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The grumpy thread


outlaw118

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Third year uni is just too much for me. I don't have a clue what I'm doing and it's stressing me out. Its all time I could be in work and it's impacting every part of my life. As a result I'm constantly on my own, broke as I've no time to make money and don't have enough loan, and whenever I try to work I don't know where to start.

 

It's made me realise I've been waiting several months for counselling on the local services now and they haven't got back to me. I've had to stop taking my meds too as when I do take them now I keep passing out every time I tried to get out of bed, and spacing out for the rest of the day.

I'd go through the university but I tried that in second year and I didn't get past an initial assessment as trying to talk to them was like trying to talk to a brick wall.

 

I suppose it doesn't help that I live so far from uni and need a job to keep myself going, yet between that and uni I don't have the time and financial stability to keep afloat. I can't stop working but I can't forego uni and it just leaves me confused.

I think I'd rather work, the sense of freedom is fulfilling. I'd feel bad for not graduating but I'm not sure I actually can.

 

I just feel I'm letting people down and I don't know what the right thing to do is. Societal norms are just brainwashing bullshit, but at the same time my mind is at odds with itself.

Iirc you're doing a Computing type degree?

 

The last year in my degree (Robotics if you're interested) was and is the toughest year of my life. Even after a decade later I still occasionally wake up in a cold sweat and panic that it's assignment hand in day but I've forgotten to even start something.

 

If you're struggling, get help. I've been on both sides of the fence, learning and then later lecturing. Most universities have a good support network. Most lectures as well are more than happy to give extra help in work that you're struggling on.

 

To get to the third year by passing your previous years, you must know something about what your doing though. This year may be tough, but then if it wasn't, you wouldn't be learning. You may get some bits but other bits will be a struggle to learn. Those bits you will just have to keep grinding away at until you eventually get there.

 

If you do want to get into anything IT based and especially software engineering, you do really need a degree in most jobs. There will always be people that don't of course, but until you get experience it will be bloody difficult. After you get a decade or more experience, a degree becomes pretty meaningless. However after speaking to others who haven't got a degree (and a fair bit older), they still find that they're looked over for positions against others with degrees.

 

If you enjoy the IT industry it can reward pretty well. Software in particular you can be earning 20-30k just after graduation, 30k-40k with a few years experience and once you get nearly to a decade (in a region of the country that has plentiful of software jobs) it's not unreasonable to expect 40k-60k+. Or go contracting and expect £350+ a day. Plenty enough for buying all the rusty, old British cars you can fit on your drive or oddly coloured German SUVs...

 

If you don't like the IT industry, still crack on with your degree. You've spent a lot getting to this stage, so you might as well grin and bare it to get that final bit of paper. A very good mate who was in the same course as me got to the end of second year and decided that he chose the wrong degree. I helped him a lot to get through his final year. After a year bumming around on crap jobs, he went off to do his masters in product design. He now earns similar to me, living in Devon and designing paddle boards for a living.

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SiC is spot on - it is difficult (but not impossible) to get into IT without a degree. You would be starting very low down the pecking order and find it difficult to progress. My final year was stupidly difficult too.

 

I went into a £30k graduate job, £50k three years off program (so 5 years in) and I’m now contracting.

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I will echo above Ghosty.

 

I work as lecturer, one of the areas that has money pulled from it is mental health provision. Saying that if you are really struggling you will be surprised at how much can be done.

 

We have hardship funds, extra bursaries including covering travel costs for those students in need. These get unlocked if people come to us with issues.

 

Level 6 is hard and rightly so - it is a big step up from level 5 with more expectations of reading and less direction from lecturers. If you have had time out it is doubly hard as you have to get back in the groove of studying.

 

The first semester is the hardest - but keep going.

 

My advice to students in that situation :

 

1) go book appointment with your personal tutor and explain it all. You may need to agree a study plan to give yourself more space and time

 

2) go see disability service if you think you will qualify - they can unlock extra help - tell them you are on meds

 

3) see student services - they should have access to mental health support

 

4) see what the student union has to offer - these are more and more taking over some of the essential services

 

5) look up bursaries that are available in your local are and at the university - you will be surprised how much money can be accessed

 

6) don't just drop out - if it is too much - ask for suspension of study - that gives you options including moving to different university closer to you or go back to study later on in life.

