Are all degrees created equal?

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 05-05-2010 03:19AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

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

Please do explain...

randylonghorn · 05-05-2010 03:23AM

Derek Crooked Volunteer wrote: »

Don't be silly, we need scientists. BAs should be cut first, if anything.

Feck off, my first degree was a BA, and I'm damned if that makes me a candidate for castration!

Anyway, a Science degree is a BSc.

More seriously, it's been said above ... colleges may have an overall rep, but some of that can derive from history and indeed from snobbery.

Even excellent colleges in general have courses which score well below par with students / employers, and colleges which employers outside Ireland would have to google have truly excellent courses which send out students who quickly start to earn that college a reputation at least within that industry / sector.

If you're thinking of undertaking a third level course, don't just research the college, research the course, and what students / graduates / employers think of that course specifically.

[In general, compare the funding flowing into some of the colleges in those "Top 100" lists with the trickle of funding into Irish colleges ...

I'd have many more reservations about how they are compiled, but that's the most obvious factor that tends to bring many colleges to the "top" of the lists ... not just the funding itself, obviously, but what can be bought for it in terms of facilities and personnel.]

evercloserunion · 05-05-2010 03:25AM

Daxton Obedient Tomcat wrote: »

Please do explain...

What?

I'm talking about people going on about how their university is amazing and all the others are inferior. I thought that was obvious.

Unless I have fundamentally misunderstood much of this thread? (It seems about the right time of the day to be fundamentally misunderstanding things)

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 05-05-2010 03:30AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

What?

I'm talking about people going on about how their university is amazing and all the others are inferior. I thought that was obvious.

Unless I have fundamentally misunderstood much of this thread? (It seems about the right time of the day to be fundamentally misunderstanding things)

I thought you meant something a little different. That's all.

--LOS-- · 05-05-2010 03:32AM

Daxton Obedient Tomcat wrote: »

I thought you meant something a little different. That's all.

willy waving?

miss5 · 05-05-2010 03:44AM

I do think there is a huge amount of snobbery associated with third level institutions.

I'm sure the prson from the smaller college studied just as hard a the TCD student to
get their degree.

evercloserunion · 05-05-2010 03:47AM

--LOS-- wrote: »

willy waving?

I didn't mean it literally of course.

GLaDOS · 05-05-2010 03:53AM

I go to DCU and some people like to make cracks about UCD/Trinity being better, all a bit silly really.

--LOS-- · 05-05-2010 03:56AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

I didn't mean it literally of course.

didn't think ya did, I kinda agree with ya, I'm not about to get into a battle about which college is better........

ScienceNerd wrote: »

I go to DCU and some people like to make cracks about UCD/Trinity being better, all a bit silly really.

.......coz DCU is the best!

GLaDOS · 05-05-2010 03:58AM

--LOS-- wrote: »

.......coz DCU is the best!

Exactly :cool:

ilovebiology · 05-05-2010 05:35AM

Are all degree's created equally? In Ireland, the definate answer is NO.

galwayrush · 05-05-2010 08:19AM

I am Galwayrush, N.F.D.A.A.:cool:

El Siglo · 05-05-2010 08:25AM

ilovebiology wrote: »

Are all degree's created equally? In Ireland, the definate answer is NO.

In everywhere really. Go up north and you'll hear the wise cracks about UUJ being the "Polytech" by the Queen's students. To be honest, unless you went to the likes Harvard or Cambridge then you've nothing to be snobby about. Seriously, being snobby about going to UCD or TCD (especially after reading that article by Tom Garvin) is ridiculous.
I'm proud I went to UCD and that I'm in TCD now, but I wouldn't go around bragging or demeaning other colleges, as far as I'm concerned I've come across enough idiots in the places I've ended up in to warrant that exercise as futile.

MagicMarker · 05-05-2010 08:43AM

I'm going back to studying part time in an I.T in Sept. Gotta say I couldn't give a shít that it's not a ''uni''. I chose it because it has something I wanted to study and because it's near where I live, that's about it.

The work I put in will define how good my degree will be. Besides, I know I'm better than all of you anyway.

