[blazey]

I genuinely believe University education is too open to just anyone. The problem is mostly that there are too many low quality universities offering some pretty poor quality degrees, some of which aren't really even necessary at degree level because too much focus has been put on paper-based qualifications and not enough attention on actual transferable skills.

I go to University with many people who believe a degree is enough to get them a graduate job. The problem is obviously that everyone can get a degree these days and the average classification of degree is a 2.1

Companies obviously value a 2.1 in subjects more than others, most employers prefer a 2.1 and a well-rounded student than someone with just a 1st class degree and there are all sorts of other factors taken into account by them that are entirely ignored by a lot of students.

Many of my friends comment on my extremely busy schedule but they are all pretty certain that I'll end up in a decent paid graduate job at the end of it all, whereas there are students much more academically stronger than me who are really worried about their futures.

Opening education up to everyone has pretty much created a false sense of security and basically a lot of lazy students who live as easily as they can til they are forced to work, most often than not in ordinary jobs rather than the better paid graduate jobs.

I'm lucky enough to have the drive to do the extra-curricular work though admittedly I could work harder for my actual degree and push up my marks, but I speak to big employers everyday so I know what they want, and I make it my aim to make sure I have that information. Sadly many people don't and they drag the quality of everyones degrees down with them and so many universities get some pretty talented students that have ability to succeed in careers but may not be particularly academically talented or whatever, but they're just constantly overshadowed by the low quality students who go just to avoid real life.

And even half the people on accyweb have commented on how out of touch students like me and Andrew are with real life so the stereotype must have developed from somewhere and it certainly isn't the traditional view of university students.

University did need to be reformed but it was a bad idea opening it up to everyone through tuition fees and creating a load of useless degrees in my opinion and now we all pay for that by having to work twice as hard just to overcome some of the problems it has created.