Do Employers Prefer Education or Experience?

With the highly advanced world of the modern times, the competition for jobs have also escalated. There is a huge supply of graduates both fresh and those who have already acquired years of experience and also there is a portion of skilled labour force who are not graduates. Even so, the latter have compensated for their lack of formal education qualification by acquiring the skills and knowledge through other means including training and experience.

Job Market

The manpower supply in the job market can be classified into graduates and non-graduates or those which have formal education and the ones who do not. The latter banks on experience to be and stay competitive. Further, they can be sorted out into those who have made their experience, skills and training certified. Still, they may not be considered having the formal education. Still, employees who do not have certified formal education can earn such qualification by going back to school.

Competition

Between graduates and non-graduates, whom do employers prefer? What has more weight to companies — education or experience? This could be included in the best topics for business essays and education dissertation. We could use some figures and facts to help us find the answers, give our own arguments and support them. Here we go.

Facts and Figures

According to a survey commissioned by Edge in the year 2005 in the United Kingdom, 71 per cent of the employers who responded said that they would consider hiring young people who have poor grades in school academic exams but have acquired a large amount of work experience. Relating to this as one of the findings, another is that 67 per cent of the employers believed that schools were not equipping young people with the essential skills needed in working in jobs including team work, communication and time keeping. Edge is an organisation which is a foundation concerning practical learning.

Arguments and Support

According to Edge chief executive Andy Powell, employers are giving more importance to the real practical experience within learning and the understanding of what it is really like in the workplace in applicants. This is made very clear than ever before by the survey, he said. He explained that the present education system is not providing these. He related that employers are frustrated by the sight that young employees are finding it harder to cope in their first jobs citing that they have been limited and choked in the classroom and with textbooks style learning instead of learning how things are actually done in the outside world.

Assignment Writing Topics

Assignments are academic writing forms about a specific topic. As a student, you will research about a topic, find ways of approaching the issues involved in it, construct and substantiate your argument about them, use evidence in doing so, give your analysis and your conclusion. You can do all these with the help of assignment writing services.

Being a student, you are a learner who can learn from assignment writing services more about your topic and how to express your learning and ideas through writing. The purpose of writing your assignment is to show your learning and give your ideas or opinions about a topic. To be able to achieve this purpose, you should perform research, analysis, critical thinking and well-structured writing.

Assignment writing topics are the central piece of this academic writing form. They can either be assigned or you have to decide upon one yourself. If one is assigned or when it is not and you have decided one for your own, you can proceed with steps before writing. First, see to it that you understand what the question really means. Make an initial research by collecting relevant readings and skimming through them. cover the reading list given to you and then go beyond it. Assignment writing services can also give you assistance in this phase of researching about assignment writing topics.

It is important that you show critical engagement with whatever assignment topics you are writing. This will give you the highest marks. To do this, show good to excellent level of knowledge and understanding about the topic. Conduct independent analysis and research and demonstrate them in an original writing which is fluently written.

Specific ways to achieve critical engagement of a topic starts with the use of a wide range of material. Subject these materials to a well-organised and accurate research. Make sure that you illustrate your arguments and the issues involved by referring to relevant evidence and examples which are well documented and detailed. See to it that you do all these towards the aim of showing your knowledge and learning and expressing your ideas and opinion which are the purpose of writing assignments.

Importance of Science Education in Primary Schools

Science is one of the most important subjects in primary school education because primary school students from the ages of seven to 11 are curious by nature so that science education gives them the opportunity to discover new things and explore the world around them.

The reasons for the importance of science education:

• Teaching science to primary school children would give them the necessary skills they can use in other areas of their education such as analytical and problem solving skills and researching skills.
• Primary school students who learn about science in the early years of their primary education would give them a solid foundation of learning that is useful for them when they reach the stage of secondary education.
• Learning science in the early part of their primary school education would give the students an idea on how to handle scientific, technological and environmental issues facing the world today and in the future.
• Children in the final years of their primary school education would have an appreciation or even be interested in science or technology related careers if they are exposed to science during the early years of their education.

Because of the valuable contribution of science education in a primary school curriculum, the teachers and school administrators should make sure that all subjects related to science should always be updated and current with the continuing advances in knowledge and technology.

Differences in UK and US Higher Education

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The main difference between US and UK universities is in their manner of facilitating the academic learning experience and the aspect where they focus. UK universities focus more on how knowledge is applied and US universities emphasise more on laying the foundation knowledge.

Frame of Mind

UK universities prioritise imparting to their students the knowledge and skills on how to think how to apply what they are learning. On the other hand, US universities generally concentrate on providing their students the general and foundation knowledge about their subject matter. Corresponding to this difference is the fitting contrast of how students’ knowledge, skills and abilities are assessed.

