Is a University degree EVERYTHING in life???
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Ok. So here is the story of my life. I did fairly well for O levels to get myself into most courses in any Poly or JC. In my 3 years in poly in that course that i pursued, i eventually found it was not my cup of tea. So i didnt do that well. Graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.1 which is not good enough to get myself into a local U. So here i thought I have wasted my life since I cant go to a local U. And then one day i was stalking my old secondary school friend's fb profile. She got into NUS and she was from MI. Here i am thinking, damn! I have just wasted my life! Screw poly! I have made the worst decision of my life to go to a poly when i could have just went to a JC.
I am just thinking, is a local university worth all the hard work and sacrifices, does it guarantee me the success in life? Whats the big deal about local U?? Will i be looked down upon for not having a local degree?
Additional Info: im now working to save up to study in Australia.
What do u think??
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Correction: local university degree as in SG
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Degree is not everything in life my friend. Many people do not need a degree to be successful. I remember reading a research study claiming that people with degree have a higher chance of ending up working for somebody instead of being the boss. For me I'm doing a murdoch program now and sometimes I ask myself what am I taking the degree for? Well the most basic excuse I tell myself is that I need a degree as a backup incase if I need to look for a job if my company or business fails.
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Even road sweeper and other job will need an certificate and if you want to be insurance or property agent, it is an regulated industry which mean if you need to be qualify either as an diploma holder or pass their examination. The first problem is as an degree holder, they could just easily enter as an high management fast-tracked while an diploma holder would have to be their underlings, who will disagreed with that?
As to why local degree is more advantage, let just said there are an local poly graduate and other local student graduate with overseas UK City & Guilds diploma holders : http://www.cityandguilds.com , who stand an higher change of being selected especially local university had work closely with industry players like IBM or Standard Chartered, it is not suprised that experience wise, local uni student are already in an advantage.
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You see the problem in singapore education is you cannot make a wrong decision. Be it O levels, Poly, JC, ITE blar blar blar..
At the tender age of 16-17, if you make a wrong decision, thats it. God bless you.
And our local uni is damn bias towards poly student.
it caters mostly to JC and foreigners.
An average JC student can enter local uni but an average poly student can't.
Is this fair?
No wonder now starting the 5th uni called SIT cater to average poly student, but you and I know that SIT degree compare to local uni is nothing. The introduction of SIT is just to tickle your balls only. Give you some hope but we all know this hope lead you lower pay compare to the local uni ones.
fked up bias education system.
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Yes its fair.
Because the avg poly student can find job w/o Uni (pay and career prospect in the future notwithstanding).
The avg JC student cannot bcos he/she was already commited to go down the Uni path.
The education system seems unforgiving.
But truth is, it is our AGE that is unforgiving rather.
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Well, if a degree is used for status and good job titles then i guess it is good to have a local university degree. I have a friend who works at Exxonmobil as a technician, he only has a local polytechnic diploma and he says to me that, yes many have looked down upon him as he is just a technician. But what he says is that he takes home with him 6-7k per month and dont even need a degree and is paid far better than most degree graduates from NUS or NTU. Ofcourse include overtime la.
I have to agree on the part where a degree holder makes a good employee and not an employer. Most of our university function in a way where they cater to teach students to be good empolyees. Anyways, I will be studying in Australia soon and who knows if they appreciate me more than how my own country appreciates me, I might just migrate over.
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SoFrom the way things are being run, you can see where your tax money is going to.
A degree used to guarantee a job or career for life.
But, the world have evolved and changed and this is no longer for sure.
This is as seen in the Europe and US where the unemployment is rampant.
For local situation, it is more of loose immigration and employment policy that are causing harm.
The impact is beginning to show its head with the drop in service and standard from being cheaper.
So, plan your future carefully.
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GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT SURVEY
Most local grads found jobs quickly
MORE than nine in 10 graduates from the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University got jobs within six months of graduating.
The first joint graduate employment survey conducted by three universities showed that as of Nov last year, 91 per cent of graduates were working, with 85.6 per cent of them in full-time permanent jobs.
The survey of 9,668 graduates also showed that the median gross monthly salary among fresh graduates in full-time permanent employment was $3,050, while the average gross monthly salary was $3,260.
Details of the survey findings can be found at www.moe.gov.sg/education/post-secondary
Meanwhile, Nanyang Polytechnic said its students will have access to high-end, advanced equipment with the signing of a three-year memorandum of understanding with Pall Filtration.
The company is the Asia-Pacific arm of Pall Corporation, a US multinational dealing in pharmaceutical and biologics technology. Biologics is the use of living cells to treat diseases.
