agreed intrepid we're in the same boat over here, just waiting for 2012 when either the world ends or we get a president with the balls of steel necessary to dismantle the unfathomable beaurocracy that the US is being smothered by.

I like your profile pic as well. Instead of gold my family is grabbing property in California to hold onto, coastal California property is as good as gold...we hope.

Personally I'm not entirely sure the current government of the united states (or the UK for that matter) really needs to continue in its current form; I'm just afraid that socialism will be the replacement.

hell we've lasted a lot longer than most republic democracies but just like rome our downfall is that the people have found out that they can give themselves whatever they want regardless of actual value or sustainability, made MUCH worse by the fact that our currency is no longer based on an actual valuable commodity, unless you consider there to be value in the promises of a politician.

I have nothing to say about riots in the UK. I just find it funny that the right to assemble (riot) is the ONE right brits feel is worth fighting for, congrats its your last one and you would hate to lose it because everyone knows how much young socialists love breaking shit for a cause.

lol, I won't be able to tell you rather it is illegal or legal because I'm not knowledgeable in the Governmental allowances of England, but I know that in America it would be automaticaly thrown out as "unconstitutional".

As I said though, your laws work slightly different than ours. Like as far as gun rights for example we're on entirely oppisite ends of the spectrum.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Firstly: The right to protest is ****ing important, and if the police decide to ban marches in the capital I personally will go join future marches in the capital, and I imagine a lot of my friends will too. Purely to protest the ban on protests.

I have no issues with a protest march, however in Scotland there is another type of march that I will be more than happy to get rid off.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

I have no issues with a protest march, however in Scotland there is another type of march that I will be more than happy to get rid off.

I would also get rid of January and February if it was up to me.

Just don't get rid of December. I quite like my birthday.

Degrees should have a minimum age of 25 or even 30. Then they would have a value. It should be part of our culture to get a little life experience before finishing our education. Without life experience a degree is worth nothing to either the student or the employer.

Further students should quit moaning about this deal, they've no idea how hard life is, no idea at all. It gets worse people, it gets harder!

So you leave school with a five figure debt and if you never get a good job it'll get written off - boo hoo, we will end up with six figure debts anyway from our mortgages, so don't you dare moan about a small debt you'll only pay back if you succeed, that's just demonstrating that your not ready to leave the crib, and should be working in a factory packing boxes and not getting drunk and wasted on my tax money.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Degrees should have a minimum age of 25 or even 30. Then they would have a value. It should be part of our culture to get a little life experience before finishing our education. Without life experience a degree is worth nothing to either the student or the employer.

Further students should quit moaning about this deal, they've no idea how hard life is, no idea at all. It gets worse people, it gets harder!

So you leave school with a five figure debt and if you never get a good job it'll get written off - boo hoo, we will end up with six figure debts anyway from our mortgages, so don't you dare moan about a small debt you'll only pay back if you succeed, that's just demonstrating that your not ready to leave the crib, and should be working in a factory packing boxes and not getting drunk and wasted on my tax money.

When you look at the numbers involved regard debt and tax is does become rather alarming. I highlighted before someone on a minimum wage pays around 50% of it to the treasury once you calculate all the hidden taxes (VAT, fuel tax etc...). Say someone works from 18-65 that amounts to 47 years of work and estimated £282,000 paid in tax over a lifetime, minimum. I think 5haz suggested their was a hypocrisy of people asking to be 'cared' in their later years after moaning about paying tax.

Quote :

Everybody has to pay for everybody (unless you're a tax dodging business don and you've got the government in your pocket), one day you'll get old and somebody will have to pay for your care, what will you do if you have no family or personal savings left to cover it? How will you feel if younger generations complain about funding your welfare? Its 'I'm alright Jack' until it affects you.

Had I paid £282,000 in tax over a lifetime, while only on a minimum wage, I'd want to be treated like freakin' royalty. I'm afraid, most elderly people who've paid tax, some even fought in wars, don't get this treatment. Maybe if they weren't taxed so to pay for students, bias broadcastors, pointless art exhibitions and dumb-ass bank bailouts, they COULD have saved and afforded much better care for themselves, or even spent their own money enjoying their own life. Added to the fact every baby is born with £77,000 of debt to their name, this is why the student protests don't gain much sympathy within the wider public.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Without life experience a degree is worth nothing to either the student or the employer.

Because 3 years of learning, studying and practicing a subject means absolutely nothing at all... look at all those Surgeons they employ with no "life experience".

