[dsf2]

I dont agree with that.

THe majority of university courses don't require one to be in the environment - e.g. medicine does in contrast.

Employers frankly don't care about that - what they care about is 'are you going to be productive?'. Therefore what Universities have failed to understand is that students don't even care about the experience anymore - they want confidence that by the time they are 21 they will be employable.

Essentially what I'm pointing at - that you are missing - is that the University system is one-dimensional whilst not addressing the issues re. the bridge to the labour market and what employers demand. Something else, something much better is necessary that re-organises and disrupts the existing university model. I actually have a solution in mind, however, it's going to cause so many prof's who just collect a pay-cheque to lose their job that it'll cause a riot so I don't see people willing to push it through.

FYI I have spoken to many CEO's across a myriad of firms of varying complexities and sizes - they all fall on the same conclusions as I've stated. They simply do not care and want people who will be productive, particularly in-line with specifics of what the job entails, from day one. There is very little patience and resource allocated towards training anymore than years-past.

[davnicwil]

I agree with most of what you're saying in this reply but I also think we're now talking about a different thing, like how well does any of it prepare you for real world jobs.

That's separate from the question of being taught, self teaching, and the combo of the two, I think. That's more to do with just the material itself and the goals you're set.

I do think though, all else being equal, in a business you're going to want to prefer people who have demonstrated the kind of higher order skill and agency to be able to adapt and self teach.

I get that in a lot of businesses the difference might not be material, stuff turnover is high, focus is practical and short term and not about how this or that graduate will develop within the business over a long period of time and so on.

But still, of two people with the requisite hard skills to get going quickly you're probably always going to favour the one who seems better able to also adapt to changes and learn new skills in a totally self directed way, right?

Particularly in today's environment - I can hardly imagine a point in history where this has broadly been more important.