Posted on Thursday 1st of June 2006 at 11:21 in Random

How bad was your degree?

While the argument of BSc vs BA continues, and shall forevermore, it is worth considering that the quality of your degree varies incredibly from university to university - which is not necessarily reflected by it's position in the rankings.

Because of this, a graduate from Oxbridge is not necessarily better than one from Bath, conversely, a school-leaver who used his/her free time wisely is not necessarily worse than any graduate. The reason for this is that the specifics of each degree vary hugely from institution to institution - and I can happily claim this after completing a Computer Science degree from the University of East Anglia. UEA was ranked within the top 10 for Computer Science when I joined but this was not indiciative of (1) the quality of the teaching or (2) how badly things could turn.

I have learnt that while things may start well, they normally will. The cynic in me thinks this is so the university can secure your money for the second year, by which point, if you were going to drop out - you would have by now. The beginnings of teaching programming languages are fairly basic, example led tutorial lab sessions, which are childsplay to write and simple enough to not require any serious resources to support them. However, when material becomes more complicated, at UEA (a top 10 place at the start of 03/04 remember?) the learning exercises hold no help whatsoever. The result of this? I am graduating in a smattering of days having learnt EVERYTHING myself, going for interviews for jobs that hold nothing my degree taught, but more things I have taught myself BECAUSE the university failed to.

So, a top degree from a top 10 university has been able to drop in the rankings and offer no directed learning within 3 short years? It seems impressive to fall from grace so quickly, but on the grounds that myself and ~200 of my computing peers have paid ?1,150 for the pleasure of being largely overlooked by the university. Again, the cynic in me feels this is because UEA as a "business" stands to gain more by luring more first-years back into the second year.

This doesn't mean all hope is lost of course, because I have still enjoyed the university experience and have still gained skills worth hiring, but I do believe that I gained these skills externally to my degree, the degree just forced the reason upon me to make the tutorials of the world bleed... As well as reducing the life expectancy of one of my friends through stress, who has henceforth been labelled "the oracle" after teaching me my degree. He, fits into the category of a school leaver who used his time productively and is gaining very little from university academically.

So what? Don't go to university? Of course you should, it's excellent, but don't assume that (1) the university rankings mean your degree will go swimmingly or (2) that you will become a world beating coder without any effort. I have had the pleasure of being lumped into groups with fellow comp-scientists who have made it 3 years into the degree and are still unable to program anything at all.

How bad was your degree? Is UEA alone in offering little to no learning support? Post comments :)

 

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