Saw this article over at the Daily Mail
As this relates specifically to my own career I thought I'd make comment.
I started out my career path to accountancy as a university student, got myself a small pile of debt circa £13k as I was lucky enough to start under the previous system before fees were upped from £1.2k to £3k.
Having seen this announcement of plans by Deloitte to start looking more into apprenticeship style placements I have to commend them for bringing this route to a professional career more into the mainstream. As a college student I studied A-Level accountancy and I have to say that this route was almost totally glossed over when discussions were had over next steps and university courses are actively encouraged. So like a good little sheep at the time I applied for university, was accepted and subsequently studied the first two years of my course.
It was only after beginning my work placement year that I discovered not only can you obtain the professional qualification on a purely work-based learning basis but that the ACCA also have a degree partnership with the Oxford Brookes University by which you turn 9/14 exams into a BSc via two written pieces of work.
To put this into perspective it is possible to achieve much the same end result but one route potentially puts you into ~£40,000 debt!! where the other you earn a wage and obtain a degree just the same. The additional fee on top of the professional exams you ask? £95!!
After working for a year in a small accountancy practice along with discovering this information, my own decision was as a rational human being to ditch university and head out into the world of work. Instead of increasing my student debt I am now already paying it off whilst continuing along the path to obtaining my exact same end result.
I hope that more people will do the same.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Tuition fees
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14 comments:
SW, good stuff. I did much the same thing only the other way round - I worked for a few years first and saved up to go to uni, which compared to working is like a three-year holiday. And I converted my BA into ACCA by taking the last four exams in one go.
Well I dropped out a little further back than that and need to do 3 exams to be on the final stage and also be able to convert ACCA into BSc, all being well Summer 2011.
This is also partly because an accountancy degree is a daft waste of a degree, since it's a professional qualification demonstrating tradesmanlike skills, not a university qualification demonstrating academic skills.
This is also why alleged academics who specialise in accounting (see: Mr Murphy's crony Prem Sikka) are such ropey charlatans who are a disgrace to both professions.
When I was at PwC, everyone ACA-qualified or ACA-training was an arts or social sciences grad who'd had a nice time at uni doing something they liked (but not very strenuously), joined a few clubs for amusement + CV value, landed a gentlemanly 2:1, and then got paid gbp25k+ a year for the training period to dogsbody in audit for six months and study for the ACA for six.
The concept of someone choosing to *do an accounting degree at uni* was frankly alien to everyone concerned...
"for six months a year", I should say, lest any yoofs reading the piece misunderstand me - the one drawback of that route was the time-to-qualification period.
It's pretty obvious, isn't it, that people who aren't interested in getting an education and just want to be accountants shouldn't bother with a degree. This applies particularly if they suspect that what many unis hawk isn't woth the name "education" anyway.
@ john b & dearieme:
Now that i've decided to jack in university and take the route that i'm taking I wholeheartedly agree with you, accountancy doesn't require a degree and those who have trained up during a period of work-based learning tend to be better at the job. The biggest problem from my point of view is that colleges are actively pushing degrees as the "best route" which is a total falsehood, had I been more free thinking back in my youth (hence the like a good little sheep comment in the original post) and properly researched career routes I would have definitely gone down the work-based learning route. I would also now advise anybody else considering accountancy to do the same not only because its more forgiving on the pocket but it also leaves open the government loan facilities to undertake a degree in a different subject should you decide you dislike accountancy.
The effect of the rise in degrees in the software development industry is that companies almost exclusively hire graduates and rather than what they used to do: hire smart guys with good A levels and train them.
There's nothing wrong with having some comp sci graduates. If you're going to write a compiler or perhaps build rendering software for Pixar then you really need that level of education. But for most needs, you don't.
For most corporate programming (over 95% of the industry), you need something like an OND or HNC in computing. Study it over a year or two, part or full-time at a college.
And this is why student costs isn't going to be a problem. Employers will just notice that they can't get graduates for a certain type of job and downgrade their requirements to A-levels or something like an OND.
JT:"And this is why student costs isn't going to be a problem. Employers will just notice that they can't get graduates for a certain type of job and downgrade their requirements to A-levels or something like an OND."
I agree with this, I think its more important to identify different routes to careers and educate people as to their options than to fight tuition fee rises.
"The biggest problem from my point of view is that colleges are actively pushing degrees as the "best route" which is a total falsehood"
Universities are in the business of selling degree courses, they have no interest in what is most cost-effective for their customers.
Let's just say I disagree with Joseph Takagi.
I think all programmers should learn Formal Logic, set theory and the other maths "behind" computers.
You're right that it shouldn't take 3 years, but that's uni for you.
ACO,
I think all programmers should learn Formal Logic, set theory and the other maths "behind" computers.
One module of the BTEC OND was a maths module. I remember it well because I stopped going because I realised I knew it all (then flunked an exam question on validating a modulus 11 check digit!).
I'm certainly not in favour of certs for programmers, precisely because they're more about syntax than understanding what you're doing.
Come to think of it I also think Programmers should know the common Algorithms + Data Structures such as Sorting and Linked Lists and also a bit of Machine code.
Maybe I should run a course for business recruiters?
New Godwin 1: any thread on a libertarian-ish blog about skills and careers of any description will eventually turn into a thread about skills and careers in IT.
Relatedly, new Godwin 2: any thread on a leftie-ish blog about skills careers of any description will eventually turn into a thread about skills and careers in the public or social sector.
New Godwin 2a: unless it's a leftie blog primarily by/for academics, in which case it will start as a thread about skills and careers in academia and stay there.
I'm a leftish management consultant. In this context, me, Dan Davies and Matt Turner are basically Millwall.
IB, new Godwin 3: Blog host admits that while he knows who John B is, he doesn't have a clue who Dan Davies or Matt Turner are, let alone what 'basically Millwall' means. I assume a reference to the London football club whose followers have a reputation for violence?
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