Theres some absolute bollocks in this thread

Quote from Jakg :

Because 3 years of learning, studying and practicing a subject means absolutely nothing at all... look at all those Surgeons they employ with no "life experience".

Theres some absolute bollocks in this thread

The sodding surgeon argument, I hear it everywhere students are discussed and it really annoys me because.

1) Very few students are learning to become surgeons.
2) Surgery is one of the very few subjects where academia actually adds some intrinsic value to the job which you cant get by experience alone.
3) You CAN get rellevent experience before chopping a living person open for the first time - infact, it will be required of the student before they do so.
4) I would not want a student operating on me*.
5) Surgeon is one of the highest earning vocations in the country and a fully licenced practicing surgeon can easily afford to pay back the entirety of their student loan in their first couple of pay cheques. Of course, students dont become surgeons - they become doctors first (who are also high earners).

If any of those points are wrong, and i'm sure there would be more of them if I spent more than 3.7 seconds thinking about it, then by all meens use the surgeon argument.

*I had some stitches removed by a student once, I had to remind him where to cut and how to pull because he was so nervous he was making a hash of it - all his training went out the window when he was faced with a real live patient for the first time.

You cannot do surgery without real experience, therefore having a few years of life experience before going to university would definitely - without question - make them a better surgeon!

Someone on this forum, I forget who, is a volunteer EMT. If somebody did that for a few years before university, and was able to draw on their real experiences as they learned - imagine how much better they will be by the end of the course.

Also, unlike many students who are simply delaying making the decision about what to do with their life - experiencing a little life first would give young adults a much better idea before they complete their education.

I'm not saying their is no value to education, i'm just saying that:

• Education is secondary to life experience
  
• Most people choosing to go to university are avoiding the start of their life
  
• Education is over-valued
  
• The students who are protesting that their debts are disproportionate do so BECAUSE they have no frigging clue what life is like - because they're so used to being spoon fed that they don't realise what an amazing deal they are getting is - and because they've not lived through a recession before they actually think - and get this - a lot of these students actually think that they are getting a bad deal.
  

PMSL.

Students still have it extremely easy, by comparison to those of us who are paying for their education.

Same old bollocks completely underestimating the importance of educated workers. I bet a lot of the people who complain about students now are the same that complain when skilled foreign workers take the job vacancies that British people couldn't be bothered to fill, and why the majority of any meaningful industry has all but departed, but why let ignorance and hypocrisy get in the way of a good 'ol youth bashing?

If anyones being spoon fed, its you lot being fed the same student stereotypes by the media, perhaps if you ever had the chance or intelligence to experience university, you'd see how hard working and responsible the majority of students are, but its a lot easier to blurt the same old crap from your high and mighty armchairs instead.

And don't tell me working the shelves at Tesco and still living with your parents (which realistically is the most likely alternative), is valuable life experience. Especially when university usually involves living on your own for the first time in life with all the responsibilities that entails.

Just another part of our people's anti achievement obsession, we bash those who dare to aim higher and stand out, while celebrating normality and mediocricity, this is why our country has declined, not because of johnny foreigner but because of your ****ing stupid attitudes.

Quote from Becky Rose :

2) Surgery is one of the very few subjects where academia actually adds some intrinsic value to the job which you cant get by experience alone.

So what you ACTUALLY meant to say was...

Quote from Becky Rose :

Without life experience a non-academic degree is worth nothing to either the student or the employer.

But no, then you couldn't tar everyone with the same brush...

So how do you propose that anyone learns how to do a job that requires a large amount of specialist, technical knowledge - you have to learn it somehow, unless "life experience" somehow makes you an expert.

People think that if they push paper in an office long enough they become qualified to do anything. I'm sick of armchair know-alls that think age alone will bring them wisdom.

Quote from 5haz :

Just another part of our people's anti achievement obsession, we bash those who dare to aim higher and stand out, while celebrating normality and mediocricity, this is why our country has declined, not because of johnny foreigner but because of your ****ing stupid attitudes.

No one has a problem with students trying to better themselves. I have no problem with individuals trying to improve themselves. Not many people will argue against that point. However what people do have a problem with is paying for other people's educational aspirations via confiscation of their own aspirations and wealth through the threat of jail.

If someone wants to become an expert in a particular field than they themselves can take the burden of the cost. If someone wants to be philanthropic (as is quite common in the good ol' USA within the education system) they can choose to do so as well.

Again, no one has accepted the grave reality of the economic situation. Personal debt is still massive in the UK, and the national debt is even worse. We can not fund these vote winning schemes any more, and the fact is we could NEVER afford them in the first place.

