What proof is a degree when you have life experience and other skills ?

[mummydear]

Just a thought, I do not have a degree but sat a few exams in my last career, got promoted and did some fantstic courses that gave me other skills within my workplace.

Now that I am 40 and have worked since I was 18 and have 'life experince' and a good school education , if I want to go on and change my career , for example teacher training , I have to have a degree before I could start the teacher training. But the degree could bear no reemblence to primary school teaching .

Why is a degree so important when you may have done it 20 years ago ,and have many other skills.
Different if it is directly related to your job .

But if you can evidence the fact that you can take information, break it down etc without doing a degree why is it so important ?

of course it does! but only in that field, surely? didnt you say you were in the police? how far would my teaching experience get me with them? or if i wanted to be a solicitor? i'd need to do further study. that's life. there are certain hoops you have to jump through. not all qualifications are transferrable between careers.

I don't mean to be rude about police exams, but a degree is on a much bigger scale.

for instance, I had to do eight three-hour exams in a week, covering two years' worth of material, to get my degree.

otoh, doing internal work-based exams while also working full-time in a demanding job shows you've got a lot of organisational skills and self-discipline that maybe aren't so much in evidence in the average new graduate...

Truth be told MD i can't comment because I only have my degree experience no real job experience to speak of, certainly not in a higher powered job!

But there are not many jobs (and i appreciate some do) where you have to write 5000 words on something you have to research independtly and where it is marked to a specific relatively universal level. I don't know if I would have the independent learning and written skills I had got from my english degree in life, I am better at written work than most of the students on my course, including the mature ones with life experience.

Can you get the police to validate what you have done, there is scheme where you can use existing learning to count towards credits on a degree.

From ythe other perspective, really pee's off at Uni to find that, aster fifteen yars in the job amrket, I need to do 20 days work experience to get enough modules this year.

I get it for the kids, but FFS some of my friends have been working forty years!!!

Primary school teaching is a hard PGCE to get into- unlikely they'd take anyone withour recent experience or evidence of study in that area TBH.

Carolinemoon said :

doing internal work-based exams while also working full-time in a demanding job shows you've got a lot of organisational skills and self-discipline that maybe aren't so much in evidence in the average new graduate...

I certainly agree with that so why don't people take that into account.

If you have any degree you can join the police, no degree is relevant to becoming a police officer in my opinion.

Yes it good to have qualifications of any kind but the issue here is about life experince and other skills , why don't people look at that.

I am not out for any easy ride into another profession just curious as to why so much importance is placed on a degree.

Perhaps they're looking for different qualities than organization and self-discipline. Seriously, a degree is learning how to learn. Yes, you do learn a bunch of facts, but the learning process is more important than the facts you learn. That's why lots of organisations don't care what your degree is in (within reason).

A bit of a joke in a way the degree system if organisations don't care what it is in.

I do see peoples point of view about the learning process but does that make you better in the actual workplace, especially if your degree subject is totally irrelevant to the job.

well, it depends on your job I suppose - some jobs need more of that kind of thinking than others.

Are there really that few graduates in the police force? I was at uni with someone who was being sponsored through a full-time degree by the police force, so obviously someone thought it was worth the money...

You're missing the point. It ISN'T a joke that they don't care what subject it's in. Any degree worth it's salt will help you to develop thinking skills that are generally useful. A good degree is an indicator that you have achieved a high level of competence in those skills. Whcih would be useful in the workplace. Not that you can regurgitate large chunks of information. As I said before, the subject matter is not the be all and end all.

he was a copper in his 30s - can't remember what rank he'd been before he started his degree.

There are graduates in the police force, many have entered through the graduate entry scheme and are then encouraged to do accerelated promotion. They still have to pass internal promotion exams just like non graduates.

I once worked with a Sergeant who had 3 years police service, he knew the law but his communication ,practical skills and leadership skills. Due to his short length of service he had very little respect from the people he was in charge of.

Many officer do degrees whilst working they feel that it can help them in the promotion stakes especailly once they have past level of inspector where no more internal exams are needed.

With the example of teacher training, I think the choice is between a 4 year BEd, or a 3 year degree + a year of teacher training. I think the idea is that either way you specialise in a particular subject. There may be accelerated courses to get more people into teaching, but I think that in theory it is supposed to take more than a year to become a primary school teacher.

