You are not a registered member of Norwich Darkside yet!
Until you register, you will not be able to reply to posts, or start new topics! The Norwich Darkside forums are the best place in Norfolk to get exposure for your band, find all the latest music news and reviews, share your experiences of local gigs, and become a member of the biggest music community in East Anglia. Registration is free, quick and will also remove this annoying box!Register Now
let's start a controversial thread - Student Fee nonsense
Author
Message
slobdog
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:27 pm
Darkside Rock Star
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
Right as this place is about as lively as an odourless silent fart, let's get things rocking.
Student Fees.
Personally I can't see what all the fuss is about. Fees for courses are increasing from £3000 to maybe £9000. This is fantastic news, it will reduce the number of people that drift into university because they want to doss around for 3 years! Brilliant!
People that have a purpose and a real desire to improve will still go. They will see beyond all the bollocks about toxic debt and realise that paying 9% of your 'fee debt' only on future earnings over £21k is an absolute bargain. One of the best deals available in the world.
Presently 42% of school leavers go to uni. How many of them study a worthwhile subject? How many of them choose an abstract load of bollocks that maximises the amount of time they can spend pursuing an alcohol fuelled good time.
By the way I'm a student at the moment. Sort of. I'm studying an Engineering Doctorate at a top 10 to top 20 uni (it depends which guides you believe). I see first hand how much time the undergrads fritter away and I see first hand how low a standard they (ok some) are. This is at one of the better Uni's in the country. I shudder to think how much pap there is in the lower echelons!
In summary, if you want to treat university as 3 year party time carry on, but don't moan about your bullshit qualification and associated debt (with that attitude you're probably unlikely to ever earn >£ 21k and it gets wiped after 30 years anyway)
Unless you are absolutely cetain about what you want to do for the bulk of your working life, I would advocate not going to uni straight after a-levels. Spend some time doing low paid or voluntary work in various industries and really figure out what it is you're interested in. Then decide how best to tackle your career, degrees ain't the be all and end all, but if you decide you need one for your career - hitch up your work ethic and knuckle down to a hard working 3 years, nail a first class (it's not hard these days as standards as so damn low) and blaze on to a happy career.
Lastly - stop whining and stop causing such a fuss. Get on with your lives! _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
Last edited by slobdog on Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
Further point also needs making. Why do you need to get into so much debt to start with?
Student terms are c. 30 weeks long. Get a summer job to reduce the debt.
Many courses are hardly intensive. Cut back on xbox time and get some casual bar/shop work. _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
embobower wrote:
I agree on all that
Hiya embo, glad to see you still around.
Now....where do you get off agreeing with me, this is supposed to be a good old fashioned darkside thread! _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
Joined: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 2281 Location: Sheffield
slobdog wrote:
Many courses are hardly intensive. Cut back on xbox time and get some casual bar/shop work.
Mine *is* intensive, and if I can manage to hold down a .35 job as well in order to feed myself, then so can anyone on any course ever. _________________ [Likes Japanese boys and still listens to A-ha]
～Language is...bridges, so that you can get safely from one place to another. And the more bridges you know about the more places you can see～
Joined: Feb 13, 2005 Posts: 4509 Location: The Rock Boudoir
Premium Member
I worked 7-day weeks for 2.5 years to fund my degree, so those that say they can't work and study are lazy fibbers. OK, I'm not sure that 9 grand is a sensible upper cap (6 or 7 maybe, depending on the course). That said, universities that charge the 9 grand will be harder pressed to fill their places, hence it might not make monetary sense.
Partial reimbursement of fees for students in economically beneficial posts (nursing, medicine, engineering, etc) that stay in training for 3 years following their degree makes sense to me... _________________
Some good points. Obviously if it goes up to £9000 it will separate the wheat from the chaff, but it does seem like a hell of a lot. I'm a victim of doing a "creative" course at uni and i dropped out after 18 months, with £10,000 worth of debt and no degree as it was utter bollocks. I worked to fund my studies too but just hated the whole "i'm a student, i must get mashed every night or i will be seen as un-cool" vibe.
Slobdog had it right too - degrees aren't the be all and end all. I'm an audio engineer (registered freelance n all) and a degree means shit. Its all about getting a foot in the door, being a tea boy, offering to clean up, making contacts and learning as you go. No qualification can teach you "who" to know.
However, for my university course, i begrudged paying £3000 a year, as i was never there. I had classes for about 4-5 hours a week and holidays for almost half the year. 4 weeks off for easter? 7 for christmas!? CHRIST! I actually wanted to learn, not piss all my loan away....
If i was charged £9000 for that, thats insane! Fair enough this is not true of a lot intensive courses/doctorates etc, but if people do want to do a creative course with minimum hours, i really think the course numbers will dwindle when they actually see how many hours a week they're getting for their money.
