Students unfit to work
Star Letter
Dear Rupert,
I read with interest the recent article published in The Times on 7 February 2006 questioning the `fitness' of graduates for the work place and the response in Felix on 9 February.
I agree fully with the sentiment expressed in The Times article, that students should seek to enhance their academic credentials with other experience such as voluntary work, work experience, internships and involvement in societies. In my opinion students benefit most by taking every opportunity during their studies to broaden their outlook, develop their skills and experience new activities. There is no doubt that employers are looking for the added value of extra curricular involvement as a way to show evidence of `soft' skills; team working, organisational skills, problem solving, commercial awareness, initiative and creativity to name just a few. It seems that irrespective of the job role more space on the application form is devoted to investigating team skills, problem solving and perseverance in challenging situations than anything else. But do these skills actually get used in the working environment or is this purely related to the selection stage?
A recent national survey of graduates, contacted 18 months after graduation, showed that logical thinking, numeracy, application of knowledge, critical analysis and research skills were used almost as much in the work place as communication skills. So although `soft' skills are vital it is also important to have a good grasp of the more traditional academic related skills. I am sure that virtually all Imperial students would register in the very able bracket for most of the above skill set.
The Times article also states that recruiters are critical of the amount of time that students are devoting to their studies rather than joining societies or pursuing work experience. I find this criticism rather hard to stomach when one considers that this very same group of recruiters, in a survey carried out by AGR and reported in summer 2005, admitted that at least 90% of them were using a minimum degree pass of 2:1 as a cut off point for selection purposes.
There has to be a balance between striving for the best academic results and devoting time to other activities but employers also have a responsibility to keep their expectations realistic. Universities are trying to do all they can to ensure that their graduates leave not just with a sound academic background but also with the necessary skills to assist them in being `work ready' but employers must also look to their induction programmes and graduate training schemes to offer continued support for the development of the `soft' skills.
In the past employers did not necessarily expect this level of `work readiness' allowing new graduates to grow into their career roles. It is not unusual now for a new graduate to find themselves working in demanding situations with high levels of responsibility within weeks of starting their first graduate position. Is it because the level of early support has diminished in the work place that graduate recruiters are now expecting universities to produce not just academically able but `work ready' graduates?
Students struggle with demands on time particularly in their final year and recruiters themselves add to this with long and complex selection procedures for graduate and internship positions. As a rough calculation I worked out that a final year student applying to 6 employers might spend as many as 40 days devoted to the selection process, probably all during term time. Quite a tall order when trying to maintain demanding academic study, work experience, membership of societies and let's not forget sport.
Having said that, my experience of Imperial College students shows that they are on the whole very expert at this balancing act and I think that Andy Sykes makes a unfair and sweeping condemnation of his fellow students by stating that "nearly all students at Imperial are socially inept." Study here is demanding and time consuming but one only has to walk around the college in the evening or glance at the posters along the Walkway to realise that extra curricular activities are also thriving. Many of the students I come into contact with are great examples of the `well rounded' individuals that employers say they want; articulate, bright and enthusiastic. This is born out by the success that Imperial students have in the graduate labour market where our unemployment rate (5%) is consistently below the national average for graduates (6.1%) and our graduates' starting salaries (£25,000) are substantially above the national average (£23,000).
However, a note of caution, increasingly our students are competing not just with other UK graduates but with students from across the globe. Many UK employers are now looking with interest at recruiting from mainland Europe as well as further a field. So to stay competitive it is vital that students begin planning their career strategy early on, looking for all opportunities both through the curriculum and elsewhere to enhance their skill profile and ensuring that when the time comes for applications and selection interviews they are fully prepared and able to do themselves justice.
To check how the Careers Advisory Service can help with your career planning and preparation for job hunting go to www.imperial.ac.uk/careers.
Elspeth Farrar
Director
Careers Advisory Service
(Elspeth has allowed Felix to donate the star letter prize to Medicins Sans Frontiers)
Dear Editor,
I find it really quite astounding that there can be what appears to be a gasping unawareness of the fact that students are unfit for employment. Firstly, whoever said that knowing about diffraction of light or proteases ever made you good in the work place??! I strongly feel that universities are no way responsible for this gap in the attributes on offer from university students both here and at other institutes. Maybe all those people who were caught astounded by the Times headline about this earlier in the week should consider the students as the problem, including the employers, and realise that at no point did any university ever promise to make the students well rounded and basically finish off the half arsed efforts produced by rich public schools (one of which I attended) and even richer mummies and daddies (not so lucky there I'm afraid).
