G-STAR

The flatmate of mine who's doing the HND, in exactly the same subject as me, does so full-time, although the course is a year shorter.

I, however, have the chance to do a placement year with my degree, upping it to four years. Give me a degree and a year of experience of a working environment, rather than a HND, any day.

Diesel

If you want a geek or an academic with facial hair debris on his jumper get a chap with an academic degree; if you want someone practical who you might also enjoy a pint with too go for the HND chap

The exception is media degrees - you go for the candidate most suited to making a nice cup of tea and not getting uppity about it as they 'have a degree you know' - yes mate you ALL do, and they aint what they used to be!!!

In my specific world (TV) I would never establish a candidate preference based on an academic establishment attendance - aptitude, innate ability, experience, practical skills, social skills, motivation, enthusiasm, drive etc etc are much more important than having consumed scrumpy for 3 years

D
(HND Electronics!)

pslewis

Thank You!!

Grads lack something ............ can't put my finger on it, but it stands out like a sore thumb!!

Whats the easiest degree to get then? Media Studies? Physcology? Art?

....... and the hardest?

Medical? Engineering?

Pete

G-STAR

Please tell me you're joking.

Diesel

Yes mate - have you come across one before (I have book full of them). The clue was this '' at the end of the sentence you quote

D (no ginger pony tail or spots)

David Lock

Of course for Physcology (sic) you will need to be able to spell

PS. Went to an open day at a music college today where my boy is planning a degree in Contemporary Music. Basically playing rock guitar for 2 years! How times have changed. DL (who spent 4 hard years for Civil Engineering degree).

G-STAR

You must have thrown me with your sophisticated style of humour.

pslewis

The word used was to cover ALL the 'ologies!!

Pete

David Lock

Are the generic - now I understand

Whoops - nearly typed geriatric there...... David

ajm

For me it depends entirely on the job in question. For some jobs I would pick someone with hands-on experience or vocational qualifications, for other jobs I would pick someone with a degree in a strict discipline e.g. scientific, engineering etc.

I would never employ anyone with just an arty farty degree... sorry!

David Lock

Catology Degree. The socio-economic aspects of eliminating feline creatures.

Catalogy HND. Drowning the buggers.

Would that sort of sum it up?

hades

Nice to see there's no sweeping generalisations coming into this. I'd also suggest that over-aged wind-up mechants lack something!

Some grads I've encountered do lack practical knowledge, some don't. Many people take HNC's because they don't have the academic ability to do 'A' levels, but by no means all. And there is a fair difference between academic ability and "being clever".

New scooby 04 - I didn't suggest otherwise; I merely stated "top universities". Many of the top university's in many "traditional" subjects are the "reputable" ones, but again by no means all.

At the end of the day, you want the best person for the job concerned. In a few cases (Doctors or whatever), it has to be someone with a degree. For most jobs, most enlightened employers will look at someone on the merit of who they are and what they have achieved; education will be a small part of that picture.

ajm

LOL!


I think the words "eliminating" and "drowning" would cause government funding problems.. I would prefer:

Catology Degree: Ecological and Economical Impacts of Introduction of Non-Indigenous Predators
Catology HND: Banning Cat Release

fast bloke

Pete - I take it you decided not to bother with a degree then?

Apple

I did HND Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering followed by BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering - that's not being snobby but it's something I wanted to do to prove a point both to me and to others. I bollixed my grades at A-level so had to take the HND (at the time, maths A-level was needed for engineering...) I then transferred onto the 2nd year of the degree.

I'd have been lost on the degree without the HND first - the A-levels I did didn't cover the topics to give me a good enough start on the degree. In certain respects, the degree stuff was easier than A-levels - maths in particular.

Another area where qualification level may be a door-opener / hindrance is if you want / need professional qualifications to be "permitted" to do a certain job. When I did mine, Chartered Engineer required a suitable degree, now it's a Masters degree needed due to the perceived slippage in standards. HND would get you "Technician" status rather than "Engineer" status - you makes your choice... see above for cat disposing analogy

New changes for engineering mean:
Chartered Engineer analogous to Barrister, Incorporated Engineer analogous to Solicitor.

Chartered pushes forward the boundaries, Incorporated uses existing "tools."

Andy

weapon69

Well, i've applied to start an HND course this September and i really hope i'm not viewed as a thick person not good enough for university!! Its about lifestyle for me, university with a baby just can't happen. Some good info on this thread though!

DrEvil

Yeah, its been good to see some positive comments for both. And some good info based on peoples experiences.

pslewis

Thats where you might be COMPLETELY wrong!!

Maybe I have 3 Degrees? You never can tell, can you?

Most HND Engineers I have met can outperform Degree Engineers well into their respective careers ............ there is something about having to make your own way in life at 15 years old that makes a difference.

Pete

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

I did an HND in engineering a number of years ago, two of us decided to go to the open market and scored cushy jobs very quickly, I started on the monday after I got my results
those who stayed on were left cursing as we had a years experience and £20k to boot.
nice.
but I reached a level where HND no longer counted and I went back and did a p/t time Beng(hons. ).
was pure "joss" but it has turned out to be the best way to do things for me, as the firm I work for released me one day a week to study and picked up the tab for it also.

HND has its place, but more importantly than whether youve got HND, BTEC, Bsc. etc is that you pick a proper subject with a real chance of a job at the endie, Medicine, engineering or law.

fine arts with pottery aint worth **** even if you get a PhD.

jamesvobb1

Ok then mate, its Psychology. (look it up)

Steve vRS

Holy Thread Resurrection Batman!

Jerome

LOL. Worth just to see some of the old users though.

Jamescsti

My wife has a Higher Diploma in Nursing which qualifies her to work as a Staff Nurse within a Hospital ward which she has done for 5 years, now a Senior Staff Nurse, she is back at Uni doing her top up degree part time but the degree is a lot more about Pshycology (sp?) rather than practical aspects

bigsinky

ONC, HNC, BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD. any harder games out out there and no i didn't change my bank/credit cards

hodgy0_2

funny reading this

it seem mosts people with HND,s (some bloke called PSLEWIS) regard them in higher esteem than degrees

but what do I know

Hodgy0_2
BA(Hons)

SJ_Skyline

Pete would have us all thinking a GCSE was better than an MBA

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

As someone who has both, I can say it very much depends on what sort of subject you are talking about.

Both of mine are in engineering, the HND was a lot more theoretical than the degree, and counted for the first year of a degree only, so to a degree you needed to add two more years on top.

But... I would say the HND taught a lot more than the first year degree students learned, and having both the HND and degree gave a much wider and more in depth knowledge than if I had just done the degree on its own.

There were certain things the HND didnt cover in as much detail as the first year of the degree, but it was mainly the add on things like accountancy and law, which werent as important as the engineering stuff learned on the HND.

GlesgaKiss

When I went to college I was going for a degree, ie, to have one when I left! I was studying Music Performance and the degree was 3 years, but you could do a HNC(equivalent of 1st yr degree), then go straight on to HND(yr 2 of degree), and finally go on to the 3rd year of the degree. The courses were exactly the same and we shared lectures with people who were on the degree course! I chose to do the latter, due to the fact that I could leave at any time after a year or so and have a qualification(HNC, or HND if I'd stayed for two years) so it wasn't all a waste of time.

I understand it won't be the same for every subject though...

zeuss

iTrader: (2)

Ive just left Uni this year with a Hons Degree and am signing on every 2 weeks no jobs available, applied for allsorts and not even getting interviews

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

HND - Has No degree

NVQ - Not Valid Qualifcation