
Dyson opens Britain’s first degree where students get paid - ollysmit
http://www.thememo.com/2016/11/04/forget-fees-dyson-opens-britains-first-degree-where-students-get-paid/
======
mobiuscog
Effectively he's bringing back apprenticeships the way they should be.

It's far more useful than the current University arrangement, where 'everyone'
gets to pay money to drink for 3 years (whilst studying) and then either drop
back into the market looking for useful work, or go on to spend even more time
making Academia seem worthwhile.

We used to be world leaders in engineering and production in the UK - now we
just have students everywhere, with no jobs to go to as we import pretty much
everything.

Okay - slightly over-dramatic, but at least Dyson is trying to do something
useful.

~~~
pjc50
I think that's overstating it, there's a _lot_ of engineering in the UK. It
just has a very low media profile, because it either has a foreign name on the
product (Nissan!) or doesn't sell to consumers.

A surprisingly large amount of it is in really unglamorous buildings in
industrial estates outside cities other than London. Since the media have
largely stopped bothering to leave the M25, it's invisible.

(I have a pet theory based on the car industry that the really toxic thing is
British labour relations; there are successful small British companies, and
successful large plants with foreign owners, but all the British-managed mass-
employment industries collapsed in strikes and/or were looted by the directors
like MG Rover.)

~~~
fdgdasfadsf
> I have a pet theory based on the car industry that the really toxic thing is
> British labour relations

I don't think that many people will disagree with you on this theory.

~~~
sgt101
I will.

Every large company in the UK has a significant union. Not every large company
has failed. Some company failures have been exacerbated by unions, british
leyland being one example.

The really toxic thing is financial short termism. It used to be results in a
year, which was very bad. Now they want results in under a quarter which is to
value generation as acid to chalk.

~~~
fdgdasfadsf
Just to clarify my post was saying that the relation between union and and
management is the problem - not the existence of the union. I ascribe this as
much (if not more) to management than to the union.

------
EwanToo
This does look interesting, but there's already degree apprentices out there
doing essentially this in various employers, with an accredited degree at the
end of the process.

We have a couple working in our office, and I've been hugely impressed by them

[https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/apprenticeships/students/digital--
tec...](https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/apprenticeships/students/digital--technology-
solutions/)

~~~
benh14
As someone currently doing a very similar kind of thing(gap year working for
company + part sponsorship through uni), I don't know why more companies don't
do this - We're incredibly cost effective for the work we actually provide,
even if its just doing work that noone else wants to.

------
orcdork
Dyson, the billionaire who backed Brexit, is worried that there aren't enough
engineers in the UK.

Hah.

~~~
mobiuscog
Part of the reason we don't have the people is because we rely on 'Europe' to
provide everything.

~~~
Maken
And importing talent is bad because...

~~~
fdgdasfadsf
The UK has two problems:

1\. We need lots of skilled people.

2\. We have lots of people lacking skills.

Importing talent solves problem (1) (and grows the economy and is generally
and genuinely a good thing). But problem (2) remains. Why not try to solve
both at once?

~~~
jackweirdy
We also have lots of skilled people missing work. All three problems are
related, none are the root cause

~~~
rahimnathwani
Skilled at what?

~~~
jackweirdy
Software development, for one. In the UK Computer Science is the STEM subject
with the highest unemployment rate.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Are you saying that there are people in the UK who are skilled in software
development, who cannot find jobs developing software? Or that there are
people who have studied computer science (e.g. at university) and cannot find
jobs developing software?

------
qxt
Call me skeptical but I'm looking for the gotcha. Nothing yet, but here's the
FAQ
[https://www.dysoninstitute.com/faqs/](https://www.dysoninstitute.com/faqs/)

If there's no clause about having to work for Dyson after the program, then it
will be a no-brainer for engineering students. I wonder if the normal
structures of career centers will still be present/emphasized, since I'm sure
Dyson would not be interested in its grads seeking employment at competitors.

