Ridiculous to try and sue a university over a "mickey mouse" degree?

[Creambun2]

thetab.com/uk/2018/03/10/a-graduate-is-suing-her-university-for-60000-for-giving-her-a-mickey-mouse-degree-62377

Surely, it is down to individuals to research their university and course appropriately and understand that whatever degree or university you go to, getting the job you want will be mostly about you and your skills?

I agree universities pump out lots of propaganda about "employment prospects" but saying, for example, 90% of graduates employed within 6 months means nothing is 89% of those are not in graduate level jobs.

People are missing the fact that some first generation students don't know what they don't know Sorry, that made me smile... as they would be applying for a course to learn more about stuff that they don't know about

But yes, you are right. The organisations that have that info don't seem to work in a joined up fashion, in close coordination with schools, as is ever the case in education these days.

Equally, my dad's old boss wouldn't recruit anyone with a degree from Oxbridge as they were all brain and no common sense As an 18yo off to Cambridge I took great offense at that!

Actually I think neither stereotype is particularly helpful. There are astoundingly clever and competent graduates from unis right down the league tables (or indeed people who didn't make it to uni at all), and there are highly practical Oxbridge graduates who don't have their heads even slightly in the clouds. As soon as you make any kind of blanket recruitment policy, you miss out on talent. I guess the sad problem we have is that companies don't care - if they have enough talented graduates on tap, it's just easiest for them to restrict to the top few unis, on the grounds that they have already done some of the selection process for them.

treacle You are probably right!

The reasonable (average) eighteen year old would appreciate that many degrees are worthless.

Except clearly that isn't true is it. Otherwise the universities with lower entry requirements would never recruit a single student

And you've only to look on this thread to find parents who think things are the same as when they went 20+ years ago who are giving outdated advice to their kids, as well as posters here.

Regardless of what's on UCAS (and there is of course no requirement to read any of it other than the application itself), it's fairly obvious that lots of applicants don't know that there is a significant difference between universities and degree courses. Which might seem unbelievable to a middle class RG degree holding MNer, but outside the bubble that's how it is.

Actually I also think there is information overload now. UCAS, league tables - which differ from year to year and newspaper to newspaper, Unistats, which, teachers, parents, all saying conflicting things.

Yes there does need to be more transparency. To use myself as an example (first gen student, parents both factory workers), when training to be a teacher I chose my course based on the rating of that specific course. While the course rated fairly well, what I didn't cotton onto was that the university broadly was seen as low status. Being a vocational course, it hasn't held me back, but in hindsight there were more reputable universities within a similar distance from home that would have had more punch on my CV, particularly if I was to leave education.

Regardless of what's on UCAS (and there is of course no requirement to read any of it other than the application itself), it's fairly obvious that lots of applicants don't know that there is a significant difference between universities and degree courses. Which might seem unbelievable to a middle class RG degree holding MNer, but outside the bubble that's how it is

Dh’s neice, again one of the first in her family to go to uni, chose a bad course at an rg uni over a bloody great course at a prestigious but non-rg uni.

Because her careers advice had been pretty much rg- good, everyone else bad, employers only look at rg etc...

I would wholeheartedly agree with that titchy

But I can't see how that will change whilst HE remains an every day commodity, something politicians feel they can meddle with. From Blair's "education, education, education" to The Goviots understanding of 'average' we have a skewed idea of what a degree should be.

In my opinion we desperately need a 2-tier education system where only the most academic do a degree, those with highly theoretical leanings.

The doers, or less academic/theoretical thinkers get another form of education, equivalent to but not the same as a degree.

But until ALL parents, and by extension, all employers, value vocational education, proper apprenticeships etc, that isn't going to happen.

Now, officially, all degrees are externally validated to ensure that a First from Anglia Ruskin means the same as a First from any other university.

Well, no. It means that the particular external examiner at the institution thinks the university has marked the papers fairly. External examiners at post-92 universities tend to be from other post-92 universities. There is no central standard.

That said, I have taught and marked at both a post-92 and an RG uni and the difference is not as huge as some on here would like to believe. The rate of 2.1s and 1sts is lower at post-92s for instance. I certainly wouldn't say that a 1st from a post-92 is easy to obtain. It does require hard work. I know how competitive graduate recruitment is so I would encourage students to attend the best university they can get into, but people choose university for other things than rankings.

As for the post about the 2.2 from Oxford Brookes, someone with a 2.2 from Oxford University would also struggle to get a training contract in the magic circle. Most of the application systems will not let you apply if you do not have a 2.1 degree. It is the 2.2 that is the major stumbling block, not the university. There are people from Oxford Brookes (which is one of the best post-92 universities) in the magic circle, but they are of course much fewer and far between than the Russell Group. If you discount the magic circle, you are by no means unemployable if you have a law degree from Brookes.

I am watching with interest what happens in this case. Universities need to be very careful with misleading claims. A pp was entirely correct earlier by pointing out that people who are the first in their generation to go on to HE do not have the benefit of instinctively knowing which the good universities are. I think that makes a big difference. Incidentally, at my current post-92, most of our students are first generation in HE and nearly all went to state schools. Interestingly, the very few who were privately educated have gone on to extremely good jobs (the kind that would generally not look twice at those with degrees from this university). Private education can open up even more doors than university.

I'm a current mature student at Anglia Ruskin.

I can assure you that the 60+ hours a week I work during term time are not wasted at a so-called Mickey Mouse university. How dare you all with your Oxbridge degrees look down your noses at everyone else?

I am the first person in my family to go to uni. I've worked my arse off to get my degree and I refuse for my achievements to be laughed and jeered at on the back of a news article from a student who I suspect hasn't really tried very hard to get a job.