05-05-2010 09:00AM

miss5 wrote: »

I do think there is a huge amount of snobbery associated with third level institutions.

I'm sure the prson from the smaller college studied just as hard a the TCD student to
get their degree.

Look, I don't know about all colleges, but I used to tutor students from certain DIT courses and there is absolutely no way in hell that their courses were anywhere near as difficult as mine. Mine wasn't even that bad, but it did require a lot of thinking and a lot of work and you were marked very harshly. What these students were doing was 90% rote learning from a book and 10% common sense and they used to complain about that. They used to tell me they couldn't do X or Y assignment because they didn't understand statistics, when all the info they needed was on the page in front of them. I saw people getting 75% for something that would have been a borderline fail at Trinity. All courses are NOT equal and I find it quite silly that they come out with a degree at the end of such Mickey Mouse courses, which really are diploma level. I'm not being a snob, but honestly, they are just not degree level courses. I think I put more work into my TEFL cert. Go ahead, flame me, but you'll never convince me that a 'BSc' in Hotel Management or any similar course has anything in common with a Trinity degree.

MagicMarker · 05-05-2010 09:03AM

[quote=[Deleted User];65729081]Look, I don't know about all colleges, but I used to tutor students from certain DIT courses and there is absolutely no way in hell that their courses were anywhere near as difficult as mine. Mine wasn't even that bad, but it did require a lot of thinking and a lot of work and you were marked very harshly. What these students were doing was 90% rote learning from a book and 10% common sense and they used to complain about that. They used to tell me they couldn't do X or Y assignment because they didn't understand statistics, when all the info they needed was on the page in front of them. I saw people getting 75% for something that would have been a borderline fail at Trinity. All courses are NOT equal and I find it quite silly that they come out with a degree at the end of such Mickey Mouse courses, which really are diploma level. I'm not being a snob, but honestly, they are just not degree level courses. I think I put more work into my TEFL cert. Go ahead, flame me, but you'll never convince me that a 'BSc' in Hotel Management or any similar course has anything in common with a Trinity degree.[/QUOTE]
Woah

NothingMan · 05-05-2010 09:37AM

It definitely depends on the course, not the college. I have a BEng from IADT. But in reality I have an ordinary degree in Digital Media Technology. It was a very broad course that gave a basic understanding and a lot of practical applications of electronics applied to media.

The course, for the most part was fairly easy for me, but we had a programming module and I honestly hadn't a clue what was going on. Luckily, neither had the rest of the class so we ended up getting graded in a curve. The best, who was still pretty bad, got a B, most got a C, some got a D and 2 failed and repeated. In this case the degree reflects absolutely no proficiency in programming, despite it being a significant part.

My degree from IADT should definitely not be put on par with an animation/fine arts/multimedia degree. The people I know from those courses really knew their stuff and I believe their degrees are widely recognised as such.

Saying that, I did learn a lot on my course and I enjoyed it a lot. I also grew up a lot and figured out, to an extent, what I wanted to do after. Which I think is just as important as what you learn academically in your course.

PeakOutput · 05-05-2010 09:42AM

miss5 wrote: »

I do think there is a huge amount of snobbery associated with third level institutions.

I'm sure the prson from the smaller college studied just as hard a the TCD student to
get their degree.

people in the same college as eachother dont even study as hard as eachother to ge their degrees

[quote=[Deleted User];65729081]Look, I don't know about all colleges, but I used to tutor students from certain DIT courses and there is absolutely no way in hell that their courses were anywhere near as difficult as mine. Mine wasn't even that bad, but it did require a lot of thinking and a lot of work and you were marked very harshly. What these students were doing was 90% rote learning from a book and 10% common sense and they used to complain about that. They used to tell me they couldn't do X or Y assignment because they didn't understand statistics, when all the info they needed was on the page in front of them. I saw people getting 75% for something that would have been a borderline fail at Trinity. All courses are NOT equal and I find it quite silly that they come out with a degree at the end of such Mickey Mouse courses, which really are diploma level. I'm not being a snob, but honestly, they are just not degree level courses. I think I put more work into my TEFL cert. Go ahead, flame me, but you'll never convince me that a 'BSc' in Hotel Management or any similar course has anything in common with a Trinity degree.[/QUOTE]

