University Funding

[Powderhound]

I will concur with this. I've seen quite a few Oxbridge medics come down to London for their clinical years and when it comes to dealing with patients a 4 year old could do a better job. Not all of them are bad and they really do know their 'book knowledge' but thats only half of being a decent doctor.

Tbh medicine is a life long commitment, and taking a year out after A levels is not a bad idea to gain some maturity. If I had the choice again I might as well have done, but then again the degree takes 6 bloody years to complete and its fair enough if one would want to finish as quickly as possible

Then again, my Dad has had F1s from another well-known UK medical school who simply lacked the theoretical knowledge for medical practice. How does failing to identify a liver in situ at a PM sound to you?

[shadowmaster]

Then again, my Dad has had F1s from another well-known UK medical school who simply lacked the theoretical knowledge for medical practice. How does failing to identify a liver in situ at a PM sound to you?

Sounds like a classic face palm moment.

[Powderhound]

Sounds like a classic face palm moment.

Out of interest, which school are you at? I've just applied to Cambridge, Bristol, Nottingham and Sheffield. I know the London ones are good, but I'm a country bumpkin, and the culture shock would be a bit too much for me.

[shadowmaster]

Out of interest, which school are you at? I've just applied to Cambridge, Bristol, Nottingham and Sheffield. I know the London ones are good, but I'm a country bumpkin, and the culture shock would be a bit too much for me.

UCL, I'm a bit of a city person so London suits me.

[alpha channel]

I'd be willing to bet a considerable sum of cash that those saying university students should pay more are those that got such things for free and came out of university without a whopping great debt hanging over their heads.

I'm intending to do my masters in Medical Illustration next year (at the mo I'm saving like crazy while doing a crappy admin job at my local hospital to pay for it and some supplementary, more in-depth study in human anatomy, I don't need any more student debt thanks). This is a job where you have to have a qualification in the subject area before they'll even look at you, even if all you end off doing is standard graphic design work (i.e. posters, leaflets, etc...). I'd be mightily ticked off if the CBI wigs (bunch of bloody loafers ) got their way and the £4K I've saved for the tuition fee's no longer covers it.

[Salazaar]

I'd be willing to bet a considerable sum of cash that those saying university students should pay more are those that got such things for free and came out of university without a whopping great debt hanging over their heads.

Well you'd be wrong about that in my case, but doesn't it seem fair that those who actually benefit from university education should, in the end, pay for it?

The loans system is pretty good at doing that, it means that those from low income families don't have such a great barrier to entry. Upping the fees/loans might put one or two people off doing courses like basket weaving studies at the university of west borchester in favour of ones that will actually produce productive members of society.

[thestjohn]

I must admit that I made the foolish choice when I was younger to do a degree just for the sake of learning something after illness cost me grades at A-Level. And it cost me quite a bit; hell, I'm still dealing with the debt 6 years on from graduation because I didn't choose a degree with a career path other than being a post-modern arts lecturer. I'd love to go back and do medicine or physics, but the cost is prohibitive, and to be fair, the chances of a 30 yr old man with a First in Writing getting onto a pre-med programme is slim to none. I have no problems with the idea of having to pay my way through university, even a first degree, but considering some of the comments above which remark on "lesser" degrees, there does need to be some control over what degrees people are taking if situations like mine are to be avoided. It'd be great if we had the economy or population where anyone at any age could study any subject merely for the point of learning something for no or little cost, like some of the Baltic states, but we don't, and as such students in the current climate aren't always getting their money's worth.

[fezfezed]

Im in my second year of uni now. I like the course that I am doing as it leads to a solid career path, but in reality I think uni is too expensive to enjoy. I spent most of the summer working to pay off my debts

[arthurleung]

I did feel my money is sort of wasted...
Last year (my 3rd year) majority of the laboratory equipments were broken.
Lectures is just copying from the board and grabbing notes. Could have done the same at home without just from buying books.

Exams are just taking questions from old papers and change a few values. You only need to have good memory to remember all the past papers to pass, without even going through the notes or going to lecture. Unsurprisingly all the top of the class people have good memory.

Practical skills are useless and only counts towards a tiny part of the degree.

Anyway, sitting on a high 2-2, may be getting a 2-1 this final year.

Have to say, I am just lack in writing skill and that pretty much decided I cannot get a 1st no matter how much effort was put in. People who is getting a 1st do get quite a elitist altitude and bossing around in group projects (or doing nothing, thinking their 1st is safe and hence no effort is required).

I have the luxury of not needing to worry about debts but it is transportation and living which is the problem. If you get free university you still have to pay for rent and stuff. And did I mention halls are as expensive (or more) as private housing?

[TheAnimus]

No offense arthurleung but moaning about accomidation costs, and transport (walk, cycle, its free! Oyster subsidised....)