Also, the main thing seems to be the lib dems getting to power promising they'd cancel/lower uni fees, then completely going against that once they have some power. Cheeky fuckers really. I don't really watch much news/read papers so have a VERY vague idea of the ins and outs, but i feel thats part of it...
Anyway. Theres pros and cons on both sides, no one will ever be happy, but its a cut throat world and decisions have got to be made. I guess in an ideal world it would only be serious people who go to university. Most people i met at uni had no clue what they wanted to do so just wanted a 3 year party funded by as many grants as possible. Then, like you said before, you only pay it back if you earn over a certain amount and it gets written off after 25 years i think? Or when you turn 60 if its a pre 2005 course (or 2006, or 2007, i dunno, one of those...). It seems like a good deal. I work in a shitty office whilst freelancing on the side in what i actually want to be doing, and so haven't paid a penny back of mine yet. But i do plan on not paying any of it back ideally as my whole experience was ruined by a completely unorganised uni..... thats a different story.
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
superfluffy wrote:
slobdog wrote:
Many courses are hardly intensive. Cut back on xbox time and get some casual bar/shop work.
Mine *is* intensive, and if I can manage to hold down a .35 job as well in order to feed myself, then so can anyone on any course ever.
Absolutely. It all comes down to attitude. In your case you have a good one and are going the extra mile to improve yourself and help fund it! May I ask if the .35 job keeps you on an even keel debt wise?
For my BSc, I worked full time (40 hour week shifts), I did the degree part time. It took 6 years! I still had time to go out once and party at least once a week. So lets say that's the equivilant of a 0.5 job on a full time course.....I'm nothing special academically, but I do try hard.
It sounds very much like fluffy, frogger and steve are/were very similar to me with respect to work ethic.....so I'm preaching to the converted.
Is there anyone out there that wants to correct us? Come on, we'll go easy (hehe) _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
Stevolution wrote:
I'm a victim of doing a "creative" course at uni and i dropped out after 18 months, with £10,000 worth of debt and no degree as it was utter bollocks. I worked to fund my studies too but just hated the whole "i'm a student, i must get mashed every night or i will be seen as un-cool" vibe.
It's this type of thing that really angers me.
The sixth form/college advisors give this big sell 'get a degree or you're a failure'. It puts 17/18 year olds under huge pressure to get with the crowd or 'be a shelf stacker forever'. It simply isn't true. The problem is the advisors typically only ever have experience of school/uni, then they become teachers! Hmm wide ranging world view there!
I'm so pleased I was forced out of 6th form by my physics teacher, it made me find an apprenticeship - the best thing I ever did.
As Steve said you get paid crap and treated like a teaboy/fetcher of tools for a while, but it gives you so much experience - mainly of how cunty people are - but that's life - so fair do's!
By the way Steve, I'm glad you saw through all this and can only encourage you to keep going. Sometimes you have to sit out a wank job to work towards your end goal. Well done mate! _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
Cheers man. I'm slowly getting places with work. Its all a bit all over the place, working on computer games, websites, recording bands/artists and its very on and off but its what i enjoy doing. The office job just funds these "activities" i guess until they realyl start to pay off.
I wasn't really forced into Uni, it was a choice i made after travelling. I was 21 when i started uni, so a good 2 years older than most and it kinda showed. I'm hardly uber mature but some peoples mentality is shocking. Most were funded by mummy and daddy though so had no clue of value at all. I too only did 1 year of sixth form and went on to pursue music at CCN. It opened my eyes up to engineering and i've never looked back.
I forgot to mention that after my flop at uni i went on to do a diploma t the school of audio engineering in London. It was expensive and i knew in no way it meant getting a job, but it taught me a shit load about engineering. Way more that i ever got a hint of at Uni. It cost me a lot of money but it was worth it as i got a great insight into what gear i'd need to know how to use and what the industry is like.
If i have advice for anyone about creative degrees (audio engineering in my case) is to avoid them. Most studios will not give a damn if you know the ins and outs of the schematics to a SSL G+. I've used some amazing gear in my studies at SAE in London, from SSL G+desks, Neve outboard, neumann mics and various other stuff, but it means shit at the end of the day.They want experience and willing. They see degrees as a little "show off"-y. All studios i've worked in have had people working in there from the ground up. Making tea, assisting then engineering. Its how its done. Put in the hours on little or no pay and see what happens.
Slobdog, it sounds like you've got it all right too - good work! At the end of the day enjoying life is what its all about. If you get the chance check out http://soundcloud.com/stevelarke - its my new band, i remember you used to like some of my demos i put up and the long time promise, so have a listen if you get the chance!