I feel quite bad for the respectable students who've had no choice but to live within a society where everything is 'magically' paid for. You can't blame them for being angry, but the solution is very hard for them to swallow. Tough love.

I am not looking forward to large areas of the NHS being sold off, coz that's not gonna be fun at all when people realise we can't afford that either.

Again people completely failing to understand that by entering higher education you're not just benefiting yourself. Its very short sighted to think that gaining expertise is of no benefit to anyone else, and short sightedness and obsession with short term gain (e.g. having to pay less tax now) has played a part in wiping out vast parts of our industry.

If everything is magically paid for, then why am I still having to budget myself very carefully? And why am I facing the prospect of leaving university in major debt? Haha I wish everything was magically paid for. Its a very ignorant and stereotypical thing to say and has very little basis in reality, the only students who aren't having to save are the well off ones getting big wads of cash from mummy and daddy, oh how terribly taxed the rich are! :doh:

Please don't spout rubbish from your armchair without first hand experience. After all you are the same person who tried to convince us musicians deserve no credit for their work becuase they use already established scales and structures.

Quote from 5haz :

Please don't spout rubbish from your armchair without first hand experience..

My armchair? Funnily enough, I would love to have a lovely armchair built by a local craftsmen who might want to take on an apprentice and create jobs and productivity for a local community. Benefiting society directly through already established stable demand. But no, I can't, I have to pay for you so you can benefit society instead! Thanks Beside the ideological view that you possess, there is no money left, there never was anyway.

Quote from Intrepid :

My armchair? Funnily enough, I would love to have a lovely armchair built by a local craftsmen who might want to take on an apprentice and create jobs and productivity for a local community. Benefiting society directly through already established stable demand. But no, I can't, I have to pay for you so you can benefit society instead! Thanks Beside the ideological view that you possess, there is no money left, there never was anyway.

Thats very nice, whos going to design the machines and tools that cut the wood? Whos going to prospect for the fuel to power the machines and tools? Whos going to design the machines that extract and process the fuels?

Thats just a slice of the industries that rely on educated professionals, and all that indsutry has gone overseas, do you think there might be some money left if we'd put the effort and funding into making sure it hadn't left?

You have the common ignorant belief that everything is built through unskilled labour, completely ignoring the fact that there is nearly always an expert somewhere in the process without whom it can't happen, you only see what is right infront of you, completely uninterested in anything that dosen't benefit you right now.

EDIT: Also perhaps there would be money left if some individuals and organisations actually paid the tax they owe.

Quote from Jakg :

So how do you propose that anyone learns how to do a job that requires a large amount of specialist, technical knowledge - you have to learn it somehow, unless "life experience" somehow makes you an expert.

My job requires a large amount of specialist, technical knowledge. I did not go to university. I'm a serial over-achiever who left school with no qualifications. After taking a few hard knocks I developed the determination to succeed.

I'm not saying my way is the only way, and at no point have I said education is a bad idea. It has it's place. I just think that education alone is not the solution.

University leavers are NOT ready to take on the big jobs. For that you absolutely need experience. That's why brain surgeon students don't leave university and the next day crack open someones skull and start poking around with a text book, and except where the government licencing laws explitly require it (ie: medical) - an education isn't actually necessary to get certain jobs, it's just one possible route.

Take a dose of reality, education is not as important as you believe - and neither is it a requirement

Quote from 5haz :

People think that if they push paper in an office long enough they become qualified to do anything. I'm sick of armchair know-alls that think age alone will bring them wisdom.

No age does not bring wisdom. Age brings experience and you need a brain to turn that experience into wisdom. That's why I said students would be far better off living a few years first, doing the job they want to do as a volunteer (for Jack's surgeon example, go be a volunteer EMT or something). Get a taste of what you're in for, then if you want to go the academic route to the top then by all meens.

Education is one option but it absolutely does NOT guarantee success, and a university education is not about learning the subject and skills you need, it's about learning how to get the knowledge and skills you need.

What a university education teaches you is the meens to learn, it gives you the skills to improve and enhance yourself. Knowledge is not static, it changes. The world is a fast moving place and the purpose of university is to teach you how to keep abrest of that. It isn't about the education of your skillset for what you're going to do.

Frankly i've found google a much more cost effective solution.

If you have no determination then go to university and learn how to be determined. Otherwise, hi - my name is Becky and I live in the real world too.

