The Economy

[najaB]

If you are looking to set up a travel company a degree in business and perhaps international law would be more useful.

I strongly suspect that those factor in the syllabus.

 

[Barn]

Look up the UK’s most favourable graduate employers (favourable as in, if you get onto it, potentially paying you a life changing salary in your 20s) and look at some grad profiles. You’ll find the vast majority of people who get onto these grad schemes studied at one of the “usual suspect” unis, and studied subjects that are regarded as academically rigorous.

This is definitely true, for better or for worse. In law (as in accountancy) it doesn't really matter which subject you study, so long as it is 'rigorous' and so long as the university is a decent redbrick. History from Bristol, Physics from Manchester, Classics from Oxford, Engineering from Durham, all fine. Unfortunately, graduates starting expensive graduate conversion courses whilst carrying 'non-rigorous' degrees from former polytechnics are, as a rule, being led astray by the marketing departments of those graduate schools.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I just can't envisage in what way a degree in travel would help. In fact I can't imagine what such a degree would involve (which perhaps means I should shut up, ha ha).

It doesn't take much Googling to find out I think what is being referred to as a degree in 'travel' is actually 'Travel and Tourism'. Interestingly, I can find very few of what you'd think of as the 'traditional' Universities offering such a degree. Mainly it seems to be being offered by ex-polytechnics and colleges that don't themselves have University status but offer degrees that are validated by a University somewhere else. As one example of a syllabus, :

The Travel and Tourism programme is designed to enhance self-reflection and personal development. The three stages of the programme are designed to facilitate increasingly challenging learning techniques as students’ progress. Topics covered include:

• Academic Skills
• Management and Organisations
• Marketing and Communications
• Professional Skills
• Customer Service Management for Travel and Tourism
• Financial Decision Making for Travel and Tourism
• Fundamentals of Travel and Tourism
• Policy and Planning in the Tourism Industry
• Employability Skills
• Digital Marketing
• Airline, Travel Agency and Tour Operations
• E-Tourism
• Cultural Tourism

I have to admit that, comparing that list of topics with the syllabus on my physics degree - and with what I know friends of mine studied in their degrees on subjects like maths, engineering, and modern languages - it really doesn't look at all demanding to me. To my mind a degree is something that ought to teach you an in-depth understanding of some specialist area AND challenge you intellectually to be able to think clearly and reason out difficult problems, and I'm struggling to see that this list of topics can achieve that.

'Academic skills' is so vague on a syllabus as to be almost meaningless. And some of the other stuff on that list look more like the kind of skills you'd expect to learn in an apprenticeship rather than a degree - not a bad thing in itself but whether you should call that a degree? Combine that with the lack of traditional Universities offering this kind of course and I do feel a bit sceptical about whether it really can challenge people as much as a traditional academic degree. (On the other hand, GSM London claim to have much lower fees than traditional Universities)

 

[Barn]

Combine that with the lack of traditional Universities offering this kind of course and I do feel a bit sceptical about whether it really can challenge people as much as a traditional academic degree.

One slightly cynical point about these very practical business degrees is that, if the teachers really were passionate and successful practitioners of that business, they would be out there making lots of money in the sector rather than teaching it. This is less applicable in academic subjects, which are taught as an adjunct to research activities.

 

[trash80]

Well looking at an example tourism degree (first match on google) it seems to include accreditation and quite a varied syllabus including marketing, research skills and human behavioural studies. To be honest it looks like a decent course to do if you want to work in that area.

 

[WelshBluebird]

All this talk about "useless degrees", seems to miss that some of the ones that are usually rolled out as examples actually have very good reputations and have very good numbers when it comes to graduates employed in the relevant industry. Golf Studies at Birmingham or the various Computer Games courses at Abertay are good examples of this! Of course, no one is saying that every degree is useful, and there are certainly some that just simply are not worth it. But to simple make the assumption that because a course isn't a traditional academic subject then it isn't worth it is a massive mistake.

 

[trash80]

The much maligned Media Studies also has very high employability rates.

 

[Barn]

All this talk about "useless degrees", seems to miss that some of the ones that are usually rolled out as examples actually have very reputations and have very good numbers when it comes to graduates employed in the relevant industry. Golf Studies at Birmingham or the various Computer Games courses at Abertay are good examples of this! Of course, no one is saying that every degree is useful, and there are certainly some that just simply are not worth it. But to simple make the assumption that because a course isn't a traditional academic subject then it isn't worth it is a massive mistake.

I think that's true - it's just that they have quite a defined utility (i.e. they have value within the industry in question) and less of a value as a generic Bachelors qualification for jobs that simply require "a degree".

 

[DynamicSpirit]

One slightly cynical point about these very practical business degrees is that, if the teachers really were passionate and successful practitioners of that business, they would be out there making lots of money in the sector rather than teaching it. This is less applicable in academic subjects, which are taught as an adjunct to research activities.