Assessment

US universities assess the knowledge of their students in a continual frequency while UK universities evaluate their students’ ability to apply to real life and realistic industry situations their knowledge and skills. Fittingly so, the latter is done in bigger intervals which is usually at the end of school terms. In short, the American institutions can be associated with general knowledge while British schools are well identified with reasoning using the knowledge.

Theory and Practice

Theory is given more weight by most US schools. Students in the American institutions show in creative and imaginative ways their learnings and intelligence on how they can apply their education. On the other hand, students in British institutions churn out what they have learned using their intellect. Again, as a result, good students in the US get relatively high marks compared with the relatively less volume of knowledge.

Holism

British universities provide more well rounded education and graduates from whatever course can qualify for any jobs because of this standard. Because the application of knowledge is the bigger emphasis in UK universities, most first two years in their degree courses provide students with opportunities to develop this. Students who have finished their A-level with good grades from top universities in the UK can relatively find it easy to qualify to be second year students when they apply in US colleges. Even when the mentioned characteristic of general education of the UK brand lead to mismatches, students coming from these institutions who go to the US to study do not need to worry because they are equipped with the knowledge and skills in writing well, reasoning their arguments and sufficient numerical literacy.

Majoring

In the US higher education system, flexible general liberal arts and sciences courses can be taken which give students more flexibility when they need to change specialisation studies. The UK admission system focuses more on screening aspirants to degree courses. Shifting to another course is not a flexibility that can be found in the UK system. A student who wants to transfer to another discipline will need to do more studies and make more expenses. Applicants need to show that they are truly interested in the discipline and fit for the studies and the career in the future. They need to show these elements in personal statement writing.

The Value of a Degree in Finding a Job

With the rising costs of tuition fees and the lack of guaranteed jobs after higher education, parents and students can’t help but scrutinise its value. Whatever of it is left, students would like to know if it will bring them somewhere closer to the job they desire.

In some cases, even just a job that could pay them decently is fine. How was it, indeed, to find a job with that degree in tow?

It depends in one’s degree. Perhaps, it can’t be helped. Some degrees provide a much linear path towards career. Then of course, it is up to the fresh grad to follow suit that straight path. Combining the degree with some worthwhile internship, students of specialised degrees inch close to their job. The trouble lies in the competition – and how long students persist into getting thru.

Some degrees don’t supply any of those linear paths. Graduates from these degrees are commonly referred to as the generalists – jack of all trades, master of none. Their opportunity to master is found in the job itself.

It depends in one’s skills. Now, every kind of degree gives way to a set of skills. Again, there’s that variable about students optimising the chance, the avenue to actually work on those skills. But the point is, each degree allows you to hone them – the rest is yours.

Assuming that you did well in setting the motion for developing both soft and hard skills, you’d be able to match it with specific jobs. Having a good match – as in skills parallel to needed skills or potentials (at the least) – increases your chance to get the job.

In most cases, fresh grads should be opting for transferable skills. The rave for such skill is high as this can permit you to immerse into a kind of job that you might not typically think of actually doing. And in these hard times, it’s just an edge to own skills that can be readily retrofitted to fit today’s current bill.

It depends in your expectations. Now, some expectations are harboured out from home. But after graduating, a big bulk of it is admittedly generated at universities. For instance, some degrees and/or universities feed students with unnecessary or unrealistic expectations.

And it’s obvious where this erroneous assumption could take you: depression amidst the real thing that is the labour market.

Make it useful. A degree is only as good as the student bearing it. If they fail to demonstrate and market their strengths, they won’t have an easy time finding a job. On the other hand, forsaking their degree won’t sound good, either.

Because, frankly, it’s not just about the degree; it’s also about the prospecting employee.

International Students: Knock, Knock UK Universities

UK universities pockmark the long list of the World University Rankings 2012-2013. Hence, you don’t just see some institutions at the top; rather, you see them throughout the list, meshing with the rest of the world’s higher education institutions.

Hence, it’s no surprise that a huge flock of foreign applicants are aspiring to enter the ancient wall of stones and evergreen lawns of UK’s universities. To help them meet their heart’s desire, the following requirements were collated:

General Requisites:

1:Student Visa

Applying for this visa entails an unconditional offer from a certain government-registered university, the CAS or Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies, and of course, a significant amount of funds to cover the costs of studying in UK.

EEA or Swiss nationals, on the other hand, aren’t required to secure a visa. Rather, they can just present a valid passport.

2: Further Education Qualifications

For native UK applicants, these qualifications are inclusive of A-levels, International Baccalaureate, or Scottish Highers. Foreign students are expected to present qualifications equivalent to those of the native’s.