~~~
RubenSandwich
One gotcha is that the degree might not be accredited. At least that is what I
understand from this sentence in the article: "It’s a £15m project which, if
successful, Dyson hopes to eventually gain university status and award its own
degrees to up to 100 students a year." However I admire Dyson's efforts to
train the people they need.

Edit: Actually maybe it is accredited. From the Dyson Institute's FAQs: "What
is the Dyson Institute of Technology?

The Dyson Institute of Technology teaches high quality engineering degrees to
the next generation of tech enthusiasts, alongside a full time role at Dyson.

During this four year programme you’ll learn about engineering through hands-
on experience in our Research and Development department with academic
training provided by WMG, the University of Warwick. You'll graduate with a
Bachelor of Engineering degree."

~~~
chrisseaton
I think a bachelor degree would be unusual for the UK. Aren't most engineering
degrees in the UK undergraduate masters?

~~~
gadders
You normally do a Bachelor of Engineering - B.Eng.

~~~
chrisseaton
I think if you apply to any university they'll strongly recommend that you
should be doing the MEng instead. The BEng isn't enough to even get chartered
is it? So you'd need to do another degree anyway.

~~~
paperpunk
If the unis I've looked at are any indication then many offer an integrated
masters programme but most students will be on the bachelors route. At the
institution where I work (Uni of York) many more BEng degrees are awarded than
MEng.

------
chadcmulligan
I'm in Australia, when I grew up degrees were free and the government paid an
allowance if your family was poor or you were classed as independent - which
means you worked for 2 years after school.

So I ended up getting a degree after starting work as an apprentice. The days
of an allowance are long gone, Uni degrees now cost here, but not as much as
the folks across the pond seem to pay from what I can gather.

Would I have gone to uni in todays conditions? probably. would I have finished
- hard to say, 3 years of scrabbling for money would have perhaps changed
things.

The bit I can't figure out is why in the 70's and 80's we could afford that,
but now we can't. I suspect it's peoples life style expectations, and the
greed of those who earn money to not want to pay taxes. I don't like paying
tax any more than the next person but if you want a functioning society taxes
are necessary and the only way of redistributing wealth.

------
bcheung
Finally people are starting to understand the value of an apprenticeship
system. The student loan fiasco is something that doesn't need to exist.

------
Futurebot
How exactly does this square with the UK CS grad unemployment crisis?

[https://www.studyinternational.com/news/uk-computer-
science-...](https://www.studyinternational.com/news/uk-computer-science-has-
the-highest-rate-of-unemployed-graduates)

[http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-
comput...](http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-computer-
science-graduates-what-does-the-data-say/)

“For a long time we wondered why more people didn’t major in computer
science,” Alex Aiken, chair of Stanford University’s Computer Science
Department, told Times Higher Education. “Everyone in the field believed it
was the future and that [it] represented an important way of thinking. Now the
world believes us, and we have an overwhelming number of students.”

~~~
ropiku
Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified enough to be
hired. Companies don't just hire based on a degree, they want demonstrable
skills.

I've seen 3rd year students unable to fix a basic java compilation error in
their own program. No reasonable CS graduate I know is unemployed.

~~~
pvaldes
Demonstrable skills? Of course, here you are the results of my 100 exams, that
I passed sucessfully. In an officially certified document, easy to
authenticate.

Its called curriculum, and is comfortably standardized for all students so you
can find the best easily. Otherwise you would need to compare among random
arbitrary sets of skills, different for each one of your candidates and this
would be for companies basically like playing blind chicken to hire a
candidate.

You need still to show demonstrable skills is often a way to say "I expect you
to work for free until you realize that this is the real game here. I will
replace you with the next hungry guy in the queue". Is just a mean to obtain
the same cheaper, or free.

~~~
rahimnathwani
A CS degree isn't 'comfortably standardised'. Each university has its own
curriculum, its own exams, and its own standards.

If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK university,
would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me?

