Careers!

[Pammy]

Originally Posted by chicken66

Random point, but many finance/accountancy companies etc dont actually want employees who have studied the subject at university as they dont want their employees to arrive at work with pre-concieved ideas about the job/theory that they'll learn

This sounds ludicruous...I mean, think about any other field. Have you e.g. ever heard of a hospital that prefers their doctors not to have studied medicine before starting the job, just so they don't come in with any pre-conceived ideas about the style of medicine the hospital requires?

If it is actually true, why do you need a degree at all for it then...? Also, I can't really imagine what kind of theories/preconceptions they may be talking about. How many vastly different theories of accountancy do you know?!

[Pammy]

Originally Posted by icecream

With your experience in biochemistry, and being a successful GEP applicant, i was wondering if you could give me some advice on something slightly unrelated to this topic.
I'm just worrying over what i should be doing next year, i have an unconditional offer for a MRes in Biochemical research at IC this september, and was wondering if you could give me an opinion as to whether you believe it would be a year well spent or not. Its a really intersting MRes, and a great opportunity to put theory to hands on experience working through 3 different research projects, but on the other hand, perhaps the year could be better spent differently, either working as an hca, or doing a lot of work experience.

I'd really love to be able to dish out advice like that (if I could help in any way)...But I'm honestly not sure! I don't have that much experience with med school applications - I only did it this once, and also, at a bunch of medschools that are all quite academic in their focus, so I think they liked my research experience...I don't even know if it's hard to get an HCA job as I've never had one (I did my work experience mostly in Australia, and a bit in Germany). I did get the impression though that the admissions people value relatively long-term work experience commitments, but you could probably equally do that on weekends? Would the MRes leave you enough time to deal with applications/interviews (I remember I spent quite a while reading up on NHS, news and all that) etc? Did you get any feedback from your applications this year? Sorry, really wish I could be more helpful, I do hope it all works out for you!

[chicken66]

Originally Posted by Pammy

This sounds ludicruous...I mean, think about any other field. Have you e.g. ever heard of a hospital that prefers their doctors not to have studied medicine before starting the job, just so they don't come in with any pre-conceived ideas about the style of medicine the hospital requires?

If it is actually true, why do you need a degree at all for it then...? Also, I can't really imagine what kind of theories/preconceptions they may be talking about. How many vastly different theories of accountancy do you know?!

To be honest Pammy i'm not sure, but i've heard this from several sources. I know people like to have university leavers because of the skills that they obtain rather than the specific knowledge (i'm not talking about medicine in this though!). I think they like the added skills that having a degree gives you, and the maturity that comes with age more than anything.