Month: March 2011

Make the most of your £9,000 year at university

I’ve argued before that fees themselves don’t act as a deterrent to university, since higher education is seen by many as the only feasible route to career success. There is much more to higher education, but it’s hard to deny that a large number of people take the HE path in the hope of improving future prospects.

The Independent asked students and graduates if they would have paid £9k per year. That question isn’t so important right now, but some of the answers given are definitely worth exploring.

photo by mattwi1s0n
£9k fees? What say you? – photo by mattwi1s0n

Nottingham graduate Luke Martin puts the student experience into perspective:

“The ‘university life’ is a deeply individual one and it’s a shame to imagine it simply as a (very expensive) commodity, when for most it’s an all encompassing and enjoyable lived experience.”

You have a wealth of opportunity at university. It’s easy to imagine that a degree is the most important end product of your study. In reality, many other actions over the years can surpass that seemingly crucial grade.

Qualifications are certainly important, but they’re no replacement for other achievement and personal experience.

Luke Martin adds, “I suspect that I took a lot out of it that can’t be measured in pounds”. While you can’t put a monetary value on everything you do, you should attempt to translate as many of your actions into meaningful examples that others can understand.

Build upon your long-term plan. How far have you looking into the future? You don’t know what’s awaiting you around the corner, but that’s not an excuse to abandon forward planning.

It’s all too easy to see graduation as a million miles away. Even if you think it’s approaching fast, it’s just as easy to think the job search starts when you’ve finished studying. But it doesn’t.

Your search has already started. If you’re at uni to improve your prospects, every minute is potential time to be winning. Some ideas that are quick to start, quick to implement, but require a long time to make a mark:

  • Start a blog: Blogs almost never achieve overnight success. Three posts do not make a must-read blog. A consistent effort, however, can yield results. There is no sure-fire way of reaching a huge audience and/or huge respect, but you’re guaranteed not to reach it if you don’t try at all.
  • Build online network profiles aimed at your chosen career/job route: Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like aren’t overnight success stories (unless you’re Charlie Sheen). Thankfully, you only need short, committed bursts of activity to make a difference over time. But do commit to it, otherwise you’re profile risks going stale.
  • Get working on a career RIGHT NOW: Ask yourself, “What can I do straight away to move closer to a role in X industry?” If you had a free reign to work on whatever project you wanted, what would you choose? If you aren’t already doing that now, what’s stopping you? Take your unexecuted ideas and start bringing them to life.
  • Volunteer: There are plenty opportunities to volunteer. It doesn’t have to be charity work and it needn’t be in a formal job situation. Giving up your time to support a cause and to enhance your own experience will look great ongoing. However, there’s no point in volunteering simply to look good on paper. It doesn’t work. Your aim is to provide value and enthusiasm. You may even build some amazing contacts, memories and future opportunities in the process.
  • Seek out a mentor: We learn from the actions of others from birth. You may already know someone who you respect and could learn a lot from. If you do, why not tell them how you feel they could help you with a bit of guidance. They will likely feel flattered and be delighted to spend some time with you. And the worst they can do is say no!
    If you don’t know anyone personally, Forbes has an 8-step plan to find a mentor and a slideshow with the steps too.

After you graduate, your overall experience is worth more than just the degree. One graduate suggests: “We’re left in a world where a degree is just an expensive, bog-standard qualification.”

While I don’t agree in such harsh tones, it’s true that a degree, in isolation, is no longer enough to secure the employment of your choosing. You must put the legwork in to use your degree and the skills you developed, because the piece of paper isn’t going to make a big noise on your behalf.

An increasing number of graduates find it insanely difficult to secure suitable employment. However, it is no reason to wash your hands of higher education. In a world of ‘quick fixes’ and ‘instant access‘, you’ve still got to play the slow game for some things, frustrating as that may be.

I’ll leave the last words to KCL graduate, Daniel Smith. No matter what the cost, we’re all different and it’s in your own interests to make your experience worthwhile, amazing, and relevant to who you want to be:

“Each student will have a different experience to the next and just because everyone has a degree does not mean there is an equal starting point when looking to start a career after university. In a fundamental sense though, a degree is worth any amount of money, if it’s something you’ve always wanted to aspire to.”

Less Homework, More Coursework

Homework. Whether you loved it or hated it, you couldn’t get away from it.

photo by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino
photo by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino

At university, much of your coursework is similar to homework. You do it in your own chosen time, outside of lectures/seminars/tutorials, and with particular deadlines.

New research has come to the conclusion that age and gender differences play a part in how students complete their homework. Younger students seemed to prefer working with friends and outside the home. Older students were happier on their own, in the house. Girls, regardless of age, were more stressed working on their own, preferring to work with friends. Boys, on the other hand, weren’t as interested in working with others.

At uni, you have far more flexibility over your study environment. That includes whether or not you work with other people, when you choose to study, and where you wish to do the work.

Because coursework is like an extended type of homework, it pays to examine what situations work best for you. Surrounded by quiet fields or in a loud and busy setting? With others or away from the rest of the world?

If you found homework a hassle and you’re struggling to find coursework much better, a change of setting may be all you need to alter your attitude for the better.

Not all study is equal. Be sure to set aside time to discover what study environment works best for you. Keep improving it the whole time you’re learning to make sure you don’t grow complacent.

The more you enjoy your work, the less you’ll think of it as ‘homework’.