sorry to burst your bubble but there are piss easy courses in trinity aswell and there are courses that have rubbish reputations in their areas from trinity aswell

opinion guy · 05-05-2010 09:57AM

Hmmm if I think back to when I originally did my leaving, plus to courses friends did in various colleges, I am left in little doubt that the hardest degree in the country was Electronic Engineering in DCU. 38 hrs a week plus of scheduled time, every week for 4 years. Plus its a difficult subject. Plus assignments etc. No other degree I've heard of has such a high workload.

Note: I didn't do it:D

Agricola · 05-05-2010 12:46PM

Of course degrees arent equal. Degrees in a certain subject from a certain university, will carry more weight than a degree in the same subject from an I.T.

I got a 1:1 in a computer science degree from an IT but the only thing that separated me from others who didnt get it was study hours put in. There were one or two guys on the course who were genius's, people you'd go to for advise or help with projects, real paid up computer nerds, and they didnt get firsts simply because they didnt put in the time studying and then regurgitating coursework in exams.

My degree course was brand new and just signed off on while I was in 3rd year. Because of this the college bigwigs were eager to make a success of it. Myself and a number of others felt we got abit of an easy ride through 4th year. We were given good grades for good work and a couple of the more difficult subjects were made as palatable as possible for us. No question about it, they wanted people graduating the following year!
It wasnt quite in the same league as the FAS scandal now, dont get me wrong,

- it was still fúckin hard graft, but not what i expected an honours degree to be.

Still, as any football manager would say, you can only beat whats put in front of you, and I routed that course!

05-05-2010 02:36PM

PeakOutput wrote: »

people in the same college as eachother dont even study as hard as eachother to ge their degrees

sorry to burst your bubble but there are piss easy courses in trinity aswell and there are courses that have rubbish reputations in their areas from trinity aswell

You're not bursting any bubble, I'm well aware that all colleges are not equal. Sure, there might be the odd easier course here and there and sometimes an IT course could be better regarded than a Trinity course, but I'm not aware of any 4 year Trinity degree where the standards are as low as those DIT courses I'm familiar with. Some of those students were barely literate. People like this just wouldn't last past first year of the course I did, full stop. They're not cut out for college and there's nothing wrong with that, but I think they'd be better off working their way up in the tourism industry or whatever than taking a piss easy course so they can say they have a degree. Those courses all used to be diploma courses and I think they should have remained diploma courses. The language options are particularly ridiculous - what's the point of having a degree 'with Spanish' when you end up with about 10 phrases of it? You could learn more reading a phrase book and I'm not exaggerating.

I don't believe Trinity is as great as its international reputation would have you believe, but it's no Mickey Mouse college. I'm now doing a postgrad at one of the world's top five universities and I'm doing better here than I did at Trinity because I'm used to harsh marking and not being spoonfed. It's not all snobbery and reputation, there's often a very good reason why certain colleges are considered better than others.

RichTea · 05-05-2010 02:45PM

Thirdfox wrote: »

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 )

FFS. IF you must go down the typical smug Trinity route of whipping up league tables at least get it right. UCD's at 89 in that arbitrary list.

And UCD was not renamed UCDD. It has UCD and Dublin on the crest to differentiate it as you said but please shut up with your ridiculous complex about going to Trinity.

df1985 · 05-05-2010 02:53PM

i did accounting and finance in DCU, we had loads of open evenings with the big firms, kpmg/pwc/ernst and young etc. and they regulalrly told us our degree was favoured or people from BESS in trinity or bcomm in UCD. my mates in ucd hated me when they heard this! My degree also gets more exemptions from professional exams than any other, so if you want to be an accountant AF in dcu is the way to go.....
in general the dcu business school is very good regardless of the degree.

on the other hand that is obviously just in relation to them degrees and the job being applied for, im sure the others have degrees favoured over DCU ones be it in engineering, computer related etc.

