Demise of TV centre.

[StagnJag]

Drew,

Sorry to be pedantic but Polytechnics were upgraded to Universities in the 1992 Further Education Act under John Major not Tony Blair....

The change suited me. I wasn't quite smart enough to get a University place, but I did manage to get into a Polytechnic - and graduated with a University degree!

Rgds

Mr. David Hoskin BEng.(Hons)

[Guest]

Why must you have a degree to be an Engineer? Doing the job I do I have met loads of people with degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering, I wouldn't trust them to change a fuse!

I have to be theoretical and practical, I wasn't fortunate enough to go to university (thankfully) and I've found out in life the a degree isn't the "be all and end all"

I do have Electrical qualifications though (not NVQ but City and Guilds)

Jason

[stagmuffin]

Why must you have a degree to be an Engineer? Doing the job I do I have met loads of people with degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering, I wouldn't trust them to change a fuse!

I have to be theoretical and practical, I wasn't fortunate enough to go to university (thankfully) and I've found out in life the a degree isn't the "be all and end all"

I do have Electrical qualifications though (not NVQ but City and Guilds)

Jason

well said mate I couldn't agree more ! met all to many over the last 38yrs in the game and most of them cant see the obvious because their heads are stuck where the sun don't shine !.I've worked with plant engineers of old school days who could calculate in their heads what todays numptys struggle with on state of the art technology and if they ever did get any thing wrong they would be the first to own up unlike the yoof out there now . experience is what counts if you've been there and done it you don't have to blag and you don't forget. We as a nation are churning out from uni,s lads that really don't have a clue if its not in the manual !

[V Mad]

Jason, it depends what kind of engineer you are going to be. If you were working on a ship or aircraft loaded with high explosive devices you might be glad the designer at least had a professional engineering qualification. But then if the guy servicing your boiler had a degree with no practical training he would probably not have a clue. Its horses for courses.

I came through the long route doing C&G, ONC, HNC, then finally took the CEI exams to get into the IEE and by the end of it I had a lot of practical ability as well as the theory. But I often encountered 'green' graduates with little trainng who did not know where to start and needed a lot of help. For my kind of work you needed both the theory and the professional training.

[Mike Stevens]

I tend to agree. I left school with few qualifications and went into an R&D establishment. From there I went on to do ONC and HNC in Electrical Engineering and then went to University and obtained BSc (Hons) and am now MIET (and thinking of applying for FIET!). Having now been at the same place for over 40 years (sad or what!) I've seen both sides and there is no doubt in my mind that there is no replacement for practical experience but we also need the original thought and "Work out from 1st principles" methods. Due to the nature of where I am, I've worked with a lot of PhDs where most were pretty good. Some, however, have such a detailed knowledge about their narrow field that they seem to know all there is to know about bu55er all!

Puts soap box away.

Cheers,
Mike.

[dasadrew]

Paul said it in his opening post and you guys have more or less underlined it "bring back apprenticeships"!

I had the fortune to be around at the time when thin and thick sandwiches weren't what you bought at Subway and I did a thick one with sponsorship from the British Aircraft Corporation, study at Lancaster Uni and Blackpool College of Technology and courses and practical experience at BAC. All in all 5 years which changed my life (and stopped me getting rich by pursuing something more profitable than engineering). A true martyr to the cause!

[Guest]

Paul said it in his opening post and you guys have more or less underlined it "bring back apprenticeships"!

I had the fortune to be around at the time when thin and thick sandwiches weren't what you bought at Subway and I did a thick one with sponsorship from the British Aircraft Corporation, study at Lancaster Uni and Blackpool College of Technology and courses and practical experience at BAC. All in all 5 years which changed my life (and stopped me getting rich by pursuing something more profitable than engineering). A true martyr to the cause!

yep, I suppose the sate of our country has made it so graduates end up stocking shelves at Tesco!! I was lucky where I found a job (well, my Mother told me to apply for it which was in our local rag) which was building switchgear. I learnt how to read drawings, how to wire circuits and make busbar systems from schematics and was sent to college. Basically and apprentiship. Sad those jobs aren't around anymore because I've now ended up servicing and commissioning Diesel UPS, which I enjoy doing and now in my 13th year!

i agree we need engineers, however lots I've come across (and not young ones either) worry me with their lack of experience and common sense!

