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 .

I'm not sure what they study in media studies, but to be fair, any subject can be analytical and challenging. Part of my own education was the game theory of magazine prices, with the strange result that the best selling mag in our sector was the best selling because it was the most expensive.

However we do observe a strenge and slightly worrying effect, which we used to associate with subjects like English. Although the subject was not inherently hard, the vicious competition for places meant that people studying English at a decent Uni meant they were typically quite bright.

Since for many employers a batchelors degree is simply a filter for being "clever", it does rather follow that in years to come MS will be a high status subject.

I don't like that bit of logic one little bit, so I'd welcome anyone who can poke a hole in it.

Most employers because of weight of numbers have to limit themselves to the better universities where it's harder to get in.

I still thnk there are loads of jobs that don't require any qualifications. I know someone else who provides cleaners. She's very well organised and has a lot on her books. She makes a lot of money.

Also anyone can tutor children. I could advertise tomorrow. So in a sense you can teach privately without qualifications if you can find a market.

I agree there are still low qualification jobs, but they are decreasing as a % of all employment.

Within the next 5-10 years jobs like call centres and checkouts will be mauled heavily by technology.

Cleaning is a lot more automated than it used to be, and there are real working robots you can buy to do routine hoovering.

Security guard used to be a zero skill low pay job, but standards have come up big time. Before long they will all be licnced with presumably a requirement to be trained.