Get me a trade ....

Interesting news today about how Oxford University graduates are now retraining as plumbers and walking away with £70,000 pay packets, such is the demand for decent plumbers. Their hard-earned degrees that cost them thousands in student debt are useless, as they hit the tools for some easy money.

I read an article about this over a year ago, it debated the "use" of degrees nowadays, and talked about how flooded the graduate market is, at the expense of old-fashioned apprenticeships in essential trades such as building, electrical work, and plumbing. Going into "the trades" as looked down upon as a "common" career to choose, but everyone should know that plumbing, building and electronics are certainly not jobs for the thickos.

We used to have an Economics Master working as our £12k a year admin girl at my last job, and I've heard loads of other Uni graduates bemoaning their £30k student debt and how they can only get a job down Tescos. My cousins have degrees in this, that and the other and are working in bars, cafes, admin offices, pretty much any job that DOESN'T need the degree they've slaved for. I haven't got a degree and earn more than a lot of graduates I've talked to!

Working for an educational establishment I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds me, but honestly what the F*CK good are some degrees nowadays? They used to be special, for that intelligent elite who would go on to do some good, while the "ordinary" people trained for the trades. Then the Government decided EVERYONE should have a right to a University education, and parents started obsessing that their kids would get nowhere in the world without a piece of paper that basically says "I've got a degree and a f*ck off huge debt and will work for £10k". My own brother did an Engineering degree, passed, then went on to work in his mate's motorbike shop for 4 years, taught himself DOS, LINUX, networking, and got a job in IT, and after a 9 month stint as a Divemaster he is now back working as an IT contractor. Some good his degree was.

Yes I know that some degrees are important and useful and quite essential for the career you want to be in. But the market is so flooded its a bunfight to get in there and land your ultimate job. Then you have the useless degrees like Media Studies, American Studies, and all that crap - FFS what good are they, somebody enlighten me.....

Quicker just to learn how to solder pipes and connect toilets, then get the fat pay cheque and drive off in that SLK ....