~~~
pvaldes
If your scores were high, probably yes.

Recruitment should be put in the right context. The best recruiter have an
evening, or a few hours to figure out if you are a good fit or if you have any
skills. If you have a bad day, your recruiter don't liked your face or he/she
wants to remain the big fish in a small pond; you fall under the radar.

Your teachers instead had four years for "recruit you". They have see you
performing in solitary and in group; know if you have any real skills or not
or if you have problems with the other studens. They understand you much
better that any recruiter; is their job.

The job of a recruiter is having the position filled at the lowest price
possible. They need the psychological tricks to make the process random again
and put pressure on the candidate. To be able to cheat the tests or to seduce
your recruiter is not a skill that the company needs. Is just smoke.
Unsusprisingly a lot of those swans turn into ugly ducklings just after being
hired.

~~~
rahimnathwani
ropiku: Simply because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you're qualified
enough to be hired.

pvaldes: here you are the results of my 100 exams, that I passed sucessfully.
In an officially certified document, easy to authenticate.

me: If I could prove to you that I was awarded a CS degree from a UK
university, would that be sufficient for you to agree to employ me?

pvaldes: If your scores were high, probably yes.

So it seems that you and ropiku _agree_ that a CS degree _isn't_ enough.

Where you differ is that you want to see scores above some threshold (although
I can't imagine how you'd standardise those across 100+ UK universities), and
ropiku wants to see someone write some Java code. Both seem reasonable
approaches, but the latter seems a little easier and more reliable.

~~~
pvaldes
> I can't imagine how you'd standardise those across 100+ UK universities

Is Python a different language if written in Cardiff, Liverpool or Plymouth?

~~~
rahimnathwani
> Is Python a different language if written in Cardiff, Liverpool or Plymouth?

No, but that has zero relevance to the comparability of scores between
universities.

~~~
pvaldes
Has Python zero relevance to have a job?

For some jobs yes, of course; for other I don't think so.

If you have a soft spot for elitism and want to have universities ranked by
categories you can have it. Is universally standardized, as I said before. You
could hire people only of universities ranking in prime number positions if
you want. Is your choice.

If you want simply to hire somebody able to code in the language X, you could
just take a quick look at the curriculum of your candidate and see if that
language was teached in his/her university, what contents have been teached
(can find it in the web of the university) and how the guy/girl scored, so...
what is the problem exactly?

Do you think that to make them repeat the same tests is a good way to spend
the money of your company and your time as employer? Is your company a
wannabe-university? Do you feel better qualified to score correctly a
candidate than the teacher that spent 30 years doing exactly that job?

~~~
rahimnathwani
You're arguing against points that I didn't make. I had only two points to
make in this sub-thread:

\- CS degrees are not standardised, i.e. you cannot directly conclude anything
based on the graduate's degree grade or individual scores, without additional
information (e.g. the institution where they studied).

\- Just because someone has a CS degree, that's not enough for you to decide
to hire them. You need additional information.

Do you disagree with either of those points?

~~~
pvaldes
> CS degrees are not standardised

In most countries they are, by law. Is the basis of the educative system.
Degrees are certified and strongly regulated by the government. I can't just
print and flash one without a license to emit degrees. This would be to
falsificate a public document, wich is a crime in most countries in the world,
if not all.

In those countries you can't discriminate something for a public job based
only in their university, this would be also illegal. Any degree of type "X"
emited by a valid institution must de accepted if you ask for an degree of
type "X". All are equivalent. In many fields, physicians for example, you
can't work without a degree. But you can work as physician in UK with a
Spanish or Chinese degree for example, because this is regulated. Private
companies of course can lie themselves in any way as they want. Is their money
after all.

Your reality may be different.

> You cannot directly conclude anything based on the graduate's degree grade

If your candidate show a CS degree, you can directly conclude that this people
have skills related with computer science, and related with having a CS
degree. You don't know if he/she is able to drive a truck, this is true.