Students from the polytechnic's School of Chemical and Life Sciences will get hands-on-training at the company.
There will also be workshops and seminars for teachers and students.
Local News Watch, The New Paper, Saturday, March 23 2013, Pg 8 -
A diploma student is only taught the technique of doing or making things well, hence a technician. In a degree course, you are trained to think critically and are taught the principles of how things are done. In the western universities, they emphasise more on the how & why and not in the methods. In times when you come unstuck with new problems, a person who is trained to think critically would know instantly that he is heading for trouble whereas a technician can only carried out the work according to tested methods & practices.
So when something extraordinary happens, you get stuck in the quagmire. Even after a few years of working as a technician and then furthering your degree studies may take you a longer time, your working experience would have put you in the position of knowing what you do not know.Hence, you will be more eager to explore the everyday problems you face in your working life. You will be much off than the student from the 'A' levels or JC because you already have the questions whereas the JC students are learning to explore.
I have been through it and I know it by direct experience. I was a diploma holder from SP and it really prepared me for my degree course overseas because to my surprise most of my classmates overseas were also diploma holders from their own institutions. Today, I am holding a very senior management position because I know the 'ropes' i.e. I know every detail of the business and no technician can tell me what to do because I have been there, seen it & done it. Hope this is an encouragement to diploma hoders and present diploma students.
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Just take this advise, a University Certificate is only a passport for you to have a "better" first job. Afterward, it's all come down to your working experience and whatever you've learnt in your institution will be the values you have ganered through your blood and sweat.
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@joohoolee, i think what u say is absolutely true. I would also love to hold a high senior position in the future. Ty.
@ reath, true dat. A degree doesnt necessarily equip u with good human social skills. Some people have climbed up the job ladder simply because they have a better, nicer personality and good interaction skills and hardwork
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That is true but please remember that without certain "qualification" the company will most likely be unable to "promote" you due to their policy unless you got a super cable line to crane you upwards...
Anyway, I'm in NUS and I've a friend who is 27 and 30 this year in uni pursuing their degree because they cannot tahan kena tekan by the top. Salute them! -
Originally posted by Reath:
That is true but please remember that without certain "qualification" the company will most likely be unable to "promote" you due to their policy unless you got a super cable line to crane you upwards...
Some companies will also train you or send you for further education if you prove yourself to be a valuable employee.
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I guess I'm quite stucked in the same situation as Istari... The only difference is I'm not that kind of smart kids who can chose to go JC or Poly. Well, I graduated with GPA of 3.2. Upon hearing from my lecturers saying that some of my seniors graduating with 2.8 got into NTU for Civil Engineering since there was a low demand for that course. So I applied to NTU for the last two years but I got rejected. This year is my third time with the aid of my manager's appraisal.
However, I still had a feeling that I would receive a rejection letter by them because they have not asked me to send them my Poly and O level results. Knowing some of the Civil students (ex-JC students) in NTU, they told me that they got into the course because their results was really bad and had no where to go therefore end up in Civil engineering.
Sometimes I just got really disheartened. Why they rather give those opportunity to students to just study for the sake that they have no where to go and they who might not even work in the field after they graduate. I'm currently working in a MRT construction project and I seriously feel that I need a degree to be competent in the construction works in the long run. However, I was not even this opportunity to.
That drives me to consider another decision that I might need to pursue my degree course overseas. How irony? Government wants Singaporeans to stay in Singapore but they don't give them the opportunity to upgrade themselves. 98% of the employees at my workplace here are foreigners. I belonged to that 2%. hahaa
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Minister says degree not necessary for success, but poly grads say...
A thousand dollars – that’s the difference between a diploma holder’s monthly salary and a degree holder’s.
And that’s the motivation for polytechnic graduates like Miss Tan Yen Ling, 20, to pursue a degree.
She graduated with a diploma in banking and financial services from Singapore Polytechnic and was working at a bank for three months when she realised the sharp difference in salary.
“Diploma holders get about $2,000 to $2,500 as starting pay, but degree holders get about $1,000 more,” she said.
The issue of how important a degree is to become successful is being hotly discussed after National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan (above) said at an Our Singapore Conversation dialogue on Saturday that Singaporeans do not need to be university graduates to be successful.
“Can you have a whole country where 100 per cent are graduates? I am not so sure,” he said.
Read the full report in The New Paper on Tuesday (May 7).