Just because one may have a degree doesn't mean that they are good for work. To develop those skills, as with all other learning processes, it requires practising. Yes, that's right, maybe instead of hiding behind the "full time degree course" crap which so generously means we do not need to pay council tax as students, those who thought that advanced mathematics made them perfect for a employment should get a bit of practice in. Yes, that's right, get a job. That's how you learn how to be punctual, be in an employment environment and develop skills needed for your career. How else do you get experience of employment without ever having a job...
Adam,
Yr 3 Biochemistry
Dear Editor,
Having read last week's Felix I think that there is a compelling need to defend students of Imperial who are being pigeon-holed as socially incompetent geeks who cant spell or make eye-contact. It's wrong to categorise all of Imperial as having the social skills of a baked bean. Most of the students I've come to know are extremely talented and all-rounded - many of whom are able to juggle much more than `The Simpson's' and finishing Lab Reports.
The issue is not that students are incapable of being social its more the nature of the college - its dripping with assessment and examination. You can smell the work pressure in the air from the tube station; your skin is burned off by the intense radiation of stress and hard work emitted from level two of the library. Students are under so much pressure to do well in exams that they get bogged down with work and at times have no choice but to hibernate in their books. I agree that social skills can't be taught but it's certainly not impossible to bury them with mountains of work and study commitments.
Perhaps it's the way we've been taught to think... Starting with the 11+ test, at primary school, we've been encouraged to believe that exam success is what gets you through to a higher stage in life. Achievements that can be measured and recorded on paper are ingrained in our subconscious as the best way forward. We've been trained this way because the world is getting more and more competitive and that's what it comes down to - trying to be the best, survival of the fittest.
Perhaps its about time we snapped out of that and looked at the positives. There are loads of students at Imperial who are brimming with intelligence and personality and who have a tool bag bursting with social skills so to deem us all as geeks is absurd. I think its about time people stopped criticising Imperial students for lacking on the social front, maybe the critics themselves should get out more and they'll soon realise that actually there are social hubs outside the library and that there are students with more than a degree to them - you just have to go to the right places. The only people who have boring times are boring people, Uni life is what you choose make of it and it's each to their own, everyone wants different things from going to university.
Anyway, isn't it the employers own fault for falling into the trap of simply recruiting students who only excel at one facet? Surely they should themselves have had the social skills to pick up whether or not the Imperial graduate could make eye contact during the interview? The employers should know better and should have more common sense than to recruit the first person who's CV is plastered with nothing else but A*s and a 1st degree from Imperial.
Seema Pattni
Dear Editor,
I find myself slightly embarrassed by the front page of Felix declaring that Imperial students have no social skills, suggesting they have no social life also. It's not your fault, it's because nothing good ever happens at Imperial right? Who told you that? Was it your mate who sits in his room all the time bemoaning how the Union is useless?
I look after all of Imperial's forty Social clubs, and I can tell you that there are hundreds of people on campus slogging their guts out to make sure you can have a good time. Don't be put off by activities that you haven't tried before. Debating doesn't sound your thing? How about if you got to quiz the editor of the NME about why he thinks he can put bands on the cover just because they can take more drugs and sleep with more supermodels than anyone else, not a chance you often get (Wednesday 22nd of February).
When Model United Nations formed this year I honestly was a bit bemused. Then I realised that it was actually pretty cool to get to pretend to be a delegate from say Iraq and then out-argue the US (please, no complaints, I know more about the Moon than politics). They hold meetings every week, and regularly go to conferences, give it a go (and maybe kick Oxbridge's sorry ass).
Onto safer territory, IC cinema is all well and good, but ultimately you could always hire the films out from blockbuster. Film Appreciation hold regular screening of fantastic underground film gems you wouldn't normally get to see, experience some art in your otherwise science centred course.
One thing that Imperial seems to lack over the other London Universities is a good club night... not any more! Check out the brilliant Kids Will Be Skeletons, run by the Alternative Music Society. It's gaining popularity every time, amazingly mainly from nonImperial students. And it's a bargain considering you get at least three (generally non-Imperial) bands as well as cool music (£1 members, £2.50-£3 non-members). The next nights are the 18th of Feb and the 2nd of March.
For more information on these events (and many more) pop down to the Student Activities Centre (Beit Quad East wing basement) or feel free to email me at scc.chair@ic.ac.uk. Don't succumb to that other great Imperial stereotype, apathy.
James Millen
SCC Chair
