To think that degrees mean less now than they did 20/30 years ago?

[SL11]

I got my degree 15 years ago from a former poly and got a high 1st. It was modular based and at the time I dont believe any credits were doubled or the lowest mark credits dropped or something like seems to happen a bit now. I know a bit as DD is soon to start Uni.
AiBU to think my degree is unofficially better than those gained in similar ranked Uni's in recent years? And on the flipside those gained by people in the 70s when 3 years worth of work was assessed in 12 exams and your final result was a average of those marks are unofficially better than mine?

Think employers think of this?

I graduated 34 years ago. In those days 5-7% of the population had degrees and four of my cohort of around 350 got firsts

Similar - I graduated in 1995. People graduated on the same day as me with all sorts of degrees in languages, business and all combinations. Only two or three firsts out of the 400 of us.

DS is looking at universities now, and everyone knows that all universities are not equal. A 2:1 from the University of Bolton, or University of Suffolk is worth a fraction of a 2:1 from Edinburgh, Leeds, Lancaster or Durham.

For example - the course he is looking at is Biomedical Science. The place he's interested in going in Scotland demands AAAB at least at Higher, including Biology and Chemistry. That's 126 UCAS points. Suffolk will take people with 112 points, and you can use whatever you want from dance to music to boost your points tally. Lower entry requirements = lower standard of qualification coming out hte other end.

@DonnaQuixotedelaManchester

Can I ask them am I deluding myself with my qualifications?

I missed quite a bit of school due to illness. It was a selective, girls school with very high standards but also religious. We lost our sixth form as I was due to start A’level a so I went to a very liberal further Ed college. Some more illness. I got mediocre grades and went to a polytechnic. I loved my subject (English) and constantly kept myself challenged with material and reading as I knew the standard I was capable of from my secondary school and that the further Ed and poly were not as demanding as I could intellectually deal with (but at the time, physically about right). I was first in family to go and worked throughout and spent a year after degree working then was accepted at University of Oxford for PGCE. This was a different environment for me and for the first time in my life I felt solid ground under my feet and I worked so hard and loved it. I was conscious there might be gaps/holes in my learning but the biggest thing I noticed was the expectation I had of myself. I really learned an incredible amount, personally and academically from being, for the first time in an environment that supported you with resources (my church school was minimal) and we had to pay for everything at college and I was on such a tight budget.

Am I a fraud to think that I am right to own my place in that space? I attend the alumni events and have had some query the PGCE validity but I am more than able to discuss ideas as I genuinely think this way.

Did O’levels not GCSEs by the way - terminal exams (same for A’levels and degree).

I teach and have worked as an assistant examiner. To my mind, there is little comparison between the old O’levels and GCSEs and the exam based A’level and the newer, modular ones.

What do you mean about deluding yourself?

If you are going around telling people you studied at Oxford, so that they think that you did your degree there, then I do think you are trying to make out you are something you are not. Doing a PGCE there does not mean you would have been accepted to be an undergraduate.

Everyone seems to go to 'uni' these days. Replaced all the old BTEC etc now it's a degree.

Everyone seems to get 9 A stars in their GCSE's too

Things have definitely changed

@DonnaQuixotedelaManchester

I am also doing a masters in AI and I would question a lot of assumptions about degrees being better now. Someone upthread said that students don’t need to research as much due to the easier access and distribution of material. That is true but neither are they honing their critical faculties in the way we had to. I am surprised at the variety of quality in material I see in the papers I read but what is really standing out to me is the lack of intellectual space for critical thought and crucially, development. We have, in my mind replaced this with what will dangerously lead to dogma if we are not careful. I also think a lot of students have benefitted from having resource material that has one the work for them and therefore have no basis to question it, no engagement critically and no aptitude for reasoning and no interest in enquiry. I am a bit shocked, tbh.

This is such a good point. A degree, whatever the subject, used to be an indicator of a trained mind. That appears to be less the case now.

@Camomila

"Well, I heard of this one, yeah. Good"

I chose my uni partly because if I moved back to Italy employers would have heard of 'London'

I think these are excused😁

University professors all agree that standards have slipped - international students raise them, thankfully. There's been vigorous infighting at Oxford about the number of Firsts awarded, cos some say they should be rare and indicate exceptional merit, others not.

At my uni 30 years ago there was a massive row when no one got a first, including all the people who sailed into Cambridge and Oxford for postgrads and got them there. That uni clung onto its standards and is always ranked above Oxford in some subjects.

Grade inflation is a problem, but I don't think it's a secret. Neither is knowing some universities send you out a better thinker than others. It was ever thus.

But seriously. If someone is hiring. There is about 130 unies in UK. Russel group has 24. They also did great marketing, let's face it. There are other groups too.
Now, do hiring personnel check all the unies or do they just blindly follow RG?

@ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords

No, not at all. I am very clear that, if asked where I studied, I say it was the PGCE. I have no interest in presenting myself as something I am not however in terms of engagement and ability with the subject I think I am able.

