To ask for your success stories of DC who didn't go to Russell Group?

[CheesyWotsitz]

God I know I sound like a right twat but the heat is getting to me ...

DS has his heart set on Manchester Uni but despite working his socks off, I don't think he's capable of getting the ABB they're asking for.

I'd never heard of Russell Group before MN but it appears to be the be and and end all.

Is it?

DD starting work on Monday, attending non RG Uni graduation ceremony later in the week. If you judge a Uni in terms of how likely you are to get a grad level job then I think that ticks those particular boxes!!

I went to one, didn’t even know about it until I left. To be honest I used to get annoyed with the ‘research’ element- most of my tutors used that as an excuse to lock themselves away and not interact with students.

Literally nobody outside of MN even knows what the Russell Group is.

Agreed. Like many, I went to a RG and had never heard of the term until I came on MN - about 15 years after I graduated! Literally no-one in my life has ever asked if I went to a RG. I am in and out of universities (both RG and non-R) all the time through my job and I've never heard the term used ever.

A classic example of where concerns on t'internet simply don't mirror actual lived experience.

I'm in Scotland - St Andrews is considered a pretty prestigious, high-ranking university. Not RG.

I think Manchester is the most popular university in the U.K.?

I went to Manchester Poly. MMU is pretty good l think. I’ve never had any issues earning.

I think Manchester is the most popular university in the U.K.?

On what measure? They’re not top of any of the lists.

Did my undergrad at Leeds uni and they never shut up about it being RG! I chose Leeds as their business school was highly ranked. Did my masters at Leeds Beckett, which was much more relaxed and had broader mix of students. Best to choose a uni based on the subject of choice. FWIW I always though polys were brilliant for vocational qualifications back in the day.

Manchester Uni want ridiculous grades for computer science -AAA*.

😂

Sorry should read

A A A*

Arrrgh

A* x3

Please don't diss non-RG unis.

My son didn't go to one and is in a fantastic career.

My daughter went to one and she's no further ahead than non RG fellows.

RG is a dying myth.

They get the highest number of applications.

Well it depends on what he wants to do.
Computer Science at its core is a very academic subject with hard mathematics. It's an abstraction of the principles.
Programming is a craft, which doesn't always require a lot of theory, just practice. Knowing a language, its tools, tests and frameworks inside out. Most programmers don't need the 'computer science' principles beyond the basics as all of it is already implemented.

Lots of people break in with 'web dev' etc bootcamps, I myself am a software developer without a relevant degree. DP's 'not so great' uni wasn't very academic either, which left him plenty of time to fiddle around with things making him highly valued the moment he graduated.

There's a segment of jobs however that require the academic knowledge. Top tech companies have very theory heavy programming questions, also if you're working with scientific code that needs to run fast and isn't one of the modern 'user friendly' programming languages you need a good handle on core concepts.

The IT world is so big though, there are also industry specific qualifications that it's really hard to know what to do.

My son doesn’t find computer science hard at all or the maths. His dad has a masters in it and says it does not warrant 3x A*. It’s nuts. As you say IT is such a broad field. I worry that kids are funnelled into Computer science. I wonder what else would be better for programming. Either way a degree from a Russel Group doesn’t even factor.

They get the highest number of applications.

Manchester University is the second largest university in the UK with 44,635 students in 2020/21.

At the subject talk they were very proud of this. DD found the huge size of the university very off putting. They also said that they were the most targeted university from employers.

My dd has turned down 2 Russel group unis in favour of a small friendly uni 😬, I’m not sure how I feel about it tbh but it’s her choice not mine. She predicted AAB but needed A*AB for Russel group, she decided she didn’t want the stress so didn’t secure either f then as first choice.

I didn't go to RG. I loved my uni! Really really loved it. It was in a spectacular setting, great location. Beautiful. Great friends there. Best pace ever. When my kids are 18 I want them to do what they want! One might join the RAF and not go to uni. One might go to uni but I have no idea. If either of them go to uni, I hope they pick one they'll love.

It still gets the most applications with Manchester Met getting the second highest number ......

Big universities aren't for everyone.

They do have good graduates outcome figures but so do lots of other universities! It's interesting that they're saying they get approached by more employers than any other uni. I'm really not sure they could prove that! I work with university career services and that's not the type of information that's shared.

Manchester Uni itself isn’t that huge. I live in Sheffield, the university seems about the same size, maybe fractionally smaller.

If you add UMIST and College of music then it is huge.

But Manchester is a very friendly city and great for students.

Both my teens had a Russel group uni offer unconditional place due to their grades. Neither accepted them.

Ds is studying accounting and finance and Strathclyde uni which was ranked 3rd in the uk for their business school. He chose this uni, it’s now ranking 1st in Scotland for his course.

choose the uni which best suits the course.

I went to one and dropped out and am managing quite well.

Manchester Uni itself isn’t that huge. I live in Sheffield, the university seems about the same size, maybe fractionally smaller.

Manchester uni has over 10,000 more students than Sheffield uni

If you add UMIST and College of music then it is huge.

UMIST doesn't exist anymore as it is part of Manchester uni.
The Royal Northern College of Music is a completely separate university but is obviously much smaller . I think it only has about 1000 students.

This. And they'll have more poorly paid PhD students doing the actual teaching a fair bit of the time, not the superstar professors they bang on about on their websites. Not to say PhD students can't be great teachers, but it isn't what they market the experience as. And lots of MN posters who are concerned about worker exploitation don't seem to care when it's done by a Russell Group university.

My daughter vets the applicants for jobs at a software company. She's not so fussed whether they have been to a Russel Group uni or not.

It's better to have a 2.1 or 1st from a non Russel Group than to struggle at a Russel Group and get a 2.2.

After gaining a first graduate job, the experience gained begins to carry more weight.

This thread seems to have turned into a "we hate RG universities". However you can't deny that all the RG universities are in the top third of the CUG (which can be taken with a pinch of salt)

I mean unlike Physics, Mathematics or any other STEM degree which will normally all be relevant content you get a lot of variety with computer science.
You can get Masters' degrees (like DP's) which don't require anything beyond A-level mathematics. Sometimes a bit of A-level further mathematics. Nobody needs 3A*'s for that. There seems to be a lot of maths anxiety though so some people think even this is hard, although clearly not the case for your son.

There's can also be a lot of padding out with 'soft courses' like project management, the software development lifecycle, etc. This is especially prevalent with the 'conversion' MSc's. All an MSc says is that you've satisfied the requirements of an NVQ Level 7 qualification w.r.t writing a dissertation. It says nothing about the depth of the subject matter.

The very academic degrees, from the people actually working on cutting-edge algorithms ones etc require mathematics to 2nd year degree level at the very minimum. They may be considered mathematics degrees in their own right. But at the highest level all STEM degrees are mathematics anyway... so... par for the course.

DP has never had trouble finding well paid jobs, his uni is very lowly ranked, so no issues there. It's me that's figuring out what to do now, as all the jobs want STEM degrees so going for something like that makes sense.

There are also lots of combo degrees.. like 'Computer Science and Linguistics'. I'd find that pretty interesting! If only I had my time again...