The problem with 'life experience' is that it is very difficult to quantify compared to a formal qualification. I am an accountant and I know quite a few 'qualified by experience' accountants who are better accountants than people who have all the right letters after their name. However unless you have actually worked with them it is difficult to appreciate how much knowledge they have, and they do have some gaps in their knowledge. It is easier for employers just to specify to recruitment consultants that they are looking for somebody with a particular qualification. Moreover, not to do myself an injustice, it takes alot of committment to complete professional exams, and I think employers respect this.

mummydear, have found a major flaw in your argument, i'm afraid. you said:"If you have any degree you can join the police, no degree is relevant to becoming a police officer in my opinion."

you are complaining that graduates' degrees are not relevant to the police, so should not 'count'. but you also complain that your police exams are not transferrable to other professions! you can't have it both ways, hon!

either you exams/ experience to count, when we want a career change, or not. you seem to think your exmas and experience should give you a leg up in another career, but don't want graduates to have that recognition.

I think sometimes on MN we all get a bit personal.

My question is why can't life experience count to getting a job rather than a degree. I have to use my experince in the workplace to put forward that case.

Now it is still my opinion ( not a complaint )that when joining the police force a degree is irrelevant , but that is my opinion. However once you have that career, or any other and have other skills and other exams behind you why cant that count later on in life. This will apply to any career or experiences. I am not just stating 'why can't my police exams count' I am looking at the bigger picture here where many people canhge career mid life and we have a longer living workforce who have many years of experince behind them .

I am not anti degree just curious as to why so much importance is put upon it.

I think Madame Platypus has answered that point tbh - employers look at CVs, they can't shadow you in your workplace to see how you actually operate. There has to be a minimum educational standard for most 'white collar' jobs, even if it's just a handful of GCSEs.

The police force is pretty unusual these days in not requiring any formal qualifications for entry. And the days when people could join a company's post room at 16 and end up as managing director are long gone.

I think Madame Platypus has answered that point tbh - employers look at CVs, they can't shadow you in your workplace to see how you actually operate. There has to be a minimum educational standard for most 'white collar' jobs, even if it's just a handful of GCSEs.

The police force is pretty unusual these days in not requiring any formal qualifications for entry. And the days when people could join a company's post room at 16 and end up as managing director are long gone.

i completely agree that life experience etc should be recognised when changing career. absolutely.

however, this is a separate point to saying that graduates should not be given 'preferential' treatment when joining the police. i think that much of the response you've got is from people like me, who want to 'defend themselves' as graduates.

not meaning to be personal or unfriendly- hence emoticon. just enjoying a good ol' debate.

The police force do require some formal education but necessarily a degree..

My question has been answered by previous posts just trying to say that it is not police v other careers just getting my point across to Noonar.

My question has been answered. thank you

Obviously alot of graduates on MN then !! [ smile]

Again, I think a degree is quantifiable to an employer. In theory it shows that somebody has reached a certain level of education. Obviously degrees vary greatly, and I agree, it is difficult to see how a degree in English 20 years ago would relate to a career in the police force. However, it does show that the degree holder can stick to their goals and has the skills necessary to get a degree - organising their thoughts, meeting deadlines, reaching a certain level of academic achievement.

Life experience does count towards getting a job - its just that you have to get to the interview stage to show that, and your particular life experience has to be something that the employer can relate to. Unless an employer interviews everyone and is a very experienced interviewer, it is very difficult for them to compare one person's life experience to another's.

It will be interesting to see how the new anti-discrimination laws affect things like this. In theory they mean that recruitment ads have to be very specific about the skills they want and won't be able to use words like "mature", "dynamic", "experienced" when advertising for candidates - will this mean that they are more reliant on specifying particular qualifications?

Anyway mummydear, you may find that your police qualifications give you exemptions towards obtaining other qualifications in different professions?

Loads of cross posting!

mummydear, it says here that no particular qualifications are required, just a 'reasonable standard' of literacy and numeracy, which you could achieve without actually finishing your schooling.

Carolinemoon - apologies for my error on the qualifictions for joing police, when i joined many yaers ago a level of education had to be reached.

But please this thread was not about the police service.

Lack of a standard educaton accounts for some of people I had the unfortune to come across and supervise. But thats another story !

Anyway Saturday morning, football and two young boys beckons !!!

Depends on the job. My mother went to teacher training college from age 17 - 19 for two years and taught in primary schools after School Certificate (GCSEs). She was very good at teaching and actually really really clever but from a very poor background. I am not sure she would have been any better at the teaching had she done a longer course/degree although that might have then given her the chance to consider other jobs I suppose.

Now that 50%, not 15%, of people get degrees we are seeing more jobs requiring degrees. A lot of secretaries who could have left school at 16 to type now do degrees so have the benefit of £20k debt wen they start their first secretarial job. I can't quite see the point of that except they might have had a fun few years at university and I suppose some hope to move on to other jobs from that which the degree helps them with.

From Monday I've 3 children at university so it's quite a topical subject around here.