Jason

[Firept]

Jason.
Yes, its so true.
I often find that get some one with common sense, (that's being removed from this risk adverse culture we have now) experience and the most important thing of all, I call it the "spark behind the eyes" that "I want to know" look and you have someone who can achieve great things.
I work alongside a Dr of engineering with his PHD or as he calls it Pile it Higher and Deeper. yes he's incredibly bright very focused but you would not send him out to buy a loaf of bread or to watch him go near live 3 phase mains connections I shudder at the thought but give him a Cisco network to design and he's away, as Chris says its horses for courses but unfortunately these days most of the courses have been shut down. My daughter is just finishing her A levels she has no real idea what she wants to do and I sympathises as at that age nor did I, when I left school I had 3 things on my list A Chef, optical camera technician or electronics engineering I chose the last in the end.
What worries me is the number of people that go to uni 'caus its the thing to do, a get a degree in something and then do the complete opposite where as I believe that if we had a great real apprenticeship scheme as BAE and others still do where you can server the time and do the university course as well where the employer sponsors the candidate you end up with the best of both worlds i.e people who want to do the job, know how to do the job, and have the detailed knowledge to do the job.
I have been impressed with the level of response from this it is heart warming to know there are still some sensible people left in the World ....well Stag world any way.

Paul.

[jakesmig]

The place I worked in generally took a few Civil Engineering students doing a 'sandwich course' at the local University for their 6 months work experience phase, and as a rule they were given to the Technician Engineers for the first coupe of months to teach them just how little they knew and to atempt to instil a little humility.
I have to say that in general Students and graduates were at first pretty useless articles which you wouldn't trust to tie their shoe laces unsupervised, but in fairness they ultimately tended to grasp things quicker than the technically trained and had a deeper understanding of design etc.
Sod all use as Site Engineers though, Techniciann Engineers were always more practical and able to overcome challenges quicker. Probably due to their heads being out in the sun more
John

[Guest]

Today its all about qualifications rather than education. In just about all trades and professions, no two people with the same qualification will have the same ability but the best people are those with a mix of practical experience and "college" education. Part of the problem is that the education sector has grown massively from the mid 80's onwards, inventing courses to keep themselves in jobs backed by governments who know that young people in education don't count in the jobless statistics, and the other part is the increase of course work towards a qualification instead of the final examination approach.

I did my secondary education in late 60's / early 70's, my technical training in the late 70's / 80's and my professional training in the mid 90's so saw first hand how approaches were changing. The end of final examinations meant I saw so many useless people get qualifications who, if you put them on the spot, and said "how do you do...." had no idea. That sort of ineptitude accounts for a lot of the woeful things we have to endure today as the whole world seems to be run by educationally qualified but intellectually useless people.

With the exception of those who are employed in education and the government of the day, just about anyone with eyes and a brain knows that standards are dropping and I say that based on the contrast between my own and my daughters education, because we went to the same schools but 30 odd years apart. I did O levels, they did GCSE's and I can tell their courses didn't approach what I did for O levels. Although always top-set in all things, my youngest - probably the more academic - daughter insisted that she needed maths and science tutors leading to her GCSE (I can't think of anyone I was at school with that ever had private after school tutors). We got her one and, when I was discussing the maths syllabus with him and asking him why it didn't include the things I studied at O level such as integration and differentiation, he told me that those parts of maths were now thought too difficult for GCSE and get taught only as part of the A level syllabus for Applied Maths. Quite staggering I thought.

Makes you wonder where Britain will be in, say, 50 years time and I am glad I won't be here to see it.

[dasadrew]

I've lost track .....

is this the rant thread, the BBC thread or the jokes thread?

Still, I'm not completely doodle-alley as I know I won't find any gearbox overhaul tips here!!

BTW: Congrats to Ian: A whole rant post and the EU not mentioned at all!

[SaskStag]

I have always been very thankful of the educational opportunities I have had, and use a lot of my high school education in my work.
I recently attended a parents' night for those with children about to enter high school, put on by the headmaster of the high school. After the presentation, I asked about the academic side. The head asked if I remembered anything I was taught when I was in high school, and high school nowadays was more about having fun!
Appears it's all about building self-esteem, which is great, but mercy-passes for exams and teachers getting sacked for giving a high school kid a 0 for not doing the assignment is crazy! God forbid you ever fail anybody these days......Fuel for lawyers these days.
Lovin' my job really......
Tanya

[Guest]

IBTW: Congrats to Ian: A whole rant post and the EU not mentioned at all!

Ahhhhh yes the EU......forgot about that.....I will get back to you