News for aspiring Journalists

News Academy is looking to inspire the next generation of journalists. It offers fortnightly writing competitions for young people (offering a £100 Amazon voucher as prize) as well as one week intensive Summer Schools for students to learn the tricks of the trade.  They also hold national conferences  -  the next one is 10th February 2015 in London. For more details, click here.

Higher education choices

A survey of 2,300 adults found that, of those who had taken degrees, 31% said they wish they had taken a different subject; for people aged 25-34 it was 42%. Of those who had not been to university, 30% said they regretted not going.  So it pays to consider your options carefully. Websites such as Which University and others with links on the left of this page could be a useful source of impartial advice and guidance ...

Meanwhile, research by Coventry University found that 1 in 7 students value the advice of parents in terms of choosing higher education courses over their own views. The study also found that 35% of parents wanted to influence their children's university choice, while 1 in 8 said they would encourage children to stay at home because they feared they would “miss them too much”. The study flagged up the issue of parents giving advice based on out of date information. One researcher said; “Parental advice, which many parents admit is heavily influenced by their own higher education path, may be ill-informed. The most effective advice parents could offer would be to encourage their children to research potential future careers, including talking to people in those fields of work."

Mock interviews for aspiring Doctors

Medic Mentor is offering an 'Interview Skills Workshop' for young people hoping to apply for medical school. It is taking place in London on 22nd November 2014. It costs £30-45 with the proceeds going to charity. For more information, click here.

Apprenticeships update

The Youth Connexions website has lots of useful information about Apprenticeship opportunities in the local area. For example, it lists Apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers in companies such as Tesco, GlaxoSmithKline; accountancy firms, including KPMG and Deloitte and engineering. These schemes range from sponsored degrees and higher apprenticeships to trainee management programmes and they are suitable for those that have studied A levels or Level 3 qualifications. They can be found here in the jobseekers section of the new Youth Connexions website. Applications are open now for some of these schemes.

A "snapshot" of local Apprenticeships this week:

Apprenticeship vacancies:

• 171 Vacancies Apprenticeships

• 1.5% Traineeships

• 75% intermediate

• 23% advanced

• 0.5% Higher

Wages:

• Average wage £136 per week

• Almost 43% paying over average per week

• Wage range £80 - £451 per week

• Only 10 paying national minimum wage – 6%

• 94% paying above national minimum wage

Most Popular Sectors:

• Business, administration and law (40% of vacancies - 67)

• Retail and commercial enterprise (27% of vacancies - 46 )

Year 11 and Beyond Evening 14.10.14

The PowerPoint presentation for the Year 11 and Beyond evening, held on 14th October can be downloaded here.

Guidance on UCAS Personal Statements

For Year 13 students working on their UCAS Personal Statements there's plenty of good advice available  -  most importantly from the Sixth Form pastoral team  -  but a little more can always help. Click here for some additional guidance from a self-proclaimed expert!

Looking for a career in Law?

AllAboutLaw.co.uk has put together a listing of the top law firms for training contracts and vacation schemes.  It also includes listings of the top law firms and an on-line quiz for you to check to see if Law is the right career for you.

ANOTHER university league table!

This one combines the findings of three widely used ranking systems:  the Times' ‘Good University Guide’, the Guardian guide and the ‘Complete University Guide’.

2015	2014	INSTITUTION		2015	2014	INSTITUTION
1	1	Cambridge		16	15	Birmingham
2	2	Oxford		17	20	Southampton
3	4	St Andrews		18	14	Leicester
4	3	LSE		19	19	Edinburgh
4	6	Imperial		20	23	Nottingham
6	5	Durham		21	17	Bristol
7	8	Bath		21	new	Leeds
8	9	Warwick		23	21	Newcastle
9	10	Exeter		24	27	Kent
9	11	Surrey		25	28	Heriot Watt
9	7	UCL		26	new	Cardiff
12	12	Lancaster		27	23	Sheffield
13	16	Loughborough		28	30	Aston
14	18	East Anglia		29	22	Glasgow
15	13	York		30	25	SOAS

Rise of the "geeks"!

According to The Sunday Times league table of graduate salaries, computer scientists from Oxford earn an average of £43,895 six months after graduating, which is almost four times that of graduates in drama, dance and cinematics from Essex, the lowest earners on £11,963. Computer science graduates from Imperial and Cambridge are also in the top 10. Professor Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, said, “For parents, computer science has this image that it’s a bit geeky but this is a caricature, computers are the future and computer science courses command a salary premium.” Professor Michael Wooldridge, head of the computer science at Oxford, said his course gave graduates an “uncompromising insistence on mathematical clarity. Ultimately, our students are trained to think clearly, rigorously, and deeply about complex problems.”

The analysis shows the growing earnings gap between the highest and lowest-earning graduates and found that 1:10 had not secured employment six months after graduation and a third were in jobs that did not require a degree. The choice of university was vital, with wide variation in earnings within subjects. For example, graduates in accounting and finance from Huddersfield earned an average of £16,335 while those who studied the subject at Bath earned £29,588. Chemical engineering graduates from Aston earned £24,233 compared to £36,219 for those from Aberdeen.

