Malema completes his honours degree

Knyro said:
Way to prove zululami's point.

Nobody gives a toss about your school results when you've got post-grad degrees. Umad?
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High school marks are irrelevant when you have graduated. In fact, tertiary marks become less relevant when you are good at your job.

Our Principal geologist was telling me about how he skipped classes and scraped through his geology degree. No one cares about his marks because he is a good geologist.
 
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NarrowBandFtw said:
:erm: let's see, of the 20 richest people in the world, only 2 (Jim & Alice Walton) are BA graduates and they both inherited their wealth and never lifted a finger to earn it ... sounds about right :D
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/richest-people-in-world-forbes
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I'm not disputing if a lawyer, accountant or a engineer gets a job a good company they can make a lot but I also a lot of lawyers and CA's struggling to find work and those who have not earning that much. That graphs you post is not very accurate to say the least
 
doubletrouble said:
I'm not disputing if a lawyer, accountant or a engineer gets a job a good company they can make a lot but I also a lot of lawyers and CA's struggling to find work and those who have not earning that much. That graphs you post is not very accurate to say the least
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Assuming you meant to reply to konfab, I didn't post any graphs, just the factual statement that only two people in the world's twenty richest list are BA graduates.

Should add though that a fair number of the world's wealthiest have no degree at all so the specific degree you choose is not the thing to focus on so much as just avoiding BA like the plague :D
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
Assuming you meant to reply to konfab, I didn't post any graphs, just the factual statement that only two people in the world's twenty richest list are BA graduates.

Should add though that a fair number of the world's wealthiest have no degree at all so the specific degree you choose is not the thing to focus on so much as just avoiding BA like the plague :D
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I did BA and I'm not doing to badly. But ja it comes down more to determination as well. I don't deny that certain degrees might be able to open more doors, but you still need to be extremely good at what you do to get to the top of your list. And like I said I know a lot of people with degrees of high status unemployed or low paying jobs. Should I avoid those too?
 
dlk001 said:
Interesting. So in humanities, the brightest students who graduated with high marks are more succesful in life?

In my engineering field, its the direct opposite. At CSIR mining, civil engineering research, the brightest graduates were good in fundamental science however, it was the "average" graduates who took that fundamental science forward into engineering design criteria. Further more, you needed technicians in development of engineering methodologies. That left me with the conclusion that you need clever, smart and hardworking people. If you have all three, you are one of the few brilliant scientists/engineers I've met.
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I'm not saying higher marks equate to more real-life success. My gripe lies with the fact that humanities degrees don't offer the same level of vocational direction as engineering. If you qualify with a BA degree you aren't adequately equipped for participating in a knowledge based economy in the same way that engineering students are. Universities should not be churning out masses of students with degrees that don't offer students much in terms of employability.

Also, to be fair, I don't think an average engineering graduate is the same as an average humanities graduate. To even get into engineering, you need very good matric marks due to the competitive nature of admission.

Humanities departments, on the other hand, are littered with students who got averages in the 50% range in matric and humanities ended up being the default choice. Getting an engineering degree is much harder than getting a humanities degree.

Can you imagine trying to get someone to gain even basic competence in linear algebra and calculus if they got 50% for math in matric? Odds are not stacked in your favour. Same point can be made for something like philosophy and language. It literally makes me cringe when more than half my class can't even string semi-intelligible sentences together for their assignments.

It's also easier to fake your way through a humanities degree. People would be shocked at the sheer amount of plagiarism that happens in the humanities at undergraduate level.
 
Frikkie5000 said:
Universities should not be churning out masses of students with degrees that don't offer students much in terms of employability.
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To be fair. Universities are not vocational schools. That's not their purpose.

However if "getting a job" is the main reason a kid wants to study further, they should think very carefully about their degree choice. This includes degrees like physics, as well as some BA degrees.
 
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konfab said:
Agree 100%

However the problem is driven by the "stupidly smart" people in the Humanities depts telling every government in the world to increase funding for universities, when they know full well that 99.99% of the people doing their degree are getting something that is worthless to the economy. Which leads me to the point that these people are evil and no better than the capitalist systems which they love to hate on.
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It's not the academics who push for increased student numbers. Without exception, every academic I know supports admitting fewer students who are better prepared for university.

The main culprit is government pushing for increased "throughput" of graduates, because they use the number of graduates as a misguided metric of economic progress.
 
Knyro said:
To be fair. Universities are not vocational schools. That's not their purpose.

However if "getting a job" is the main reason a kid want's to study further, they should think very carefully about their degree choice. This includes degrees like physics, as well as some BA degrees.
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I agree with you 100%, hence my point that non-vocational degrees should only allow bright students who are interested in the field. The problem is 95% of BA students have no real interest in the subject area. They just want a degree to give them an edge in the job market and end up terribly disappointed when they find out their degree isn't worth much in the job market.
 
Frikkie5000 said:
It's not the academics who push for increased student numbers. Without exception, every academic I know supports admitting fewer students who are better prepared for university.

The main culprit is government pushing for increased "throughput" of graduates, because they use the number of graduates as a misguided metric of economic progress.
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Also not everyone should be going to a University, yoy can he just as successful by starting your own business or doing a vocational type of learning. The other reason why I am generally sceptical about allowing low skilled kids into the humanities is because it makes way for radical ideologies.

The french funnily enough figured this out in the 1960s with all the student riots that went on. So they ended up splitting their Universities into specialist schools. The humanity kids are still striking while the rest are studying.

Rhodes must fall was an example where the humanities kids got some kind of voice and as usual the empty vessels make the loudest noises. Universities by their very nature should be selective or else you get a bad product.
 
Knyro said:
To be fair. Universities are not vocational schools. That's not their purpose.

However if "getting a job" is the main reason a kid wants to study further, they should think very carefully about their degree choice. This includes degrees like physics, as well as some BA degrees.
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The funny thing is that the only degree at University that gives you a higher guarantee of a job are the qualifications that can turn you into a Professional of sort (accounting/Engineering/lawyer etc). There are also tons of degrees in the Engineering and Law faculty that are not worth the paper that they are written on. Tuks is very good at doing this with their BCom Law and Bsc Building what-have-you. My feeling is that the future belongs to those who can still work smarter with their hands (welders/plumbers/electricians) etc
 
Nicodeamus said:
The funny thing is that the only degree at University that gives you a higher guarantee of a job are the qualifications that can turn you into a Professional of sort (accounting/Engineering/lawyer etc). There are also tons of degrees in the Engineering and Law faculty that are not worth the paper that they are written on. Tuks is very good at doing this with their BCom Law and Bsc Building what-have-you. My feeling is that the future belongs to those who can still work smarter with their hands (welders/plumbers/electricians) etc
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Spot on. In an ideal world, there are only two reasons why you should want to go to university:

a) It's a gateway to your chosen career (doctor, lawyer, engineer etc.)

b) You want to learn about a topic you find interesting, knowing it might not lead to gainful employment (apart from becoming an academic)

If you really just want a job you'd be better off spending your money elsewhere.

I also couldn't agree more about the student strikes. I've had the dis-privilege of teaching some of the students directly responsible for the mayhem and the majority of them were terrible students.
 
Everyone knows that the standard of education has gone to schite in this country, so nothing special about the racist's degree.
 
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