JohnH":1w1xmrr9 said:
A 17-year-old is in a much better position to influence the national economy by choosing a productive degree course than by throwing placards at policemen -- something that seems to be lost on the demonstrators.
Caricature aside, I don't think that's necessarily true. Relatively small numbers of protestors can sometimes have a disproportionately large influence on public opinion. If the result of choosing a "productive" degree course is that the graduate finds work overseas (like my physicist friends, and as is increasingly the case for science and engineering graduates) the net benefit to the UK economy isn't likely to be great.
one-eyed_jim":1w1xmrr9 said:
...and the majority of graduates don't find work in a field directly related to their course.
It doesn't have to be directly related to their course. I'm not arguing that the country only benefits when physics graduates get physics jobs. I'm saying that in the 21st century, people with an understanding of maths/science/technology stand a greater chance of making a financial contribution to the country (and its dwindling universities budget) than someone who chooses to study some self-indulgent arts/humanities course.
That's quite a narrow view of the situation. Britain's economy is service-dominated, and service industries need all kinds of skills, not just technical ones. In the context of acquiring a useful set of transferable skills, a four-year physics course may be no more useful (and in many ways may be less so) than a "self-indulgent" degree in French literature.
When I graduated in mechanical engineering, my first job was not as an engineer, but as a technical author for a small electric motor company. But, I couldn't have got the job if I hadn't known how to read & create engineering drawings, been comfortable with numbers and formulae and had a good grasp of how to use computers to create technical literature. My engineering qualifications gave me those skills.
One of the main justifications for preferring graduate employees is for their supposed transferable skills - in research, self-education, general literacy etc. You found your technical skills useful in a technical field, but most graduate jobs aren't technical in nature. A service-dominated economy needs linguists, writers, organisers, and any number of versatile, educated dogsbodies just as much as it needs mathematicians, scientists and engineers. It also needs to feed, house, clothe, entertain and educate its population.
If anything, your next paragraph somewhat proves my point....
...
I accept that most of these guys didn't stick with physics -- but with the exception of the full-time mum and the camp-site owner, all of the other jobs require mathematical, scientific and technical literacy. And that was supplied by their science education;
That's not really the case - and it wasn't really my point either. Some of the people I mentioned would have needed a general science background. The film editor, the full-time mother, the campsite owner, the mobile phone manager and the two management consultants in no practical sense needed or make use of their degree in a technical subject. Art history would have been fine for all of them if combined with a broadly numerate background (a good GCSE in maths, say). The two science teachers are paid by the state, so aren't contributing to the economy according to your definition. The two physicists are working overseas, so aren't contributing to the UK economy. The intellectual property lawyer does make use of her specific background in biophysics to a certain extent.
one-eyed_jim":1w1xmrr9 said:
The boom industries for science graduates in the years after I graduated were biotech and emerging web technologies...
And those jobs would have gone to people with a science/technology background. Those without maths/science/technology training would not have been able to contribute to those boom industries.
The specific openings in the biotech boom were for those with training in biology, biochemistry and related fields, but growth in any area creates ancillary jobs, not all of them technical. The web boom created a demand for technology (hardware and software) but also for content, and created jobs for graphic artists, writers, musicians, animators...
My point is that the future of the economy is unpredictable, especially from the point of view of a 17 year old choosing a degree course, and the cultural importance of education is far greater than its economic impact.
The point I alluded to earlier was that Tony Blair's original aim -- to produce "knowledge workers" that would allow this country to compete in the "knowledge economy" -- was a good aim. But the plan to achieve that aim amounted to nothing more than funding as many students as possible to study any course they wanted.
Knowledge is so much more than just technical or scientific knowledge.
I agree that the policy of universal university education is misguided though, especially when degree courses are so narrow. But if employers won't hire and train school-leavers and a university degree becomes a standard paper qualification for a bottom-rung job, school-leavers will continue to flock to whatever degree courses will take them, and according to their own interests and preferences.
In that sense, limiting university entrance may have a long-term benefit, but the immediate effect is likely to be mass youth unemployment if employers still insist on degree-qualified candidates for jobs that a bright sixth-former could tackle.
So maybe one 17-year-old's choice couldn't have influenced the national economy, but the choices of the 350,000 17-year-olds who apply to for a university place every year would.
That's certainly true, but that's a matter for public policy, not for the individual school-leaver who "
picked a subject based upon [his] own narrow desire to avoid anything that was "boring". "
Why should it be otherwise?