Student 'Quality of Life' survey

Loughborough came top of a new poll looking at the quality of student life at UK universities, with Bath second, followed by Durham, Newcastle and Glasgow. The second annual survey by Lloyds Bank ranks universities by quality of student life, using existing data taken from recent surveys and research. The rankings take into account course satisfaction, employment and salary on graduation, accommodation costs, university sport facilities, crime in the area and the quality of student social life.

At Loughborough 89% of students are satisfied with their course (the national average was 86%) and 94% of graduates found employment, or continued with their studies. Bath was highest for course satisfaction, 93%, whilst over 94% of graduates found employment, or continued with study. Northumbria University students had the cheapest university accommodation, paying an average £1,550 per academic year, whilst Swansea University students paid the lowest private rentals, with an average annual cost of £2,250. The highest full time salaries were earned by students from the LSE, with a median salary (after 6 months in employment) of £27,388 in 2012. Sheffield University was top for social life, followed by Leeds, Newcastle, Durham, Manchester, Dundee and Swansea.

Times Ed world university rankings 2014-15

The Times Education Supplement has published its assessment of the world's university rankings for 2014-15.  Full details and analysis can be found here.

UNIVERSITY			14/15	13/14
California Institute of Technology			1	1
Harvard			2	2
Oxford			3	2
Stanford			4	4
Cambridge			5	7
MIT			6	5
Princeton			7	6
Berkeley			8	8
Imperial College			9	10
Yale			9	11
Other UK university placings
UNIVERSITY	14/15	13/14
UCL	22	21
LSE	34	32
Edinburgh	36	39
Kings College	40	38
Manchester	52	58
Bristol	74	79
Durham	83	80
Glasgow	94	117

Update on the Engineering sector

The ninth annual report on the engineering industry has been published by the Institute of Engineering and Technology, based on a survey of 400 employers of engineering and IT staff. Overall 51% of the firms are recruiting engineers in 2014, with more than half of the companies reporting difficulties in finding the right staff. However, the recruitment of IT staff has fallen from 16% of companies in 2013 to 13%. For the IT sector the main concern was finding apprentices. Since 2013 the number of level 2 Apprenticeships has more than doubled but the number of level 4 higher Apprenticeships has remained static. 

In terms of applicants, 44% felt school leavers did not meet reasonable expectations for skill levels, with 30% saying they did not have enough practical experience and 25% that they did not have the technical expertise. There was also a lot of criticism about literacy and numeracy skills. However, there was even more criticism about graduates, with 54% complaining about skills shortages. The main areas of concern were practical experience 44%, technical expertise 21%, leadership skills 22%, communication skills 15% and ability to work on own initiative 15%, 11% also complained about literacy skills. Just 6% of the engineering workforce were women.

Don't underestimate "soft skills"

A survey of 198 employers by Kaplan found that soft skills, including confidence and an ability to be analytical, were valued more than technical knowledge by graduate employers at the recruitment stage. When asked to rank a list of 30 competencies required or desired by employers, technical knowledge ranked 24th, while effective communication ranked first. Other soft skills, such as being a team player, ranked 3rd, confidence ranked 5th and the ability to be analytical ranked 6th. Ability in numeracy, however, was also ranked highly in 2nd.

The "wrong doctors"

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health select committee and a former GP, has said that there is a “huge bias” in medical schools in training people to be hospital doctors rather than GPs, for which there is a huge shortage, especially in rural and deprived areas. She said, “We train too many doctors out of medical school to become acute specialists or which there are no jobs, and yet in general practice we’ve got huge vacancies”. She said that in 2002 there were 2,500 more GPs than hospital doctors but in 2012 there were 6,500 more hospital doctors. She noted that the NHS priority is to manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma, which represent 70% of NHS work.

Students finances

An NUS survey of 3,654 students has found that 11% of undergraduates used credit cards to pay for living costs, 28% had a bank overdraft and nearly half said they had to rely on financial support from their family. In addition, 2% said they had used the service of payday loan companies. However, 28% said they had managed not to have any debt at all.

Warnings of a digital "skills gap"

The CBI has called for businesses and the government to boost digital skills, saying that there were too few graduates with digital skills, such as web design or computer programming, for the jobs available. However, a survey of 2,000 parents by the technology company O2 found that 23% of parents thought skills such as coding were "irrelevant". O2 said that this showed a "disturbing disconnect" between skills in demand from employers and those valued by parents. They said that 750,000 digitally skilled workers will be needed by 2017 to satisfy Britain's "digital potential". Twice the number of UK students took up degrees in medicine compared with computer science between 2012 and 2013.

A spokesperson for O2, Ann Pickering, said it was "no surprise" that parents were "struggling" to keep pace. "I'm a parent, and if I didn't work for a technology company I wouldn't realise the opportunities that are out there," she added. Ms Pickering said, "It is getting harder to get the skills we require. These are skills that didn't exist five years ago, like with social media, for example." Hugh Milward, director of corporate affairs at Microsoft, said, "In the software industry alone there are 20,000 graduate vacancies a year, and only 7,500 computer science graduates to fill them. Digital skills such as coding are being demanded not only by the high-tech sector, but by fast-growing sectors like media, publishing and finance."