn this into a thread about trinity

K4t · 05-05-2010 02:20AM

Really-Stressed wrote: »

Lets cut the BS

UCD, TCD Maybe UCC = GOOD, Worth the effort

The rest= Glorified clown colleges

I.T= HA HA HA HA !!!:D

NUIG, NUIM, UL, DCU, Queen's University, DIT.

Nothing wrong with ITs either. It's all about the quality of the degree combined with work experience at the end of the day.

You really shouldn't post about something which you obviously have no clue about, even if it's in jest.:rolleyes:

evercloserunion · 05-05-2010 02:30AM

Hooray for pretentious w*nkshaftery thread.

phantom_lord · 05-05-2010 02:44AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

Hooray for pretentious w*nkshaftery thread.

you go to an IT or something?

evercloserunion · 05-05-2010 03:12AM

phantom_lord wrote: »

you go to an IT or something?

No; you can go to a university and still get tired of all the willy-waving that accompanies threads like these.

Are all degrees created equal?

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