Are university rankings helpful? And two ideas to help you spend 80,000 hours on the right thing.
😊 Welcome
This week we look closely at university rankings and league tables. What are they? What do people in the sector think about them? And are they of any help to you?
We also look at an amazing website that can help you work out how to make a real difference in your career.
And the penny drops on an unbelievably simple, but massively important idea about choosing a career and a course.
✍️ University rankings and league tables: just how useful are they?
You will probably be familiar with the concept of university league tables: they are rankings of universities, listed from best to worst, published so that you can easily identify the top universities in the country, and in the world - right?
Well, let's see…
In the UK, there are several well known rankings, all compiled slightly differently, by different organisations. And worldwide, there are several more. They are published annually, typically a year ahead of time; so for example, the 2024 guides were published in 2023.
The stated aim of each of the national league tables is to help prospective students make the right choice about their university courses. Each comes with an overall ranking of institutions, some editorial guidance, and then rankings by subject. International league tables are a little less clear on their aims; only the QS ranking clearly states that its aim is to help students make decisions.
Whether you find these useful in your choice will be very much for you to decide, but in order that you make your decisions with your eyes wide open, I want to tell you a little more about the tables; how they are viewed by people in the sector, what’s in them and what they might actually tell you that’s relevant to your choice.
Armed with this information, you’ll be able to understand some of their strengths, their limitations, and work out just how useful they are for you.
💡 Did You Know?
If you are interested in a career that really matters - that helps to solve the world’s biggest challenges - I'd recommend having a look at this extraordinary website.
It's called 80,000 hours, because that's roughly the amount of time you have in your career to have an impact on the world.
And it's all about how to find a career that will enable you to make the most difference.
It might just inspire you to study something you'd never even considered before!
📢 Quote of the week
“You’re going to spend 80,000 hours working over the course of your life. Yeah. 80,000. Might be nice if you enjoyed it.”
Eric Barker
Author of ‘Barking up the Wrong Tree’
This comes from a terrific article all about How you can have a fulfilling career.
And the same kind of applies to your university degree too. You're going to spend at least 3,600 hours studying over the course of your degree.
Yeah 3,600. Might be nice if you enjoyed it.
Thanks for reading!
Jonathan
🎯 In case you missed it
📅 Next week
Coming up next week: What does branding tell you about choosing a university?