 

As people said degrees aren't everything, but are a starting point.

 

What you do in your dissertation is actually more important often than your subject area.

 

If I can help them feel free to PM me.

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^^^ My experience of working with recent graduates is most of them can't wipe their own arse yet think they know how to run the world. Some turn out good, but as Mrcento said, most need to start at the bottom anyway.

 

Having said that, I'd like to do a degree, but not in what I do for work. In something I enjoy such as British history.

 

So yeah, uni if you want to learn the stuff you are doing but not just because of the myth it lets you start life as a higher rate tax payer.

I can't remember why I did my degeee, but after 30 years in Manufacturing Industry it's kept me solvent and frustrated at the same time.

Basically I hate work.

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A late 70's early 80's version yes..... plus that twat who sent in the fake tape, lived a massive 2miles from us…. once the 'voice and language expert' said it was a Sunderland accent he was properly grilled! Luckily he too was exonerated as he was on ship trials 8miles off-shore when one of the attacks took place. Kind of ironic as he did want to join the police - the interviews and 'handling' properly put him off though!

The fake tape guy lived around a mile or so from me.

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I have been asked career advice before. Just....no.

 

I have used my career to date as an example of how not to succeed (Senate intervention for first degree, wrongful accusations of paying an MA student to write and submit work, clinical depression, failed due to non-submission of coursework, failed studio business, three years of call centre work, useless second degree I actually finished, useless radio jobs).......

 

.....but even I'd say finish your degree, Max.

 

May I suggest a year's suspension/intercalation to get some money saved up, then go back and finish your final year? Perhaps sir would like to get a placement or two in for the CV?

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I'd have to disagree about degrees and IT.  I have worked in IT for nearly 20 years and I don't have a degree.  (school of hard knocks, university of live etc) For most of that time I never had any qualifications other than GCSE's, an MCP in Windows 2000 and A+.  I still made it to Senior Infrastructure Engineer.  When I wanted to get into networking and earn more money about 6 years back I self studied and got my CCNP and CCDP which did open a few doors in that world and allow me to move on more easily.

 

However, as pointed out above, you'll likely have to go in to a 1st line helpdesk role and progression can be tricky - you need to be willing to leave jobs and go elsewhere if you want a promotion.  But I think this is true of almost every industry and moving around is healthy, the idea of finding a job, doing it for 50 years and then immediately dying is not for me anyway.

 

I'm not saying don't finish your degree, if you're already 3 years in then you definitely ought to, but there are plenty of other IT qualification paths that will open just as many, if not more doors.  The IT landscape is changing massively too, everything is moving to the cloud whether companies like it or not, so there is going to be huge demand for skills in things like Office 365, Azure AD, G Suite, AWS etc.

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I'd have to disagree about degrees and IT. I have worked in IT for nearly 20 years and I don't have a degree. (school of hard knocks, university of live etc) For most of that time I never had any qualifications other than GCSE's, an MCP in Windows 2000 and A+. I still made it to Senior Infrastructure Engineer. When I wanted to get into networking and earn more money about 6 years back I self studied and got my CCNP and CCDP which did open a few doors in that world and allow me to move on more easily.

 

However, as pointed out above, you'll likely have to go in to a 1st line helpdesk role and progression can be tricky - you need to be willing to leave jobs and go elsewhere if you want a promotion. But I think this is true of almost every industry and moving around is healthy, the idea of finding a job, doing it for 50 years and then immediately dying is not for me anyway.

 

I'm not saying don't finish your degree, if you're already 3 years in then you definitely ought to, but there are plenty of other IT qualification paths that will open just as many, if not more doors. The IT landscape is changing massively too, everything is moving to the cloud whether companies like it or not, so there is going to be huge demand for skills in things like Office 365, Azure AD, G Suite, AWS etc.

I work with many people who have been in the industry 20+ years and don’t have a degree however for those that have been here 5+ like myself it’s a different story.

 

You are able to progress due to your extensive experience - without such it’s an uphill battle.

 

Agree with you 1000% on your last bit though - the landscape is changing very rapidly.

