Tertiary and Continuing Which degrees are useless/useful?

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checkraiseulite said:
Probably because people like you keep carrying her through assignments...
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In my experience, one doesnt have much option. To reveal their flaws you need an acreditation system, and those who get undervalued by the rest of the team will field a complaint if they feel shafted (even if it is the truth). These situations are never pleasant
 
slashin_velvet said:
In my experience, one doesnt have much option. To reveal their flaws you need an acreditation system, and those who get undervalued by the rest of the team will field a complaint if they feel shafted (even if it is the truth). These situations are never pleasant
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The uni I am at they're banned. The reason is often one or two members take it upon themselves to do the whole assignment and then leave negative feedback about the one(s) who apparently did nothing. It was determined they just cause unfair weighting in the marks. The last institution allowed them but only up to the provision of 5 marks or 10% of the assignment. The management faculty were allowing them but only in addition to the assessment task. For example if you had an assignment out of 35 then 30 would be for the assignment overall and an additional 5 for the participation on an individual basis. This is why in Commerce exams were heavily weighted as they caught this behaviour out and they got the students who cheated in assignments but couldn't be proved to have done so. One clever lecturer and course coordinator managed to spring the internationals hardcore by giving them fat 0s for using an essay rather than the required report format because they didn't follow instruction correctly. He said it saved him having to deal with the plagarism bullshit.
 

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checkraiseulite said:
It's all in the group selection and/or evaluation of people's capacity before you rely on their work.
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Try doing that as an external student. Also I have had some people who were very proficient at masquerading their exploits in group work.
 
i think it is not about what is going to bring about the big $$$$$$ but what you truly enjoy. there is no point slugging out 13 years of HS, going into a 3-4 year uni degree you only want to do for the money and then going to the job that you hate. eventually you are going to realise that you hate your job and have wasted a lot of your time when you could've been doing something you truly enjoy.

Me i do a bachelor of social science (environment) at rmit. i love it, can be a struggle at times but i love the challenge. a few jobs always in that sector but i did it more for enjoyment rather than future money.

* group work is awful. i cop it all the time with the claim 'oh but this is what you are going to encounter in the workforce' but when people dont turn up or pull their weight, we fail or do crap. in the workplace when people don't turn up, a majority of the time they don't get paid and can get fired. bit of a difference
 
hamohawk1 said:
* group work is awful. i cop it all the time with the claim 'oh but this is what you are going to encounter in the workforce' but when people dont turn up or pull their weight, we fail or do crap. in the workplace when people don't turn up, a majority of the time they don't get paid and can get fired. bit of a difference
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Unfortunately, lazy lecturers who couldn't hack it in the workforce only want to mark 25% of the assignments. In reality they don't care what you'll encounter in the workforce, they just want to make their jobs as straight forward as possible.
 
checkraiseulite said:
Unfortunately, lazy lecturers who couldn't hack it in the workforce only want to mark 25% of the assignments. In reality they don't care what you'll encounter in the workforce, they just want to make their jobs as straight forward as possible.
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Sometimes it is impractical to mark individual assignments. In HR Training, the task is so large and time consuming that the lecturer said she had to mark group assignments because there was no way 100 individual exercises were being marked. As for written group assignments, she laughed as she said 100 papers take her all of 4-5 hours to mark and she did say there were a lot of lazy lecturers especially in fields like accounting where the papers take all of 1 minute to mark. Generally a good sign with group work is if you have an individual component assignment as well.
 
Alright so i was originally planning to do a BSC, physiotherapy which requires an atar of 90 but i somehow managed to fail the final exam for my highest class and got scaled quite harshly ending up with an atar of 79 or something. Now I've been accepted into BSC Human Biology Preclinical at curtin which only required a 70, It's described as a degree for those unsure of which area of health they're interested in and sets you up for a masters degree in either physio, chiro, dental, pharmacy etc.

Now would it be better for me to complete this degree and then do a masters in physio? Or would it be better to do a semester of the human biology degree and if my marks warrant it transfer into a bachelor of physio?
:confused:

I'm currently on my gap year so I'll be heading to Curtin next year!

Links:
Human Biology Degree:
http://courses.curtin.edu.au/course_overview/undergraduate/human-biology

Master of Physio:
http://courses.curtin.edu.au/course_overview/postgraduate/Master-Physiotherapy

So all up that'd take me a bit over 5 years which would only be a year longer than the bachelor of physiotherapy.
 
BomberGal said:
My first exams are in a month. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't think any med student ever knows what they are doing.
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I empathise with those pictures fully, they never really change after so many years.

It's nice to do well, and most people will feel swamped/get behind at some point, but I haven't yet had a patient quiz me on basic sciences.

All you have to do is pass, marks have very limited importance to your future career in most specialities.

The majority of people pass, its mostly our neuroses that tell us we won't.
 