Nobody denies that experience on the job isn't vital, but there are so many professions where the education is just as vital too, you can't become a surgeon through google. The fact that people seem to think they can know it all by reading the Wikipedia article probrably goes some way towards explaining the amount of misinformed bullshit that has filled this thread, and why my own first hand experiences of university so far has been so wildly different from the views of people who get all their 'knowledge' from the papers and google.

Quote from 5haz :

there are so many professions where the education is just as vital too, you can't become a surgeon through google.

The Surgeon Objection.

Surgery is just an example. I'm sorry but simply reading and repeating some lines you picked up from a newspaper article or internet forum post just wont cut it if you're looking for a expert job in many fields.

Quote from 5haz :

Surgery is just an example. I'm sorry but simply reading and repeating some lines you picked up from a newspaper article or internet forum post just wont cut it if you're looking for a expert job in many fields.

I dont read the news. I havn't watched the news since Greg Dyke got ousted from the BBC. I keep myself vaguely informed of current affairs, but I did not copy / paste anything I said.

I've long since held the seemingly outspoken opinion that education isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now in fairness I will freely admit that's because I did not get on with academia myself - I had an absolutely torrid time at school and was finaly expelled for truancy. Despite this i'm very bright.

It is sometimes difficult for me to remember that most people are not that clever, half of you are below average and i've no personal experience of that. So I admit that it can be difficult for me to relate to the "average" case.

That said I look back on what shaped me and it wasnt my education. It was what I was doing after school: I was a nerd and was writing computer games and I did it for fun. I am extremely lucky that I found what I enjoy at a very young age and so by the time I left school I already had over 10 years of experience to draw on (University only gives you a few years).

And when I consider that and compare my own life to kids coming out of university with their few years of theoretical experience and by that time I was well on my way to getting 20 years of practical experience at my chosen field, and we where going for the same jobs.

I got to thinking that if someone wants to write software for a living why dont you just write software. I learned by myself long before the advent of Google and nobody was able to teach me, my school tried to introduce a computer class - they wanted me to teach it in lunch times. Nobody in education understood I.T. back then, so I learned by myself.

Learning by yourself is what university will teach you. The skills are less important, very little of what I learned over 6 years ago still applies in todays world. Even in slower moving industries what you learn in university rarely relates to the specifics of your actual job.

I know this, because i've seen the young adults spat out of university and try to do what I do. Bless them, they get such a shock.

I've only ever worked along side educated people since I started working in the software development industry, i'm the only one that I know personally doing the job without a degree. And i'm the best, by a long way. I'm atleast 8 times faster than the average, 4 times faster than the best i've worked with.

Now forgive me, I dont make a habbit of looking down on people without my intelligence because frankly i've only ever met 1 person who I would say was brighter than me (who was an academic) - but I think you'd be a fool to believe that someone wanting to do what I do and going to university could ever hold a candle against me unless they actually put the effort in in their own time and get some real experience under their belt. They'll never do it, they'll never be up to my standard from university alone.

And if anyone ever is, i'll gladly eat humble pie.

Yeah, I'm sure your personal experience is representative of every case in every line of employment across the whole country, and so can be used to tar every graduate with the same brush.

Also something else to think about, do you think graduates struggle because they're unprepared, or perhaps because of the patronising and generally unhelpful attitude non graduates like yourself seem to approach them with?

You just can't use IT to discredit the whole spectrum of higher education, if anything higher education teaches you to be more analytical and less inclined to make such sweeping statements, which is why we have a nation where the majority of people take the first simple opinion a tabliod offers them and accepts it as gospel.

here here Becky.

Quote from 5haz :

Yeah, I'm sure your personal experience is representative of every case in every line of employment across the whole country, and so can be used to tar every graduate with the same brush.

Also something else to think about, do you think graduates struggle because they're unprepared, or perhaps because of the patronising and generally unhelpful attitude non graduates like yourself seem to approach them with?

She has the right to be patronising. She paid for them to get an education, which she proves you do not need to fulfil the needs of the job. Wouldn't you feel a bit pissed?

Quote from Intrepid :

She has the right to be patronising. She paid for them!

Hang on, so if you lent money to a friend that would give you the right to talk down to him/her as if they were stupid? You still haven't got it into your head yet that wealth does not equal intelligence.

There are very few siutations, financial, social or political in which it acceptable to be a bastard, investing in your country's future is not one of them.

Quote from Intrepid :

which she proves you do not need to fulfil the needs of the job.

Again you can't apply one person's experience to every graduate in the nation, each degree course and subsequent career path is different. But lets not let reality get in the way of our media influenced opinions!