As a previous poster mentioned, degrees are about self study, independent learning and getting the most out of your course. I'm sick to death of young people with no work ethic complaining because their lecturers refuse to hold their hands and give them Firsts simply because they're paying £9250 a year for their education.

ARU has amazing facilities, an impressive well stocked library, all the latest technology and dedicated, excellent staff who are invariably current practitioners in their chosen field.

If you really want to know about the university, attend an open day and speak with the students, attend an open lecture on the campus or email a lecturer in the field that interests you.

Some students today have the expectation that just because they're paying fees, they shouldn't have to work. It's a shocking sense of entitlement caused by parents and society.

I'm disgusted at many of the comments I've read on here today.

Some students today have the expectation that just because they're paying fees, they shouldn't have to work. It's a shocking sense of entitlement caused by parents and society.

Hear hear

I did Grad recruitment for a city partnership for a lot of years and we took from three unis only.

I know this is not the main point of the thread but why did you do this?
Did you not feel you were missing out on a lot of talent or was it just an easy way for you to reduce the number of applications? Because although I tend to agree with the comments about “mickey mouse degrees”, I can’t believe that there are only 3 universities whose degrees are worth something. More likely that you were just perpetuating the old boys’ network.

You’ve written exactly what I wanted to post Mrs F!
It’s a shocking attitude.

CatBAHons I would pay little notice to some of the snobs on here. As I said, people choose universities for all sorts of reasons. Not everyone wants to work in the city or magic circle. (It's not a nice place to work in any event, so it's a blessing in disguise if it's ruled out.)

The assumption on here that it must be a piece of piss to get a first from ARU or similar is also erroneous and as I said above, people would probably be quite uncomfortable to find out that the standards on certain degree courses aren't THAT different between the different unis. My friend who works at a RG uni got an email from his HOD telling all markers to raise the grades by 10% across the board. There is definite grade inflation at RG unis, it's not reserved for post-92s.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your degree and that it leads you on to great things.

I did Grad recruitment for a city partnership for a lot of years and we took from three unis only

Maybe they were taking a leaf out of the book of Pearson Spector Litt from Suits with their famous (and dumb) Harvard Rule....

SusanBunch It's just infuriating that I chose to go to a local university so that I could do a degree whilst raising a family and to hear some of the comments on this thread, I'm sincerely hoping the snobbery here isn't evident in my chosen field (I'm doing an art-based degree).

Thankfully I don't need a degree to get a job. I've chosen my degree based on my passion for the subject, however I wonder if my lecturers hear comments like these and wonder why they bother? I am so thankful that people go into teaching. I feel privileged to be able to study in my 40's and I have learned so much about myself as a person, as well as my subject. My lecturers are passionate, well informed, caring, supportive and work damn hard to provide a course framework that they feel will give value to students' lives.

Degrees are not easy, especially those that include a dissertation (the honours bit). I would rather give birth every week for 15 weeks than put myself through that again. I also received a mark of 90% which shows I know my shit. However, to hear that my cat could get a degree from my uni is demoralising and degrading.

Yes the cat remark is unbelievably rude. Going to a 'good' uni clearly doesn't teach manners

Tralalee Shhhhh! Remember Anglia Uni students voted for Ken the Gerbil to be student president... sorry

Good.

The worst thing about going there was the fact that ccat students were described as "easy" in the Cambridge uni alternative prospectus. Wankers.

Well, I teach at a post-92 and no, I don’t think ‘why do I bother?’. I have studied at 3 different RG unis and taught at a pre-92 and a post-92. I know that league tables are not the be all and end all. My students come from a range of backgrounds and many have had to overcome significant challenges in order to study. They are by no means stupid or unintelligent and their achievements reflect their hard work.

I don’t think that most normal people in the real world will sneer at your degree. Many many employers recruit from a diverse range of universities and would prefer someone well-rounded with life experience.

Susan I, for one, am very glad to be out of the city. But rightly or wrongly there is a criteria used to sift through candidates. People are judged on their backgrounds - that is unfortunately a fact of life.

If an HR manager has 500+ CVs to sift through, they create certain field-results. As you said; someone with a 2:2 even from Oxford might be sifted out because of the 2:2. But no HR department has time to sift through every single detail of every single CV of every single candidate, therefore with all the best will in the world, lower-ranked uni grads might find themselves missing out on those sorts of jobs.

Of course it depends on the kind of job you want and what it is you are studying for. My closest friend went to a middle-of-the-road uni to study graphic design, now she's head of content for a global design agency. I went to Oxford and had a career in the city and abroad, and came perilously close to a mental breakdown. Would I want the same for my dc? I don't know is my honest answer because whilst I didn't particularly enjoy uni or the city-job life, it more or less set me up for life.

Horses for courses.

There is definite grade inflation at RG unis, it's not reserved for post-92s

But IME grade inflation is at least part of the reason why some employers will only recruit graduates from a certain number of Unis

You're absolutely right that RG places aren't exempt from this, but where recruiters need real academic rigour, those institutions who demand higher grades even to get in can appear a reasonable place to start (even though those grades, too, will probably have been inflated)

Tralalee My only memories of CCAT was the amazing social space the CAT club (geddit?) So a cat getting a degree from there always seemed to be self referencing fun, to me!

When I think of the amazing bands, exhibitions I went to I would have joined the few of my friends to go there for my degree, had I not moved and put that off for another 15 years. They seem to have had quite stellar careers, far more exotic than mine

I went to Oxford and had a career in the city and abroad, and came perilously close to a mental breakdown. Would I want the same for my dc? I don't know is my honest answer

I really dislike the expression "mickey mouse degree". It's very Daily Mail and it doesn't actually mean much.