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slashin_velvet said:
Just to be clear, you're only talking med correct?
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Yes, your performance on the job is more important. Good marks are certainly advantageous, but not essential. Nobody cares about how you did in primary school.

Other professions put more emphasis on university marks.

I think everyone who has been to university and (finally) graduated would realise how pointless some of what they teach you is.
 
cartel said:
I empathise with those pictures fully, they never really change after so many years.

It's nice to do well, and most people will feel swamped/get behind at some point, but I haven't yet had a patient quiz me on basic sciences.

All you have to do is pass, marks have very limited importance to your future career in most specialities.

The majority of people pass, its mostly our neuroses that tell us we won't.
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The basic science doesn't worry me per se - I did a BSc and worked as a biomedical scientist for years - it's just the vast quantity I haven't done before. Conceptually I'm fine, but really, why do I need to regurgitate all the complement pathways...
 
Alas university has become like a TECh these days where people go to get training to get skills to do a particular job, rather than going to actually learn.
 
Harry Stefanovic said:
Alas university has become like a TECh these days where people go to get training to get skills to do a particular job, rather than going to actually learn.
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This is partly why I quit my Comp Sci degree at Adelaide Uni, it was pretty obvious to see if you stopped and looked, and pretty depressing. When you have subjects entirely dedicated to making a student a more efficient and less litigation-generating office worker, you know how much value they place on actual learning and knowledge. The Engineering students were actively discouraged from further research and going on to do Postgrad studies, because it made them less likely to be employed.

That, and I was tired of Mathematics. If I'd known that 95% of my time in a Comp Sci degree would be spent in Mathematics courses, rather than programming and such - which I was poor at anyway - I never would have enrolled.

I won't deny I made a lot of bad decisions in those days, mostly fueled by 5 high school careers advice lesson years of "Pick the degree which earns you the most money at the end, not what interests you most"

Planning to go back as an external student and get a degree in Communications (Arts), because it's fairly relevant to where I want to take myself. Also going to pick up the Philosophy Adelaide forced me to drop, purely for funsies.

I also must be one of the few people who had a friend complete a Law degree, and then go on to become an actual Lawyer!
 
Has anyone here known someone who did Advanced Maths at Sydney or similar?
http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Bachelor-of-Science-Advanced-Mathematics
Just looking for anything regarding employability, usefulness (as per thread title), anything... even any info regarding all that, for maths in general. In Australia, or overseas. Whatever you have to throw :thumbsu:

In year 11, absolutely love maths, and while it's still early, it looks like the degree that suits my interests the most, meaning (under the condition I manage a 98.35 or whatever it is) I would probably do it regardless of anything said here. But upon stumbling on this thread, thought I may as well ask around, and just in case there's someone who can say "OH GOD DON'T DO IT BECAUSE _______" and I might listen in, haha :)
Thanks
 
From my personal experience, the best bit of advice I can give is don't pick a degree based on how much money you can earn once you graduate. You'll end up hating it, and needing a serious amount of work ethic to even complete the degree with a credit average.

Enrol in something you're interested in, that you're passionate about. Sounds like that's Mathematics for you. Employability should always be an afterthought.
 
Perceived financial rewards and employability aren't the same thing.

I'd hate to spend at least three years working hard on something and accumulating a large debt to then not be able to work in my desired field.

When planning my career, both were important to me, but not the primary thing. Idealism needs to be tempered with realism.
 
hey guys not really relevant but just a quick question
I failed 3 of my 4 units last semester (didn't really bother with uni) but now I am pretty switched on.
DO you think i am still eligible to study overseas given my bad record? I'm at deakin if that means anything
 
LionMen If you've got a real passion for it and are willing to work hard, the sky is the limit.
 
All knowledgfe is useful.

Careers are not important.

Science is mans only salvation.

Do a science degree.
 
Tetris said:
Has anyone here known someone who did Advanced Maths at Sydney or similar?
http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Bachelor-of-Science-Advanced-Mathematics
Just looking for anything regarding employability, usefulness (as per thread title), anything... even any info regarding all that, for maths in general. In Australia, or overseas. Whatever you have to throw :thumbsu:

In year 11, absolutely love maths, and while it's still early, it looks like the degree that suits my interests the most, meaning (under the condition I manage a 98.35 or whatever it is) I would probably do it regardless of anything said here. But upon stumbling on this thread, thought I may as well ask around, and just in case there's someone who can say "OH GOD DON'T DO IT BECAUSE _______" and I might listen in, haha :)
Thanks
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Not Sydney Uni but I did my Maths undergrad and postgrad down the road at UNSW. The Sydney Uni course is pretty well regarded so if you get in, and you still want to do it, go for it.

I mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but it's important so I'll say it again. What lets a lot of Maths/Science/Engineering graduates down when it comes to employability is their ******* awful writing skills. You can be the smartest guy in the room but if you can't put your ideas down on paper so that your employers can understand it, you'll struggle to get anywhere.
 
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