That's true, although there is another side to that, which is that teaching is a skill and career in its own right, which probably needs to be done by people who know how to teach and are passionate about teaching. I have many memories from my undergraduate days of lectures being given by people who may well have been brilliant researchers but evidently had no clue how to put together and present the material for a lecture so that it was understandable. And indeed, when I first started my phd, I was immediately given the task of tutoring some first year undergraduates, with no training offered on how to do this, on the assumption that because I'd got my degree I would somehow automatically be able to teach. At the time I was delighted to have been given that responsibility (which itself is probably the wrong attitude) but now looking back on it, I strongly suspect the result wasn't particularly good for the undergraduates

There's clearly an overlap between practising a profession (whether it's research or something else) and teaching it - and there certainly are people who are great at doing both. But the two do require very different skill-sets (and probably somewhat different passions), so there's a good argument that people who are great at some profession aren't necessarily the best ones to teach it.

 

[fowler9]

It doesn't take much Googling to find out I think what is being referred to as a degree in 'travel' is actually 'Travel and Tourism'. Interestingly, I can find very few of what you'd think of as the 'traditional' Universities offering such a degree. Mainly it seems to be being offered by ex-polytechnics and colleges that don't themselves have University status but offer degrees that are validated by a University somewhere else. As one example of a syllabus, :



I have to admit that, comparing that list of topics with the syllabus on my physics degree - and with what I know friends of mine studied in their degrees on subjects like maths, engineering, and modern languages - it really doesn't look at all demanding to me. To my mind a degree is something that ought to teach you an in-depth understanding of some specialist area AND challenge you intellectually to be able to think clearly and reason out difficult problems, and I'm struggling to see that this list of topics can achieve that.

'Academic skills' is so vague on a syllabus as to be almost meaningless. And some of the other stuff on that list look more like the kind of skills you'd expect to learn in an apprenticeship rather than a degree - not a bad thing in itself but whether you should call that a degree? Combine that with the lack of traditional Universities offering this kind of course and I do feel a bit sceptical about whether it really can challenge people as much as a traditional academic degree. (On the other hand, GSM London claim to have much lower fees than traditional Universities)

Yeah, my Mechanical Engineering degree included law and business studies. No offence to anyone who studied business but it was the easiest module on the course (and the only one I got 100% in one of the exams). Let's of the stuff on that syllabus looks like fluff. I am sure it is very interesting but does it really warrant being a degree. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a snob and I don't think I'm better than anyone else. My degree didn't serve me well, that is my fault and had I applied myself I could have done better but it didn't interest me and I wish I had studied languages instead or just done an apprenticeship in the engineering field. These wacky courses are pointless though and call centres nationwide are full of people who studied them.

 

[najaB]

No offence to anyone who studied business but it was the easiest module on the course (and the only one I got 100% in one of the exams). Let's of the stuff on that syllabus looks like fluff.

I'm reasonably sure that Business as a single module in a Mechanical Engineering course will be a little easier than a degree in Business.

 

[fowler9]

I'm reasonably sure that Business as a single module in a Mechanical Engineering course will be a little easier than a degree in Business.

Well it was set by the business school at the University of Bradford. The Electrical Engineering module wasn't made any easier, pretty much everyone had to re sit the exam. Several people managed results of around 2%.

 

[Barn]

That's true, although there is another side to that, which is that teaching is a skill and career in its own right, which probably needs to be done by people who know how to teach and are passionate about teaching.

Oh, that's absolutely right. Teaching is definitely a skill and it certainly does not come naturally to all experts in a field. I studied Physics too and, whilst all of my lecturers were excellent physicists, not all of them were quite up to Richard Feynman standard in terms of imparting that knowledge.

But I suspect a large part of the passion for teaching comes for a passion for the subject matter as well as a passion for education.

Do many lecturers really have a passion for tourism management? Maybe they do, but it strikes me that if they really did they would be out in industry practising it. At least with a subject like Physics, a natural home for a person passionate in the subject is at a university.

 

[AlterEgo]

The much maligned Media Studies also has very high employability rates.

...in poorly paid work.

 

[trash80]

...in poorly paid work.

Well thats the media industry for you, its not alone

 

[AlterEgo]

Well thats the media industry for you, its not alone

A lot of them aren’t working in fields that have anything to do with their degree.

 

[Barn]

Employability rates for all degrees are pretty high when the test is simply "is this person in regular work?", as a result of the general employment rate. The only degrees with a low level of employment are degrees like theatre and creative writing, and that is presumably because it is common to take casual work whilst writing your book / waiting for your big acting break.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I was specifically talking about employability rates in the relevant industry. Indeed the figures for some of these courses is much much higher than some other "more traditional" subjects.
A lot of this is down to industry links the university / department has, and is very much the case for the two examples I gave earlier (golf studies and some games courses).

 

[underbank]

One slightly cynical point about these very practical business degrees is that, if the teachers really were passionate and successful practitioners of that business, they would be out there making lots of money in the sector rather than teaching it.

Business management is very different from entreprenneurship. Just because you know "how" to run a business doesn't mean you have any ability in areas such as new product development, marketing, wheeling & dealing etc - it just means you understand accounts, admin processes, systems, people management etc. Two VERY different skill sets.