University: Expectations vs. Reality

The i newspaper has published an interesting infographic to show how many undergraduates' expectations of university life can differ from the reality they find when they get there ...

Guidance in applying for Medicine

If you are looking for guidance about applying for a degree in Medicine, the Central Careers Hub has produced a video with just about everything you need to know.  It includes information about the application process, as well as lots of advice from admissions tutors across a range of academic institutions. View the video on YouTube here.

More about Degree Apprenticeships

Degree Apprenticeships are set to revolutionise Higher Education as a credible alternative to a "straight" Bachelor's Degree. What's the difference? Well you get your fully accredited Bachelor's Degree over your (typically) four year course but also get your professional accreditation in, law, accountancy, management, &c as well. The more expensive alternative is to go the traditional degree route and add your professional accreditation on afterwards as a post-graduate course (with the further student debt that goes with it). Oh, and your tuition is free and you earn £15-30k annual salary (with holiday and sick pay) as you go! And if that wasn't enough to convince you, you are much more employable at the end of it because you've got the relevant work experience employers crave. Is there a down-side? Well expect the courses to be competitive, you may well need higher 'A' level grades than the equivalent "straight" degree to get on the course. But if you've got an ongoing salary and pretty much guaranteed job (as opposed to an estimated £67k debt) at the end of it, it's surely worth it!

Find out more from this video.

See what opportunities our out there from the UCAS website here.

Degree Apprenticeships at Herts Uni

The University of Hertfordshire is currently advertising Degree Level Apprenticeships in Business Admin and IT at Vauxhall and Software Engineering at Sagoss Ltd. The fifteen Business Administration and I.T. Apprenticeship opportunities will be based at Vauxhall in Luton and will combine degree level academic study at the University of Hertfordshire with job-related learning and experience within the car-manufacturing industry. Find out more here.

What does a Degree get you?

The DfE has recently released its 2016 Graduate Labour Market Statistics report. The main findings are:

• 87.3% of graduates were employed, compared to 70.4% of non-graduates. 
  

• Working age graduates earned on average £9,500 more than non-graduates, while postgraduates earned on average £6,000 more than graduates.  

• Male and female graduates had similar unemployment rates within the working age population, but male graduates had a higher employment rate and a lower inactivity rate than their female counterparts.

• Black graduates had lower high-skilled employment rates, higher unemployment rates, lower inactivity rates and lower median salaries than White graduates and Asian graduates. 

• Degree class appears to have more of an impact for the younger population than overall working age population. Working aged graduates with an upper and lower second degree earned £500 more, on average, than graduates with a first. Young graduates that achieved a first in their degree earned £2,000 and £3,000 more, on average, than those who achieved an upper and lower second, respectively. 

• STEM graduates on average, had higher employment rates, greater high-skilled employment rates, lower unemployment rates and higher median salaries than the graduate population as a whole. 

• However, within the working age population, Law, Economics and Management (LEM) graduates earned, on average, £1,000 more than STEM graduates. There is a similar pattern for the young population, with young LEM graduates earning £2,000 more than young STEM graduates.

Will robots take your job?

A study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) has concluded that robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) could affect almost a third of UK jobs by the 2030s. However, the report also said that automation could create more wealth and additional jobs elsewhere in the economy. The study estimated that 30% of existing UK jobs were potentially at a high risk of automation, compared with 38% in the US, 35% in Germany and 21% in Japan. John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said that "more manual, routine jobs" which "can effectively be programmed" were the most at risk, whereas, "jobs where you've got more of a human touch, like health and education," would be safer ... You can already see on the railways that all these strikes are not unrelated to the move towards driverless trains”. The report said that with the UK at near record-low levels of unemployment, outsourcing more repetitive tasks to robots could free up people to do more valuable work. 

SECTOR MOST AFFECTED

• Transportation and storage - 56% of jobs at high risk from automation

• Manufacturing - 46%

• Wholesale and retail trade - 44%

• Administrative and support services - 37%

• Financial and insurance - 32%

• Professional, scientific and technical - 26%

• Construction - 24%

• Arts and entertainment - 22%

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing - 19%

• Human health and social work - 17%

• Education - 9%

Degree Apprenticeships: a success story

A report by Universities UK (UUK) says that England is 'on the verge of a significant success story' in Degree Apprenticeships, with 'at least 60 universities and other Higher Education institutions currently implementing, or planning to implement, Degree Apprenticeships'. The report says that most growth is in 'chartered manager, digital and technology, and engineer related Apprenticeships', with major employers, such as Mercedes Benz, Nestle, IBM and Airbus already offering them.