Degree from IT or University, is there a difference?

joe40 wrote: »

Thanks for all the people that gave informed and helpful responses but the above post is incredible.

He absolutely has a point about the bizarre fascination with going to third-level.

The third-level social experience can be invaluable, so I wouldn't put that too far down your list of reasons for choosing one over the other, but the actual knowledge gained in a third-level course is certainly not all it's "cracked up to be".
I did my degree in NUIG, and remembered sweet eff all of it after my degree - mostly an exercise in exceedingly-short-term memorisation. A waste of four years as far as actually learning anything went.



I'd sooner hire a decent IT graduate with a couple of months' experience than a university graduate with none.


I think a series of short-term internships in varying roles would be more beneficial educationwise than four years of speculative theory aimed at something you quite likely won't end up enjoying anyway. I'm 32 and still don't know what I want to do, (except that it's something I'm not qualified for) 17 year old me didn't have a hope of making the right call

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

MIT is a university.

Some people think the LSE is just a school.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

PLC's are a waste of space.

If the kids cannot get into a real course that they WANT to do, then advise to look for an apprenticeship.

I've never met a poor plumber.

I did a PLC and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Learned a lot from it too and I have University degrees.

Any kind of education is not a waste of time.

baby and crumble wrote: »

To everyone pooh-poohing 'wishy washy' arts degrees, tell me how would you get on in life without

teachers
historians
researchers for the documentaries and tv shows you like
musicians
psychologists
social workers
social researchers
policy makers

and the myriad other roles that are filled with arts graduates for whom their degree is what got them their job, and taught them what they need to know?

The absolute WORST thing a parent can do is push their kids into a career they don't like or have zero aptitude for. At best they'll finish their degree and hop into a job they hate, at worst they'll drop out, or worse. I did an arts degree and followed it up with a relevant postgrad. I'm now happily in an excellent job that I love. If my parents had tried to push me towards a STEM career I'd probably hate my life.

My mother has a Master in Art History and she went on to work in architectural preservation and years later opened a restoration business with my step dad who is a trained restorer.
I have a sister who has a degree in Pedagogy (they're probably the most looked down on in her university) and she trains now to become a Psychotherapist while working in an adult counseling center.

I detest this whole thing "but the gender studies degree haha blabla". An arts degree can open doors to career paths that aren't straight forward to get into and while they often require further study there are plenty of roles out there that look for people with very intellectual and philosophical skill sets.
As you said not everyone has the aptitude to be a lawyer, a doctor or a pharmaceutical researcher. I completely agree with it and I also know first hand how difficult it is for very creative people to find their path because it's often more about fulfilment than monetary success and it's a very difficult line to walk.
I'm aware not every history graduate can become a researcher, but does every IT graduate end up working in code or every business graduate has a suit dress code desk job?

I made a few pretty bad educational decisions in my life and that with a pinch of bad luck and now I decided to go back to college and do something that combines my creative aptitude with something that can be monetized. I would be useless in STEM, I have no interest in working in law. I'd say it's much much harder for people with a creative streak in life to find foot because the value of Arts and anything related to is is much much less than science and society completely backs it up.

2011 wrote: »

....and you are missing my points which are:
1)MIT has is an IT and it has impacted negatively on its reputation.

Edit: Saw your edit.

http://news.mit.edu/2019/qs-ranks-mit-world-no-1-university-0618

2011 wrote: »

2) What was DIT is now a university and it has not changed anything.

DIT was a university in all but name. It exceeded many measures for many years. So it could be argued that the change in status has acknowledged all the good work over the previous years.

LirW wrote: »

I detest this whole thing "but the gender studies degree haha blabla". An arts degree can open doors to career paths that aren't straight forward to get into and while they often require further study there are plenty of roles out there that look for people with very intellectual and philosophical skill sets.

I've no problem with most Arts degrees, but this nonsense bothers me - Arts students aren't more intellectual than anyone else. (The oft-cited "critical thinking" is even worse - any computer programmer, for example, will apply "critical thinking" in their everyday tasks, and have their ideas tested. Partaking in boardsie discussions (and indeed most discussions...) requires critical thinking.)
And wth is a "philosophical skill set"? Is that a euphemism, or is it something one trains for by pontificating in a cafe until the wee hours while studying one's navel?

Ficheall wrote: »

I've no problem with most Arts degrees, but this nonsense bothers me - Arts students aren't more intellectual than anyone else. (The oft-cited "critical thinking" is even worse - any computer programmer, for example, will apply "critical thinking" in their everyday tasks, and have their ideas tested. Partaking in boardsie discussions (and indeed most discussions...) requires critical thinking.)
And wth is a "philosophical skill set"? Is that a euphemism, or is it something one trains for by pontificating in a cafe until the wee hours while studying one's navel?

Funnily enough, cafes used to be a valid place for intellectuals to exchange and write, this was exactly the way you imagine it and some pretty big names like Sigmund Freud were into it.
But that completely aside, my point is:
We all have different cognitive abilities and process the world differently.
Great scientists and researchers often have very logical thinking and reasoning, make sense of numerical material and follow certain processes that require exactly these abilities. You can only learn this to a certain point.
Divergent thinking is often something convergent minds struggle to understand and the other way around.

And this is pretty much what it is about. "Creative thinking" is a different way of problem solving than "logical thinking". One uses facts, one uses imagination and people tend to have stronger aptitudes in just one of them.
Art degrees require a lot of divergent thinking because you'll come across a lot of problems that can't be solved logically and the process of solving issues this way are fundamentally different than logical ones.
Turn it around and take a field that is heavily fact based, they require a good logical ability.

It doesn't mean that one is superior to the other and also doesn't mean that scientists can't have creative hobbies.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Is this true? If A is true, does that mean B must be true? What is the nature of evidence? Why should I believe some forms of evidence and not others? Is this argument valid, or not valid? Why? How do I use the facts at my disposal to solve this specific problem? How do I clearly articulate my argument and conclusions?

These are all skills that are a) extremely valuable and b) in short supply nowadays.

You don't have to study philosophy to have them of course, but it isn't a bad place to start. Same is true of a lot of other arts subjects, particularly history.

All basic tenets of scientific study, surely..