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Originally posted by ISTARI:
Ok. So here is the story of my life. I did fairly well for O levels to get myself into most courses in any Poly or JC. In my 3 years in poly in that course that i pursued, i eventually found it was not my cup of tea. So i didnt do that well. Graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.1 which is not good enough to get myself into a local U. So here i thought I have wasted my life since I cant go to a local U. And then one day i was stalking my old secondary school friend's fb profile. She got into NUS and she was from MI. Here i am thinking, damn! I have just wasted my life! Screw poly! I have made the worst decision of my life to go to a poly when i could have just went to a JC.
I am just thinking, is a local university worth all the hard work and sacrifices, does it guarantee me the success in life? Whats the big deal about local U?? Will i be looked down upon for not having a local degree?
Additional Info: im now working to save up to study in Australia.
What do u think??
himm
i graduated with a cumulative gpa of 3.6+ served 2 years of ns
did not make it into any of the big 3 local uni,ended up got accepted to Ubc vancouver so yeah i am off to canada next year .So much for singapore is for singaporeans....lol.. -
if i have no degree, one day i wanna be sweeper sweep the road can. i just need to be cheap than the cheena ones.
but if you have a degree, one day you wanna sweep the floor they may not want to hire you also.
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I'm quite vexed over the study loan though. With the planning ,for the worst, to go overseas, obviously I would need to get study loan from the bank. However, checking a few bank webby, their max loan is eith 6-8 times of your/or guarantor salary.
My parents earning very low salary. I wonder how am I gonna to get the adequate loan for my tuition fees. =( Any good suggestions?
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even if you 50 years old will our education deny you a chance to go for degree if you qualify and apply?
learning and education is a life long improvement one can take to enrich one;'s life. i believe our schools and universities should allow us to study and pursue a degrree even when we are 50yo.
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though degree is not everything.
it is everything if you are just going to work for someone the rest of your life.
that's a fact most of the time, unless you bj for your boss.
to get a loan JASRAIN. go get a job and work first, then they will base on your income plus your guarantor income.
if not, just work for 2 years to earn enough money to study part time.
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But degree is NOT everything if you are a creative person and always trying various means to make money.
eg. through the internet, investing, own business etc.
then again, you got to start off somewhere with some capital to start all these.
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@jasrain- I feel you. You know what, I actually went back for reservist and managed to get to know many diploma holder or some with only o level , getting better pay than most graduates. They told me that they are just technicians but their take home pay in 7-8k per month. Its all about the job title and the prestige that comes along with it.
Most people that became successful did not even have formal education to start with. As for now, im not sure whether i want a degree. Ultimately, its the pay and the job satisfaction you get. If you are happy with what you have, so be it. I no longer care what society thinks. I might want to travel to open up my mind to see other available opportunities that i can bring to SG or if there are greener pastures abroad, i might consider migrating.
Dont give up!
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Originally posted by eddiecheng:
though degree is not everything.
it is everything if you are just going to work for someone the rest of your life.
that's a fact most of the time, unless you bj for your boss.
to get a loan JASRAIN. go get a job and work first, then they will base on your income plus your guarantor income.
if not, just work for 2 years to earn enough money to study part time.
Hey eddie, thanks for replying to my post though... =)
And ya, that was what I thought too and I've been working for about 2 years.. As i'm actually working in the construction field, the income I had now is less than 3k (diploma holder + fresh grad = no exp)... let's do some maths here, 3,000 x 8 (max % I could find for a study loan by bank) = $24,000... Moreover, like i said, I'm earning less than 3k. Minus all home committments (like I mentioned earlier, my parent's earn much lesser than me, younger brother still studying) therefore, to even get a loan from the bank for 100k just to study overseas is too much for me...
Degree is not all, however, I still feel that I need to be trained technically to be competent... You know, it's construction, all the safety measures, design issue etc... Life's at stake...
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Originally posted by ISTARI:
@jasrain- I feel you. You know what, I actually went back for reservist and managed to get to know many diploma holder or some with only o level , getting better pay than most graduates. They told me that they are just technicians but their take home pay in 7-8k per month. Its all about the job title and the prestige that comes along with it.
Most people that became successful did not even have formal education to start with. As for now, im not sure whether i want a degree. Ultimately, its the pay and the job satisfaction you get. If you are happy with what you have, so be it. I no longer care what society thinks. I might want to travel to open up my mind to see other available opportunities that i can bring to SG or if there are greener pastures abroad, i might consider migrating.
Dont give up!
Thanks for supporting.. =)
Well, degree may not be everything... However, I still feel that there's a need for it to be competent to finish work tasked to me. Get a degree not because for the sake of it but the need of it.. =) probably that will help you to set a goal in life...