Your story also proves that a degree is bullshit for commerce/business/finance/economics, if hes up for a promotion in an illustrious position.
If you’re paying anybody $600,000 a year to do anything, and you’re not checking the hell out of their background, that’s on you, not them 
If you're paying anybody $600,000 a year to do anything, and you're not checking the hell out of their background, that's on you, not them :)
The word you’re looking for is governance.
The idea of placement is all well and good, but good luck finding enough workplaces that have actual meaningful work for those placement students to do.
I’d be happy if you could just shadow someone so you know the kind of work you’re getting in.
Glad I did my degree, though it’s meant zilch from a career perspective to this point. Did Commerce, majored in accounting but fell into a position post-Uni that had no need for CA/CPA qualifications so never followed through with that side of things. Luckily I like my actual job (still in the same company nearly ten years later), but career development opportunities are extremely limited with or without tertiary qualifications.
Probably wouldn’t do it again if I had my time over, but it’s something to be able to fall back on if/when I decide it’s time for a new job.
After coasting through high school I did what everyone else was being pushed to do and went to uni in the late 90s. Dropped out half way through my third semester. Me and study are like oil and water; we just don’t mix. I was studying Med & Pharm Biotechnology at the time and knew I was walking away from a potential career in something that I had keen interest in but I also knew I was going slowly insane continuing down the (admittedly relatively short) academic path.
Bummed around for a couple of years working casually at supermarkets stocking shelves, working night fill, bakery etc until a mate offered me a job at a warehouse he was working at. It paid more than I was getting and the hours were decent - between 35 - 60 hrs - which was great for the overtime rates. Lifting boxes and packing stock for export but I didn’t care. A year later, got my forklift license (forklift driving is still one of my fondest work life memories). A year after that the company took me onto their books from the labour hire company they used and I moved onto a more office-based job managing inventory.
That was 14 years ago. I now work in supply chain planning and have found working literally from the ground up gives me the skills that grads and other tertiary qualified people don’t have any insight of. I know full-well how every decision that I now make impact the whole supply chain from the ground up. It makes me sound like a ■■■■■■, but I am the best at what I do and management have the confidence in me to make decisions that are probably above my pay grade.
What uni doesn’t teach is how things such as office politics and professional relationships work, how to tailor your position/argument based on the audience you are talking to and any other practical areas. I still use my experience working in a warehouse to this day and is a contributor to conversations on probably at least a weekly basis.
Every now and again I go through the whole “what-if” in my head and contemplate going back to study but in the end I know it’s just not suited to me and would be a complete waste of time and money.
(That got a bit more personal than i planned it to…)
Forklift driving gets a bad wrap for what is, essentially, hooning around on a go kart all day. I occasionally get to cruise on one now, and it’s generally the highlight of the day.
Good story Gillsy, I know plenty of people who have done a similar path to you.
University is an option, but it’s not the only viable one. Far from it actually.
I personally think that Uni is only necessary if you are doing something very specific i.e science related, medicine, engineering etc.If it’s ‘vague’ like my Commerce degree was, or like many art degree’s are, then it’s essentially a big fat waste of time and money.
Furthermore, in 15 years of work I’ve only once been asked to provide proof of my degree. So…
For anything business related, you can learn everything you need on the internet. There are plenty of free courses and seminars online that can give you the same level of knowledge. You can even rock up to a university and just sit in on lectures; they don’t do roll call on a few hundred people.
Then, just say you have a degree… Very few employers actually check, and you’ll have the knowledge anyway to back it up.
That’s a great post IMO.
It’s not as though universities hold exclusive study material/content that cannot be found anywhere else. You’re exactly right; for business/commerce this stuff is everywhere online and so easily accessible. As you say, the knowledge you could be able to attain would not be anything less if you did enough reading/analysing or your ‘own learning.’
What uni doesn't teach is how things such as office politics and professional relationships work, how to tailor your position/argument based on the audience you are talking to and any other practical areas.Depends what you study. In my degree I did two units dedicated to these specific areas (Organisational Structure & Design, and Business Communications).
Furthermore, in 15 years of work I've only once been asked to provide proof of my degree. So...Huh, I don't think anyone's actually asked me ever.
Guess I should start including the MBA I got last week on my resume.
The old “didn’t learn anything at school/uni, I learned it all through life” adage is complete and utter horsesht, by the way.
Education develops skills such as critical analysation, comprehension, problem solving and communication which in turn makes forming additional skills and retaining knowledge a much easier process in your mind. While you may not have applied specific knowledge retained from school or uni, you have definitely used those skills in the years since.
The number one lesson I learnt at uni was how to extract pure caffeine from instant coffee. Problem was we used carcinogens to do it. Didn’t stop the following lecture being basically unteachable since we wouldn’t shut the hell up.
Googles caffeine extraction coffee
The old "didn't learn anything at school/uni, I learned it all through life" adage is complete and utter horsesht, by the way.Education develops skills such as critical analysation, comprehension, problem solving and communication which in turn makes forming additional skills and retaining knowledge a much easier process in your mind. While you may not have applied specific knowledge retained from school or uni, you have definitely used those skills in the years since.
If this was 100% true we wouldn’t need unis, we may as well just have more high school years.
Unis just a way of showing an employer your ability to get something done. If I looked at a Cv and saw someone took 10 years to do a degree in between f@rt arsing about Europe and bonging on I’d be askjng a few questions around why.
These days I just feel so lucky I started a qualification that lead to a Cadetship that lead to a job that lead to experience. And then lead to a solid network that will help when I start looking for something new.
Uni doesn’t really dictate all that but it does show people your ability to knuckle down and get the job done.
The old "didn't learn anything at school/uni, I learned it all through life" adage is complete and utter horsesht, by the way.Education develops skills such as critical analysation, comprehension, problem solving and communication which in turn makes forming additional skills and retaining knowledge a much easier process in your mind. While you may not have applied specific knowledge retained from school or uni, you have definitely used those skills in the years since.
critical analysis? Uni has taught me such things.