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I'd have to disagree about degrees and IT...

 

...The IT landscape is changing massively too, everything is moving to the cloud whether companies like it or not, so there is going to be huge demand for skills in things like Office 365, Azure AD, G Suite, AWS etc.

Another IT bod here without a degree. I started as a trainee helpdesk monkey on £11.5k and worked my way up, don't get me wrong I had several frustrating years doing so and looking at my friends working in warehouses or sat on a till at Aldi earning noticeably more but it was well worth the wait... I'm now a Cloud Infrastructure Architect after 11 years in'trade. 

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Financial services here - no degree.

 

Fell into it basically. Got a regular admin type job and people realised I wasn’t a complete idiot so let me have a little more responsibility and it went from there. Two or three of my mates who did go to Uni are doing better than I am although none of their degrees are actually in their field of work. They only went to avoid getting a job although I am not sure they would do that today when you look at the fees involved.

 

Best performing mate? Very senior at Merrill Lynch in New York now. Not only does he not have a degree, he failed all his A levels too. Another one is a very senior engineer in the US and whilst he has got an engineering degree now, he did that through the OU while working for HSS Hire shops.

 

Guy I worked with had a degree in Medicine. Seven years of study, qualified with honours, decided he would rather work in pensions!

 

Said it before and will say it again. There are skills we need and don’t have. Let’s make degrees and qualifications in those subjects free of charge. That way if you can’t afford to study but are intelligent, you can get a degree but not necessarily in what you like. Desperate to be a historian? That’s nice. £30k to study that thanks very much, but engineering degrees are free if you fancy it....

 

Worse case scenario is we end up with a shitload of engineers and not enough work for them. You can’t tell me there aren’t engineering jobs needed everywhere on the planet. Go west young folk, seek thy fortunes, and bring them all back in cash in a decade from now and buy a house outright

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I've had to stop taking my meds too as when I do take them now I keep passing out every time I tried to get out of bed, and spacing out for the rest of the day.

You need to get that checked and adjusted where possible by your doctor. You won't know how much of not taking your meds is causing other issues and a lot of that sort of medication can't just stop without other effects.

We also don't need you falling asleep while driving or riding round Manchester, there has to be a solution.

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In 1985 I was 21 , fallen into an amazing job on £20k a year working for 2 fit milfs ( must have been 30) in a music industry PR company, all the free receptionists, champagne and coke you could eat.

Fast forward 33 years and a customer of mine was reminiscing about when he was a student in 1985.

Turns out he used to walk past my flat in Wimbledon to catch the bus to Uni , probably even had to walk around my brand new white company XR3i parked half on the pavement.

Anyway now we're both 54 he's retired with a 911 Turbo and TVR Tuscan in the garage , a Golf R on the drive and goes all over the World to Grand Prix, Rugby, Golf, Horse Racing etc etc . I'm the one getting up at 04.00am to take him to the airport in a feckin' Passat...

I did feel( and act) like Billy Big Bollocks whenever I met school mates who were students in 1985 though, flashing the company credit card for drinks etc.

To rub salt in, those were the days that not only was uni free, you got a grant! What an idiot.

 

The moral of this tale is, get all the education you can, it's never going to hurt your future prospects . And make the university help you, youre paying a lot of money and if they were aware of your circumstances and needs when you signed up they should be offering you support. You can bet your life they can get funding for any extra resources based on your needs from the EA.

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So far as progression is concerned, I have always been of the opinion that you have one chance and one chance only to negotiate your terms and your place in the hierarchy, and that's the day they offer you the job.  I have been there myself, waiting on promises of pay rises that never materialise and promotions that exist in title only.  It eventually grinds you down to the point you have no motivation, which in turns brings down your life outside work too.  It seems to be a familiar story, I've seen a few people on here going through similar scenarios and seen friends and colleagues go through it too.

 

Maybe its more prevalent in industries like IT (and services in general) because they're always seen as a cost to the business rather than a revenue generator.  So the bean counters are more reluctant to give them funding.  One of the reasons I have stayed where I am now is they are making huge investments in their staff and infrastructure and have learned through the bitter experience of outsourcing that internal investment is the way forwards.