Joined: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 2281 Location: Sheffield
slobdog wrote:
superfluffy wrote:
slobdog wrote:
Many courses are hardly intensive. Cut back on xbox time and get some casual bar/shop work.
Mine *is* intensive, and if I can manage to hold down a .35 job as well in order to feed myself, then so can anyone on any course ever.
Absolutely. It all comes down to attitude. In your case you have a good one and are going the extra mile to improve yourself and help fund it! May I ask if the .35 job keeps you on an even keel debt wise?
It does, just about, but only because it's subsidised by a small NHS bursary. The week before payday is always a tight one, but I couldn't do it without the job and, well, I know how to count so I know when to put up with eating cobbled-together-leftovers!
The other good thing about working (besides the money and the looking good on the CV) is that it stops me getting too bound up in the studies. It's good to have something unrelated.
The whole 'everyone should have a degree, woohoo!' thing really annoys me, too. Everyone who is capable of getting a good degree and is interested in getting one should have the chance to pursue one if they choose. That is not the same thing, and it doesn't in any way belittle someone who takes a different path. A degree is great if it helps you get somewhere you want to go but it doesn't intrinsically make you any better or worse than someone who wants to go somewhere else and takes a different route to get there. _________________ [Likes Japanese boys and still listens to A-ha]
～Language is...bridges, so that you can get safely from one place to another. And the more bridges you know about the more places you can see～
Students need to get tough and do some cop killing instead of all this throwing paint and marching shit!
do you see the working public marching when taxes are increased, is anything done about the stupid amount of tax we pay on our fuel?? no, we get on with it because protesting will change nothing, especially if you're a ginger skunk pussy student.
A degree cant mean too much, I didn't even make it through college and i still work as an assistant designer making robot parts. Im learning lots about electronics and programming all the while just from doing that constantly building on the knowledge that got me the job in the first place.
If your motivated enough you can learn what you want to know without having to go to uni. Not that uni is a bad thing. Its just not the be all and end all. _________________ Download my e.p. here
The whole thing about student fees is that it's an unnecessary extra fee that is creating a two-tier system of education. If you need to go to uni but are poor, then you're going to be saddled with debt across your credit rating for a very long time. For people who say they funded themselves through uni, that was before fees were tripled - if you don't have parents to pay for you, then you will end up in lots of debt.
It's all just another instance of the Tories fucking the general public over for a problem caused by the rich and can be solved by the rich (getting vodafone and topshop to pay their taxes, for example.) People who don't stick up for the students in all of this just reminds me of the holocaust poem "first they came...". If you don't oppose this just because it doesn't affect you, then who will stick up for you when the cuts affect you?
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 1477 Location: near nottingham
And we have our first idiot. Knew we'd find one sooner or later.
smoother-narration wrote:
The whole thing about student fees is that it's an unnecessary extra fee
It is necessary. Have you seen how much debt we have as a country? 1.3trillion pounds is a fuck load! Student courses have a base cost (on average) of £7,000/ year. This cost has always been there, it's just the governments willingness/ability to pay for it has changed. At some point the debt a country accumulates has to be paid back. Don't you see that every year more students go to uni, the more multiples of this cost (minus the individual contributions) has to be found. Where does it come from?
If you need to go to uni but are poor, then you're going to be saddled with debt across your credit rating for a very long time.
BBC website wrote:
Maintenance grants will rise from £2,906 to £3,250 for students from households earning less than £25,000.
Additionally, the debt is frozen until you earn >£21k. Paying back loans improves your credit rating to a point greater than people who have never had any debt. It shows you are a reliable investment. This nation has become far too obsessed with borrowing money. I have never borrowed any money (other than a few quid for a pint!) for anything other than a house, which is a secured loan and not the same thing.
Quote:
For people who say they funded themselves through uni, that was before fees were tripled - if you don't have parents to pay for you, then you will end up in lots of debt.
If you are from a poor house hold then the universities have to subsidise attendees where course fees are >£6k. If you choose to, you will accumulate debt. If you work through your education, which you clearly can do, the debt will be minimal. Then if you took a worthwhile degree, then you will have no problem getting a decent job, (your CV will show you are a hard worker, what with working your way through uni) and paying off your minimal debt will give you the best credit rating going.
Quote:
People who don't stick up for the students in all of this just reminds me of the holocaust poem "first they came...". If you don't oppose this just because it doesn't affect you, then who will stick up for you when the cuts affect you?
Did you really just compare the removal of a free ticket to get pissed for 3 years to the holocaust? For you a university education would be a total waste of everyones time and money. _________________ slobbysoft (TM) - "Turning sexual assault into a legitimate business"
www.myspace.com/slobdog
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