The answer is unanswerable

You need answers. The solution, you may think, is to look for answers. After all, you need them.

Or do you?

An ‘answer’ is like finding a solution, or developing a set of guaranteed instructions. Your search for the answer is usually a search for step by step detail to get from one place to another.

However, it’s hard to find answers when there are only possibilities. A to B is hardly ever restricted to a single route. Worse still, the route is constantly changing.

photo by Crystal Writer
photo by Crystal Writer

When nothing simple presents itself, the search is often intensified. But you’re just spending more time on a fruitless exercise. Rather than attempt to beat the game, expand your vision beyond objectives. With trillions of ever-moving variables, it’s easier to temper chaos, rather than control it.

For too long, qualifications have been seen as the route to bigger and better things. But it should only be one aspect of a wider aim:

“…anything less than top grades has become tantamount to failure. This leaves little room for experimentation, creativity, or mistakes. Inquisitive learning that is driven by an interest in knowledge and learning for its own sake is squeezed out by consumer-driven demand for acquisitive learning. It involves learning what is necessary to pass examinations or motivated by a need to impress employers with one’s range of extracurricular activities and achievements. It is based on a model of individual rational calculation where the wider purpose of learning has been lost.” [p145 – The Global Auction]

You shouldn’t simply stop studying. I’ve mentioned before that qualifications are still a useful part of the bigger picture when you know why you’re working toward them. I’ve also explained why it’s crucial to make mistakes.

But you’ll never get true, unarguable answers.

Searching for progress and new discoveries should still be undertaken. The search should never stop.

Forget answers. Your search should be a more open-ended type of enquiry. It’s okay to be vague. Not everything requires an absolute, drilled-down focus to the last speck of detail.

You do need a basic plan of some kind (but it’s flexible), you do need awareness of the general direction you’re trying to take (but it’s bound to change), and you do need conviction in what you’re doing (but that doesn’t mean you’re unmovable & stubborn).

This works for smaller goals, not just grand plans. Writing an essay, for instance, usually involves a search for different views and arguments, proving that there’s no absolute answer. Yet you reach your own conclusion and demonstrate your own results.

If certainty and clear answers ruled the world, higher learning wouldn’t be as important as it is today. Learning can solve problems, but only when it sets out to improve and discover, not when it sets out to staunchly answer.

Access agreements and uncertainties

If universities want to charge more than £6,000 in yearly tuition fees, they have to outline how they intend to help attract disadvantaged students and improve social mobility.

The Office For Fair Access (OFFA) has today published guidance to universities on how to produce an ‘access agreement’. Access agreements set out the ways in which an institution would promote and improve student retention, student outreach, financial assistance, and other activities to benefit social mobility.

It seems that, even without any changes to the proposed fees system in coming years, it’s going to take a couple of runs through the process before we get a true picture of what’s happening.

photo by john curley
photo by john curley

Speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme, OFFA’s director, Martin Harris, said that universities must prove what they promise to do ‘in retrospect’. While proposals must be ‘stretching and demanding’, this leaves universities with a largely free reign on how they want to proceed. For now.

Given the general flexibility so far allowed in creating access agreements, it’s no surprise that representative groups are positive. Paul Marshall, Executive Director of the 1994 Group said:

“By allowing universities to set their own widening participation benchmarks OFFA have recognised that each university has its own priorities, and will be best placed to set the most appropriate measures.”

Russell Group’s Wendy Piatt was equally upbeat:

“We welcome the fact that OFFA will be allowing universities some scope to set their own targets and milestones for access work, noting that ‘there is no single perfect measure of access performance’.”

Such open possibilities make it difficult to see how anyone will achieve an overall awareness of what will end up becoming necessary in the longer term. I strongly suspect that there will be alterations based on the first year or two, which will result in an even longer period before a manageable picture is revealed.

Will it ever be clear which aspects of the system really can help HE and student intake? Students and staff alike know they must jump through particular hoops to get from one place to another. The difference now is that the hoops have slightly changed and may change again.

Potential students can see they might suffer in terms of fees and repayments, but can they be certain at the same time that they’ll benefit from a more level playing field? Is there enough potential in the future to break down barriers and help young people in a more targeted fashion, even before the idea of university becomes an important life choice?

Unfortunately, we just don’t know. Social mobility has a long way to go. All universities play an important part in enhancing mobility. Therefore, it’s important to make sure there’s a limit to unnecessary exclusions that could have still played a helpful part. If these elements are removed prematurely due to lack of funds, improvements elsewhere will, at best, cause stasis, not growth.

At times like this, I often acknowledge the bumpy ride that’s ahead for anyone involved. But when is the road not bumpy? If it’s going to take several years before greater clarity can be achieved, it will probably be just in time for a new set of sweeping changes to come about.

Not everyone is having to tread water and there is plenty of opportunity for HE to shine further, but it would be foolish for me to say that any wide-ranging situation can ever experience a bump-free terrain.

Mission groups are mainly positive that access agreements won’t be a barrier to setting fees of their choosing. Future students are now aware that fees are likely to be a lot higher and they must choose based on new rules. Current developments expose the latest hurdle that needs crossing (or fighting). But the next hurdle will never be far away.

My analogy shouldn’t consist of a bumpy journey. It’s more like a bucking bronco ride. We stay on for as long as we can.

And if we fall off? Either jump back on or choose a different ride. Make of that what you will. I’m not sure I’ve worked it out yet…