As all 3 of you who read this blog are aware, I attend Monash University. I did so because a) I wanted to do a marketing degree, and b) it is one of the top universities in the country.
I would say that 83% of students, if asked what their main motivation is for attending university, would say "to be able to get a better job" or something of the equivalent.
Herein lies the issue with tertiary education in Australia. Students attend Uni because they want to get a better job, yet almost everyone who I have spoken to who has completed their degree and are now working in that field, say that 90% of what they learnt at uni is irrelevant and they haven't used it once. Of course this is quite a big generalisation and extremely broad, as they might be using Maslow's hierarchy (the only thing I can remember from first year Management, but I will get onto that in another post), but will not specifically say as such, they might just be using the theory subconsciously.
Anywho, back on point, students believe that going to univeristy will put them in good stead to get a better job, and whilst that is true, it provides absolutely no training for students to be able to have the job, it simply gives them a piece of paper that says they have managed to get greater then 50% in at least 24 subjects.
Universities on the other hand KNOW that their main priority is not the education, but the research. Therein lies the major issue.
There is a massive difference between what students believe University is about, and what the Uni's think they are about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I followed your blog after following a link from Zac’s so good to see you back in the saddle.
No disrespect intended but … maturity and hindsight is something that you just can’t teach people. In saying that I mean that what you are hopefully learning are things you can’t really see until you can look back on it. It’s not a bad thing, it is just that you can’t look back on this time because you are still in it!
You are hopefully learning the value of making choices and their financial consequences (HECS, work etc.), the contacts you make and the time management skills. Going to uni is about an opportunity. What you make of that opportunity is up to you. If you go to class, and do the assignments then sure you’ll pass but you won’t learn a great deal – Zac is a great example of this.
Also, don’t underestimate the message that is sent to an employer when they see you have finished a degree. It sets you apart from a lot of people who take weak option and drop out. What does that say about people when they are faced by tough work situations?
Plus, it sets you up to do more study later on. I went to uni straight out of school and then completed a masters of marketing at age 31. The masters definitely got me to where I am today and I learnt so much it is not funny. It is the work and life experience that made it a great learning situation.
Finally, it is those without higher education that will find it increasingly difficult to secure good jobs in tough economic times. The economy always goes in peaks an troughs. You have just experienced a great peak where I bet lots of your friends left school and got half decent jobs. But let me guarantee you one thing - $30-$40k might sound like a shit load of money when you are 18-21 and still living at home but the majority of them will not have as much earning capacity that you will with a degree. Try living on that amount of money when you find a nice girl (or boy:) and want to buy a house as well as have all the cool things like iPhones.
Anyway, sorry for the rant … will be coming to Melb soon so make sure you speak to Zac as we’ll catch up for beer – would love to continue this conversation in person.
beda
Thanks muchly for following my lack of blogging for the last 6 months!
I guess not doing any blogging recently, I changed tangents in there and skimmed my main point and thus meant that it could be extremely misinterpereted.
You do make very good points, and I know that Uni is giving me skills and opportunity, however it is only because of the extra curicular things I do that able me to have those.
I will probably discuss it a little better in another post, however the main point I was trying to make wasn't that Uni is pointless, as I do not believe that, but rather that the reason students are going to uni, is extremely different to the reason Uni's think they are there.
You might be right – the reason students go to uni might be different to the reasons students actually go to uni. But it raises an interesting question … and please take this in the right tone because I am not “having a go” but just debating …
“Why do you go to uni?” Are in the 83% who say “better job?” If so then the uni does think that it one of the reasons you go … that’s why they publish graduate salary indexes – to attract students. It is black and white that people with degrees command higher salaries.
Additionally, you don’t need to be a student in order to participate in the majority of extra curricular activities (I did this for years after I left at the end of my first year the first time around).
Hi Simon,
As a fellow Monash Marketing student, i share some of your thoughts but also those of Daniel.
I am in my last semester of Marketing (still with Law to finish). I am working in advertising at a small but awesome agency. Its my third paying marketing job with the two previous being overseas.
I was for a longtime an advocate of Monash, until I hit the 3 year "preparatory" subjects, supposed to be the ones that get to the nitty gritty and interesting details that would help prepare myself for a grad position somewhere.
I feel my work experience has put me at a point where uni is revision more than something new. I think that the reason is because Uni knowledge is surpassed in the first 6 months in the workforce.
So the actual knowledge fundamentals I cannot flaw, but the few issues I have are as follows:
1. What I found is that by reading interesting books, blogs and free thinking ideas, I have learnt more than from the prescribed text books rewritten from the late 90s.
2. The lack of coverage of contemporary issues. The fact that the IMC class didn't cover digital, social media, guerrilla or other new/non-traditional forms of media was disappointing.
3. No one bothered to explain to students the marketing landscape, the difference between client marketing jobs, brand consultancy, media agency or creative agencys, and how they work together etc.
But then Daniel has a point that hindsight provides the true test of the value. It wasn't until I left my first job that I realised it had a profound impact on my strategic planning thinking.
Anyway, I don't blog, but I have twitter/facebook & email.
(If you would like to continue the discussion elsewhere that is.)
Hi Simon,
Excuse my grossly delayed commente but I figure it's better to be late than not at all...
I agree with you that univeristies don't do enough to help students get jobs. I went to Monash too and whilst I thought that would help seperate me from teh rest I feel as a university they really dusted their hands of me once my degree was finished. It took me three months of networking and job searching every day to finally get an opportunity at MySpace.
Whilst I acknowledge job searching is always going to take some time to find what you want and that doing things for yourself is a very very important skill to learn for the real world, RMIT and Swinburne students I find cruise into jobs a lot easier than Monash and Melbourne students becasue of the work experience that is part of most of their degrees. So why the prestige? Why did I need to use my extra ENTER score to out all the way to Clayton when at the end of the day it doesn't mean as much as the actual work experience?
This frustrated me so much that I am now the director of Bright Sparks, a wing of the Australian Marketing Institute that run events and programs for emerging marketers in Victoria.
Whilst this is still no excuse for Monash and Melbourne university concentrating more on building good research departments rather than helping students find work, at least it gives those who are amibitious enough (students who sit at their computer every day for 3 months looking for work like I did) another avenue to finding work.
Nice blog. cheers
Kruppy
Post a Comment