Workstation 1: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 3.6Ghz / 4GB DDR2-800 / 3TB SATA / 3TB SATA RAID5 / 1.5TB USB / HD4870 512MB / Antec P180
Workstation 2: Intel Xeon X3350 3.2Ghz / 4GB DDR2-800 / 1TB SATA / HD4770 512MB / Shuttle SP35P2
Network Storage: Intel Core2Duo T7200 2.0Ghz / 2GB DDR2-533 / 250GB IDE / 2.75TB USB
Mobile Workstation: Intel Core2Duo T8300 2.4Ghz / 3GB DDR2-667 / 250GB SATA (Dell Inspiron 1525)
Display (Monitor): DELL Ultrasharp 2709W + DELL Ultrasharp 2001FP
Display (Projector) DELL 2300MP
Network: DELL PowerConnect 2616 GbE
Headphones: Etymotic hf2 / Ultimate Ears Triple.fi 10 Pro

When I was working my first full time job, i'd have had difficulty buying all that stuff.

[Andeh13]

One of my biggest gripes (and i may make another thread to go into more detail over this) is where does the money go with the universities?

Apparently, we pay £3k for the course and the government subsidies us another £7k, multply that for 20,000 (just over the capacity of coventry) and you've got £20 million a year. Not including research undertaken by the staff, which is considerable seeing as one of my lecturers employs other people to teach his lectures so he can focus on research.


Now thats a lot of money to run a very big 'school' but 90% of my lectures consist of copying off power point slides, doing questions off print outs (Automotive Engineering) and then coursework/exams. We do very little practical (ie none, minus dismantling an engine in our second year) do 1-2 labs per module (6) per year and ultimately work towards our exams. Turn up rates to our lectures are prov 30-40% as the lectures that can be bothered put most of the work onto our unintuitive, clunky, slow 'online data repository' called CUonline.

How can they justify raising the cost of University when i don't consider us getting very good value for money now!?

[bsodmike]

In fact, I'd go as far to say as no one under 21 should attend university, unless they're training on something particularly long term (e.g. medicine).

Having been born during the first week of January, it meant that I got into school a year late and therefore attended Uni at 18. The youngest on my course (EEE) was 17, as I should have originally been. Then again, I've always been considered rather mature for my age; at least back then. Looking at my current otaku interests, I may have in fact gotten more immature with time. I blame my Masters encouraging all the playing with robots

Perhaps another change is the amount you pay for each subject. For example I do chemistry and I use up a lot of expensive equipment and chemicals where as a friend who does ecomonics has to pay for printed handouts. We both pay the same amount even though I use up far more resources. Perhaps this isn't a good idea though as then science degrees might end up less popular and we might get a shortage.

I can relate as an engineering student, I too needed quite a few expensive 'toys' in terms of equipment. Some can argue the lab has most of them, but they may not always be available as quite often freshmen have lab sessions preventing other students from entering. Also when working on large-scale projects, it is handy to have access to certain equipment. It think it would be hard to find a single engineering student who never purchased at least a multimeter; if you happen to dive further into your subject though, the equipment can pile on (osc scopes, SMT rework stations, engineering software).

"...Now I am unashamedly an educational elitist, in as much as exam passes should actually mean something. They should be hard and only a certain proportion of the populous should be able to achieve them. Anything else devalues them and makes a mockery of the situation, which is where we have found ourselves now."

"...Oh and I wouldn’t touch an Oxbridge Graduate with a bargepole, even a First, but then I’m from a science background and in my day they were all poetry reading pansies "

That is quite an important point. I fail to understand how most UK Universities allow students to 'pass' a module as long as they achieve 40% at undergraduate level, and even the 50% for MSc isn't much of a change. This essentially means that you do not understand 60% to 50% of the material, but then again do not get me started on how Universities structure their exam papers.

+1 on the pansies

I did feel my money is sort of wasted...
Last year (my 3rd year) majority of the laboratory equipments were broken.

Here's another fun tidbit from my time at King's: we had a CAM module which included CNC lab sessions, although has the "equipment was bust" at the time the lab sessions were cancelled. The course fees did not get any cheaper since, of course.

Lectures is just copying from the board and grabbing notes. Could have done the same at home without just from buying books.

Exams are just taking questions from old papers and change a few values. You only need to have good memory to remember all the past papers to pass, without even going through the notes or going to lecture. Unsurprisingly all the top of the class people have good memory.

Practical skills are useless and only counts towards a tiny part of the degree.

The quality of knowledge gained in lectures and the application required to successfully answer a paper (and by successfully I mean 70%+) will obviously vary across degrees. Given that my background is one of engineering, I would not say the same of most of the lectures I've been in. Sure, you do get lecturers and then you get some really great professors who really know how to get that grey matter revved up. Quite frankly, if any lecture did not stimulate me enough, I'd be fast asleep; thankfully I have not had to suffer through too many of those.