 

I still know that barring minor inflationary rises and incremental band increases I'm not going any higher at this place though.  I'd be waiting for the IT director to retire, hoping the head of infrastructure gets offered and takes his job, and then that I get his.  Which even if it all played out is not gonna happen for at least 10-15 years.  So if I decide I need more out of life then I'll have to change jobs.  Just the way it is.

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Not yet. Nordkapp is on the list of places to go, but it doesn't look cheap.

 

I spent a few days in nearby Hammerfest back in 2000... it's not cheap (= massive understatement), it was pitch dark all day except for a bit of twilight between 11am and 12.30pm, and it was very cold. I had a great time.

 

You won't find polar bears in north Norway nowadays though, their range is further north.

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I think the uni thing has been covered really but here's my 2p.

 

Its mainly a ticket to starting slightly higher up the ladder. I actually work in an area related to my degree and I only use stuff I learnt there 2% of the time.

 

As it happens my precious experince in unrelated jobs and hands on shite fettling is of much more use than anything from uni. But I would never have got through the door for the interview without the bit of paper that says I attended uni for some years and wrote at least one big bit of coursework.

 

You can work your way up from the bottom in any industry but I imagine it's normally much harder.

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Actually thinking about it, that leads me on to a grump. 

 

Modern universities are shite at teaching anything in a way that will stick. 

 

As my course was modular, all you had to do for any module was learn the 3 or 4 things you needed to pass the exam, do the exam, then instantly forget them. 

 

Occasionally at work I do need to draw for a bit of engineering maths and find that there are many things that I have technically passed an exam on but cannot recall or use in practice without googling it. 

 

Bring back Finals.

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Not having a degree hasn't held me back, but it took ten years to earn the money to pay back what I borrowed in 15 months, and nearly as long getting the confidence I lost dropping out.

 

This far in, you're well invested, and will be asked why you dropped out after so long in interviews for years. Stick it out, man. You're better than me :)

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Actually thinking about it, that leads me on to a grump. 

 

Modern universities are shite at teaching anything in a way that will stick. 

 

As my course was modular, all you had to do for any module was learn the 3 or 4 things you needed to pass the exam, do the exam, then instantly forget them. 

 

Occasionally at work I do need to draw for a bit of engineering maths and find that there are many things that I have technically passed an exam on but cannot recall or use in practice without googling it. 

 

Bring back Finals.

 

Knowledge isnt the currency any more. Google can know more than most people so the shift is in getting students to a level of critical thinking. 

 

In the US they are adopting Skills for the 21st Century focusing on the 4 C's - Collaboration, Creativity and innovation, Critical thinking and communication.  Rightly so these are seen as the more important skills in the workplace and in society. 

 

(Anyway will stop there as not a grump and will have to Mod myself) 

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I spent a few days in nearby Hammerfest back in 2000... it's not cheap (= massive understatement), it was pitch dark all day except for a bit of twilight between 11am and 12.30pm, and it was very cold. I had a great time.

 

You won't find polar bears in north Norway nowadays though, their range is further north.

 

Yeah - my son was in Svalbard so he was 'lucky' to see them,

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Sad day. Just booked the vet this afternoon to have the dog put down.

 

Phil

 

It's heartbreaking but we tried to deal with it in that their suffering would come to an end, in our cases riddled with cancer (twice) and lost use of their back legs.

I made a trolley for the last one but he was a proud dog and hated been wheeled around  - it put off the final day but, on reflection, we should have done it sooner rather than prolong the agony.

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It's heartbreaking but we tried to deal with it in that their suffering would come to an end, in our cases riddled with cancer (twice) and lost use of their back legs.

I made a trolley for the last one but he was a proud dog and hated been wheeled around  - it put off the final day but, on reflection, we should have done it sooner rather than prolong the agony.

Yeah, she's gone downhill in the last couple days and she's started to tremble so the time had come. The spirit is willing but the body has given up.

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Yeah. Wife's had the dog longer than she's had me around, the kids have had the dog around their entire lives. It's not gonna be easy but it's an undeniable part of life, is death.

 

But, having said that, the dog has led a long and happy life. 16 years ain't bad.

 

It's rather like turning up to find Unipart don't make the part you need any more

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