I think the biggest difference between my degree and the degree my daughter is doing is how the grades are awarded. I have a 2.1 from a RG university in the 1990s which was awarded on the basis of my performance in several exams at the end of my final year, and a dissertation. My daughter’s coursework results will count towards her classification as well as exams in her penultimate year. I suspect more people are in with a chance of a first if their coursework is part of the equation. I also think it’s a better and fairer system. So it’s not grade inflation but a more thorough assessment of student performance that leads to more firsts.

Not so sure there’s a marked difference between just 15 years ago and now, but definitely a wide gulf between several decades ago and now.
I graduated in 1982. I believe at that time only around 7 or 8 % of people went to university. On my course in my cohort, one student got a First. The ‘standard’ degree was a 2:2. It was considered quite satisfactory back then, and a 2:1 was a good degree. In fact on entry into some professions, you could start on a slightly higher salary if you had a 2:1 or above because that was considered above the average. That’s how flipped- it seems most people get 2:1, with a lot getting Firsts and a 2:2 or lower is considered poor.

It’s a tricky topic because in some ways widening access is a very good thing. In my day it felt like most of those 8% of people going to university came from private or grammar schools - I felt quite a rarity coming from a comp - so of course it’s good that it’s no longer the preserve of those who happened to go to ‘good’ schools.

But there’s no doubt you can not compare a degree now with one from 30 or 40 years ago.

Depends what subject. Most of them are pointless unless they lead to an actual career like mine.
I have a very good degree (high first class honours) from a low ranking university.
But at the end of the day, the only thing which matters is that my degree was accredited for the career I wanted to go into.
Lot of higher ranking universities offer this degree but not accredited so they’re worthless if you wanted to go into this particular career (in the NHS).

And there’s a difference between just barely getting a first because you dropped your lowest modules.
And consistently getting firsts throughout your whole degree for every module.

@Cheesess

And there’s a difference between just barely getting a first because you dropped your lowest modules. And consistently getting firsts throughout your whole degree for every module.

And this completely sums up the difference. Thirty years ago assessment was by finals exams and dissertation. There was no opportunity to pick and choose what was taken into account to determine the class of degree attained.

A 1990 first is an entirely different proposition to a 2020 first. It used to be said that a first made you almost unemployable because it indicated rarified academia.

Exactly vinyl. Modules weren’t a thing at all when I did my degree in ‘79-82.

Of course, continuous assessment, the chance to improve grades/ drop lower grades etc has its value. Examining 3 years of work by Finals exams and a dissertation isn’t necessarily the Holy Grail. I can See that from an employers perspective, knowing someone has the discipline to work consistently to a good standard over time is important.

But there’s absolutely no way on gods earth you can compare a First these days with a First from 30 or 40 years ago. They were a real rarity - as I say, only one person in my cohort got one and he was hugely intelligent, really innovative in his thinking. You couldn’t get a First just through sheer hard work in those days... it was hard work plus an exceptional brain.

Degrees are worth less because there are too many of them. Like most things, what employers want is a way to rank a cohort, they want the best, when degrees were scarce and very selective, they could at least tell themselves it was an effective tool to identify the top 10% or whatever.

Now loads of people have one, so it's not purely a degree in itself that has value, and what becomes desirable/valuable is a degree only from a narrower more selective group of institutions

@Cheesess

Yes. It has to be valid content. Someone upthread talked about the difference between ploy and university as though the content was the issue. In my English degree we did much the same content - Shakespeare, Milton, etc - all the old greats. There are degrees in communication and media that I would say

Sorry, are more based on applying theory rather than understanding language.

A degree is a degree. Noone cares where it is from, certainly not employers. Obviously if you want to go into top medicine or science roles, a degree from oxford would impress, butvusually employers are really interested. And if someone said to me their degree from a poly was worth blah blah blah, I'd think they were batshit crazy.

I totally agree everyone seems to get 9 a*s at gcse though. Although I think it seems a lot because those are the ones the school highlight

Yes to exams versus coursework difference. I think exams encouraged you to organise your aa

Sorry, your thinking in a different way.

I also think we have to factor in the differences in culture, resources and teaching in the past. I do think there is some truth in the fact that going to a small, private school with small class sizes, a history of university success, tailored teaching and a home life supportive of all that is very different to the reality for some students.

Niche courses are interesting so I know Marine Engineering from Plymouth will be excellent, museum studies from Leicester will also be through and up to date.

The people who shoe horn in 'i went to Cambridge' - mum on school run, Rory Mcgrath, wedding guest bore are an intriguing unpleasant group. Did they peak at 18? 20years on, is that sadly the defining point of their lives? Should I feel belittled, impressed, will it change the school run?

Oh I agree with that @MentalLockdown.
What you do afterwards, with the knowledge and skills gained, is just as important. I am singularly unimpressed with the kind of person I come across occasionally who’s my age (pushing 60) and harps on about their Alma mater. What have they achieved in their career since then? That’s far more relevant now

I do know for a fact that classification tinkering goes on as I have a friend that works in a University. So I know factually that a 1st from the University I studied in is 'worth' more 15 years ago than it is now as all 240 credits are were used in the final calculation (first year in most places doesn't count), so I suppose the discussion point now is whether modular type degrees are 'easier' than the degrees event 30 years ago? That was one of my originally posed questions.