RichTea · 05-05-2010 03:04PM

df1985 wrote: »

i did accounting and finance in DCU, we had loads of open evenings with the big firms, kpmg/pwc/ernst and young etc. and they regulalrly told us our degree was favoured or people from BESS in trinity or bcomm in UCD. my mates in ucd hated me when they heard this! My degree also gets more exemptions from professional exams than any other, so if you want to be an accountant AF in dcu is the way to go.....
in general the dcu business school is very good regardless of the degree.

on the other hand that is obviously just in relation to them degrees and the job being applied for, im sure the others have degrees favoured over DCU ones be it in engineering, computer related etc.

Well said. Different colleges have different specialities etc.

Gang of Gin · 05-05-2010 03:07PM

ya-ba-da-ba-doo wrote: »

Firstly, that's such an ignorant post.

Secondly, UL, DCU, NUIG, Queens(in the north but still) - All great Unis.

Forget the name of it but the Art college in Dublin is brilliant if you're into that kinda stuff.

I'm in one of the colleges you named as being good doing science and i have friends in WIT with 5 or 6 hours more than me, and science has a good few hours.

It only matters to a certain degree what college you go to, if you have drive you'll get past the prejudice people like you have.

Gee, don't get your knickers in a twist. Or as the Americans would say, your panties in a bunch. I'm sure he intended in light-heartedly enough.

token56 · 05-05-2010 03:08PM

The competitive thing between uni's and IT's regarding which one is better is pretty pointless really. As others have said different universities may have specialties in different areas, so taking a university as a whole is pretty pointless.

But really regardless of where you get your degree, these days they only get you into a interview for a job. After that its all down to the person. If someone has a good degree for a well known, well respected uni, but is going to be crap in the job, they will be found out, either in the interview or shortly after they start work, and they wont survive very long. Even with post graduate qualifications, unless you are going into academia, they will only get you so far, after that its the individual that counts, and as you progress further into your career your work experience becomes more and more relevant and your qualifications less so.

Unfortunately despite the work that some people put into there degrees and other qualifications, they are put a very small stepping stone in the professional world. This is mainly due to the significant increase of "qualified" graduates coming out of universities and colleges. The days of a degree or masters, and even PhD's, being something that sets you apart from everyone else are gone.

Gang of Gin · 05-05-2010 03:16PM

[quote=[Deleted User];65729081]Look, I don't know about all colleges, but I used to tutor students from certain DIT courses and there is absolutely no way in hell that their courses were anywhere near as difficult as mine. Mine wasn't even that bad, but it did require a lot of thinking and a lot of work and you were marked very harshly. What these students were doing was 90% rote learning from a book and 10% common sense and they used to complain about that. They used to tell me they couldn't do X or Y assignment because they didn't understand statistics, when all the info they needed was on the page in front of them. I saw people getting 75% for something that would have been a borderline fail at Trinity. All courses are NOT equal and I find it quite silly that they come out with a degree at the end of such Mickey Mouse courses, which really are diploma level. I'm not being a snob, but honestly, they are just not degree level courses. I think I put more work into my TEFL cert. Go ahead, flame me, but you'll never convince me that a 'BSc' in Hotel Management or any similar course has anything in common with a Trinity degree.[/QUOTE]

Mickey Mouse always gets a terribly hard time when it comes to courses.

Pittens · 05-05-2010 03:18PM

I've been to UL and UCC, postgrad. The UL engineering degree was much harder.

On that subject, UL graduates ( of any mathematical subject) are popular with English banks - who normally take only from OxBridge.

As for trinity, I am unaware of any brilliant engineer I have met from Trinners. Oxford graduates, stanford graduates, MIT graduates - all very good.

that said UL's standards may have dropped. I graduated from there about 11 years ago.

Pittens · 05-05-2010 03:23PM

That said, I think similar course broadly equivalent between larger universities in Ireland, but there are huge differences in the workload for different type of degrees within universities.

davyjose · 05-05-2010 03:27PM

World University Rankings 2009

Trinity College Dublin ............... 43
UCD ..................................... 89
Everywhere else ..................... That noise from Family Fortunes

Are all degrees created equal?

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