3: English Language Qualifications

To ensure that foreign students will fare well in UK higher institutions, and in UK (as a whole), such qualification is required. It’s difficult enough to adapt in another country’s culture – how much more if students aren’t fluent enough to converse in the British tongue?

4: Work Experience

Okay, this is not necessary for every single foreign applicant. However, a relevant work experience (and ‘relevant’ in context to the course) is the type of qualification that is most likely to give the foreign students’ application a great boost.

Furthermore, having a work experience ensures that the foreign student can take advantage of part-time jobs – which is sure to make ends meet.

5: DBS Clearance

Foreign applicants will start with the translated police check or the certificate of good conduct from their country. Next, the applicants will have to complete their DBS check, as well as, visit a DBS clinic.

6: Examination Grades

Foreign applicants should bear in mind that grades of a subject relevant to the course is always a key. In simple terms, if one is to apply for a Biochemistry degree course, that applicant got to have outstanding grades in Biology and Chemistry.

Specific Requisite

UCAS (Universities and College Admissions Service) is the best source of the specific requirements of the course and institution. Foreign applicants may start perusing through each course and university’s entry profiles, as well as, verify them through the university’s own website.

Foreign applicants are also expected to write personal statement and submit them to a select number of institutions through UCAS. And with this whole lot of requirements to secure, it’s always wise to begin early.

Areas of Improvement in Your Business Essays

Students must love feedback. In every returned, marked and critiqued essay paper, students should immediately take a look at their garnered feedback. This practise is, without a shadow of a doubt, influential in the short term, as well as, in students’ long term progress.

In the case of writing business essays, what feedback or critical areas could be considered for improving further?

1. Profiling a chosen demographic segment without trapping innovation.

The baby boomers are one of the oft-cited segments in the essay papers. As a consequence of the collective data collected, much of the necessary information makes it seem that this segment is predictable.

With this predictability in tow, students are bound to simply complement it (through services and products). Without complexity, innovative solutions (embodied in products/services) are stifled.

2. Recognising the evolution of consumer behaviour.

Today’s consumer loves to ask more questions. They are keen to make well-informed choices about the services or products that they avail. Furthermore, they have become receptive to taking heed from non-firm sources (eg, blogs, magazine articles).

Business essays should be able to reflect this gradual change in consumer behaviour. Interestingly, consumer-oriented research is no longer restricted to the consumer themselves, as any external factor that actively influences their behaviour must be covered, as well.

3. Substantiating a prominent figure’s case.

Another common tool for filling up that essay paper is by infusing a case study – one that is focused on elaborating the prowess of a particular business mogul. To best substantiate this figure’s success, it would be necessary to implicate the complexity that figure had been facing.

For instance, instead of ranting on about Michael Dell’s brilliance in shaping the consumer experience, why not highlight about the middleman issue? He saw that with a middleman, consumer money tends to be easily exhausted. His solution was to take the middle player off the picture and go directly to consumers. This figure’s brilliance, therefore, becomes believable.

4. Provide an outlook for an emerging business trend.

Many trends clothe it as an emergent – when, in fact, it is actually an improved or tweaked version of an earlier business trend, particularly, business model. Count in the so-called “network marketing.” It had glazed before as a model that dictates the establishment of various components to a business firm – both internal and external. Yet, now, it is introduced as a shortcut path between firms and consumers (minus middlemen).

Now, students are particularly good at rehashing any inherent detail about it (see few business essays); the area for improvement is that part that involves making feasible forecasts or outlook.

Students will need full knowledge to actualise improvement in their coursework papers. Their tutor’s feedback is a good place to start.

Compare and Contrast Essay

You may have written lots of essays and think that, perhaps, you’ve known it all. Wait until you come across an essay that demands so many things – this essay popularised as the compare and contrast essay.

Basically, this essay is all about presentation; students get to have the chance to present the similarities and differences of two contending variables. On a deeper level, writing this essay requires more than presentation.

To avoid from putting up an overwhelming set of demands, the particulars of a compare and contrast essay will be divided using the Aristotelian concept.

Introduction: Big Umbrella & Objective

In writing the essay’s intro, take careful note that the actual action doesn’t have to commence until you reach the essay’s body part.

So, what’s for the introduction? Students are expected to open up with the general or umbrella category through which houses the subjects of comparison and contrast. Followed by this opening is a statement of which will explicitly convey the objective of such activities.

In other words, there has to be an answer as to why the comparing and contrasting of variables have to occur? Where does the significance lie? Who are the potential benefactors? All of this has to be cleverly wrapped up in a few paragraphs, as expected of all introductions.