With regards to your comment on exams, in engineering I'd again have to disagree - to a certain extent at least. It depends on the particular subject and the level at which you are reading. I would say only < 5% of the papers I have taken in the past did not require the application of knowledge, and mainly mind numbing regurgitation of memorised details. Those would be the 'soft skills' papers such as project management etc.

"...Not including research undertaken by the staff, which is considerable seeing as one of my lecturers employs other people to teach his lectures so he can focus on research."

"...Turn up rates to our lectures are prov 30-40% as the lectures that can be bothered put most of the work onto our unintuitive, clunky, slow 'online data repository' called CUonline."

Just to add to your argument, my supervising Professor (and lecturer for two modules) at King's was last awarded well over £2 m in research grants. When I last visited the dept. they were still repairing the Strand building...*sigh*.

I do remember the whole 'attendance sheet' ordeal in my undergrade course. Now that I think of it, we did not have to sign-in during the Masters course - anyone know why?

Note: Apologies to all for my lengthy reply, compiled as I more or less read through this discussion as it caught my interest.

[TheAnimus]

With regards to your comment on exams, in engineering I'd again have to disagree - to a certain extent at least. It depends on the particular subject and the level at which you are reading. I would say only < 5% of the papers I have taken in the past did not require the application of knowledge, and mainly mind numbing regurgitation of memorised details. Those would be the 'soft skills' papers such as project management etc.

I do remember the whole 'attendance sheet' ordeal in my undergrade course. Now that I think of it, we did not have to sign-in during the Masters course - anyone know why?

Hmm attendance is a problem thou, as plenty of 18 year olds still aren't mature enough to behave themselfs, should they just send them all down?

But on exams, I think its important with plenty of subjects to let such a low pass rate pass, as its important your able to truely differentiate the top echalon.

[no_numb]

I can relate as an engineering student, I too needed quite a few expensive 'toys' in terms of equipment. Some can argue the lab has most of them, but they may not always be available as quite often freshmen have lab sessions preventing other students from entering. Also when working on large-scale projects, it is handy to have access to certain equipment. It think it would be hard to find a single engineering student who never purchased at least a multimeter; if you happen to dive further into your subject though, the equipment can pile on (osc scopes, SMT rework stations, engineering software).


I do remember the whole 'attendance sheet' ordeal in my undergrade course. Now that I think of it, we did not have to sign-in during the Masters course - anyone know why?

Luckily my department is pretty well funded and there is always what you need available. (Except sometimes computers but they are always around if you really need them for work that cannot be done elsewhere.

We do not have an attendance sheet in our lectures. I know some courses do but to be honest if you dont attend a lot of lectures then you're going to fail or at least achieve way below your potential. Chemistry is a lot easier when its shown to you than when you're reading it off a page.

[Brucelles]

I am just pleased that my daughter is out of university before the crunch. It cost me approximately 9,000 per year for her degree, so I am looking forward to the extra 750 quid a month in my beer fund.

I was lucky and went to university under the Conservatives, so I got a grant that paid my rent and living expenses, and I wasn't charged tuition as I was British (still am). I could actually sign on during the holidays, but preferred a job.

I don't think that Labour get enough credit for destroying the best education system in the world. It's a tattered shadow of what it was, and my daughter's very high 2.1 will probably be of no particular use to her for years. It's a good job I can take her on as an apprentice Central Banking Systems Consultant, or she would be walking the streets.

So, yes, I would say that students without kindly parents pay too much. IF 50% of kids attending university meant that 50% of young adults were instantly useful in the workplace I would consider it money well-spent, but they aren't.

I think that a good alternative would be to make employers pay towards degrees, so that they could direct some tax money to the courses they think useful. You would see loads of money going to sciences, maths, engineering, medicine, etc. and very little to Shaved Lesbian Studies, Knitting in Colour (BA Hons) and Social Studies. That way the system could pay for it's own personnel requirements in advance, easing the burden on students and filtering out the useless degrees a bit.

[TheAnimus]

problem is under New NAZI your not allowed to say that degrees on Knitting in Colour are less valuable than Knitting in Black&White.

What amazes me is how some party that claims to be socailist can de-value a degree to the point it would be a requirment for a window cleaner, yet only extend it to 50%. That is so incredibly stupid, and horrifically unfair, you've really defined and entrenched the working class, if people don't have a degree by the time their 23, they will get no jobs offered, as it will be a prerequisit for just about every role thats more than 50p above minimum wage..... Man this makes me angry.

Yet look at the US system, someone I know from a top teir US university, who majored in Computer Science, didn't know ANY compiler theory. How the **** can you study computer science for 4 years, do some natural language proccessing and not know what a LL(1) or recursive decsent is..... We still had a world leading eductional system 5 years ago, please uni's don't neglect the important subjects that better mankind.