Body: Alternating or Bulking

The bulk of the action starts with the body portion of your essay. You can start by highlighting in advance the parameters of comparison and contrast or leave this at the start (as a wrap up).

Students have at least two choices of essay outline to follow: (a) all similarities in one comparison and all differences in a single contrasting event, or (b) alternating similarities and differences. How you choose your outline or flow of comparing and contrasting is of equal importance with the tone by which you establish the relationship between the variables.

In most cases, comparing and contrasting adopts an exchange of features or advantages and disadvantages.

Conclusion

The last part is one of the oft-forgotten or oft-granted portion of a compare and contrast essay. Sometimes, when students fail to properly delegate the parts of the piece in accord to three parts, they find trouble putting up substantial stuff at the conclusion.

To avoid this, students need to know what to properly embed in an essay’s conclusion. The conclusion has to provide the results of the compare and contrast activity. Did it meet the aforementioned objectives (from introduction)? What insights could you gather out of the results of the comparing and contrasting? Does it bring you closer to understanding each variables, as well as, its relationship and contribution to its “umbrella category?” Answer all these for your essay’s conclusion.

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Becoming More Effective in Giving PowerPoint Presentations

Time and time again, a number of university students fail to effectively use the tool called PowerPoint in their presentations. Giving a PowerPoint presentation may sound easy to accomplish, but actually, a student should know a few things that would allow him to fully utilise this academic tool. After all, PowerPoint presentations are the most used and abused method of relaying information in the academic setup.

So without much delay, here are some techniques a student can use when giving PowerPoint presentations.

• A powerpoint slide should contain text that is no more or even equal to what the presenter would say during a presentation. Placing much text in a slide usually makes the audience read it instead of listening to the reporter. The slides are just the tool that the presenter employs to bring his point more effectively to the audience. They are just cue to what the presenter is going to say.

• During presentations, the presenter should never turn his back against the audience. Maintaining eye contact is important if a student wants the audience to discern the information being conveyed. Likewise, audience engagement falls significantly if the presenter always turns his back against them. It would seem like that the presenter is not talking to them.

• Use bullet points to emphasize only the most important items on the report. Instead of placing a whole paragraph into a slide, create bulleted items to highlight that these are the main points of the report or presentation. This would also prevent one from reading verbatim from the slide.

• Use images that are relevant to the information contained in the slide. Humorous images and animated graphics could bring the text into life and boost the points mentioned. It also breaks the cycle of monotony and boredom prevalent on ineffective PowerPoint presentations. However, overuse and abuse of such images could be counterproductive.

• Make sure that the text on the monitor could be seen by the last person on the back of the room. The presentation is for all present in the room, not only for those on the front.

Writing Essays for University Admission

Scribbling written pieces, like essays on psychology, is nothing foreign to students. It has been and remains to be one of the most common written exercises students do.

But writing essays for university admission is often a once-in-a-lifetime affair. Students do write several application essays in one sitting for several universities, but that’s that. As much as possible, they don’t want to write another again as this may mean that they haven’t had any luck last time.

At such rate, what do students do to complete their piece? Collated below are some of these activities:

• Ask around. They’d ask career counsellors and admission officers. Visit open days and converse with existing students, faculty members and fellow applicants. Students attempt to open their radars for quite some time and filter relevant information from the nuisance.

• List stuff. To ensure that no crucial personal information is missed, a list is most likely to be prepared by students. Such list may come in the form of an outline – academic, extracurricular, and work experiences.

• Draft and leave. Now, when the spirit of the essayist gets students in ‘the writing zone,’ expect them to be busily drafting their admission essays. They’d write in accord to their gut feeling, ideas and so forth. Then, the spirit deserts them and then students have no choice but to temporarily stop. They’d wait for the next visit.

• Proofreading like a pro. It’s important to do something with that essay – whether fixing its flow or structure, to correcting spelling, grammatical or punctuation errors. As long as you did something that will minimise the presence of errors and improve the essay, then that’s good and a job well done for today.

• Read and revise. And when students decide to go critical with their own work, bits of slights would suddenly become a subject for a major or minor revision. Students should follow their urge to perfect their piece until they feel satisfied about it.

• Consulting another. Perhaps, students don’t find themselves as effective critics of their own work – or, all of their energies have been spent on writing that critiquing seemed impossible. In this case, it is always wise to keep the company of those who can do better in critiquing your piece and collaborate with them in the name of a perfect admission essay.

Looking at all these, it is indeed, a busy time to be a student. But considering the rewards of actively working through it, students can get the fulfilment even before they got their welcoming letter from those universities they’ve applied. And that’s just grand.

A reminder: Expressing your thanks to those people who have helped you should not be forgotten.

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