> or individual scores

Also standardized.

> Without eg. the institution where they studied.

Information casually written in big fat letters in the CS degree.

~~~
rahimnathwani
In the UK, degrees and individual scores are definitely not standardized.

The standard to achieve a given degree grade (e.g. Upper Second) varies
between institutions.

As for individual scores, these are often not even on the same scale. Some
universities use numerical scores; others use alpha/beta/gamma.

If you accept the above, but still believe that UK CS degrees are
standardized, then it's likely you and I assign different meanings to the word
'standardized'.

------
jlebrech
I read about this, this morning and immediately thought of this Mark Cuban
comment on building universities
[https://youtu.be/UgdNTzul27k?t=1m18s](https://youtu.be/UgdNTzul27k?t=1m18s)

------
wkoszek
In Poland getting paid to study certain topics is quite popular. Very often
companies will approach universities to open sponsored track. This happens
when they're giving up on hiring and instead trying to raise the generation of
people who know their industry. It happened on my university -- that's how we
got "energy engineering" for several power plants around my city.

------
sgt101
Oh come on.

[http://www.btplc.com/Careercentre/Ourlocations/UK/Apprentice...](http://www.btplc.com/Careercentre/Ourlocations/UK/Apprenticeships/OurProgrammes/TrainingAndDevelopment/index.htm)

And many other companies as well.

~~~
tobltobs
I don't think this is meant to be an apprenticeship. This is more a tertiary
education. There is a similar system in Germany which is called
"Berufsfachschule", which could be translated with "university of cooperative
education".

~~~
sgt101
But part of the apprenticeship scheme (the BT one at least) _is_ a degree.

\- work in a high tech campus \- work on projects for the company \- go to
lectures \- get a degree \- from a University

I am all for the Dyson initiative, but people should be more aware that this
is an option!

------
partycoder
Do they have a commitment to Dyson once they receive their degree?

Because, if they do, Dyson might actually also have a strong influence over
their salary and other forms of compensation and benefits once they do.

~~~
maxxxxx
In Germany they have "Berufsakademie". You get paid by a company while you go
to school 6 months a year and are a sort of intern the other 6 months. and
usually you are expected to work there but it's not enforced in any way. The
starting salaries are the same as graduates from other colleges. It's a pretty
good deal in my view.

~~~
jclos
We have the same in France, called "alternance" degrees. It's either like you
describe 6 months studying, 6 months working or something more short term. You
can get into something like that from your third year to your masters, and you
get paid an increasing amount depending on the company and which year you are,
starting with very little (just enough to survive, something like 500€/month)
and ending with a reasonable stipend (around 1200€/month on average among my
friends).

For fields like software engineering I believe it is the best way to get a
proper education.

------
stefantalpalaru
Do they also provide training for breaking into sawmills, stealing industrial
designs, applying them to vacuum cleaners and patenting them so you can
accumulate wealth thanks to a state granted monopoly?

[http://machinedesign.com/news/industrial-design-design-
dyson...](http://machinedesign.com/news/industrial-design-design-dyson-way) :

> As it happened, Dyson was also having suction problems at the factory which
> made his Ballbarrow, a wheelbarrow he invented that uses a ball instead of a
> wheel. There, overspray of an epoxy powder was collected on an 8 8-ft cloth
> screen in front of a gigantic fan with a three-phase motor — a sort-of giant
> vacuum cleaner. Production had to stop every hour to brush out the screen
> and gather the powder for reuse. Otherwise, the screen would clog and powder
> would fly all over the factory.

> The spray-equipment maker said large industrial users collected airborne
> debris in a cyclone. The cyclone, it turned out, was a 30-ft-high cone that
> spun dust out of the air using centrifugal force — the kind of thing you
> might see on top of a saw mill.

> Under cover of darkness, Dyson went to a nearby sawmill, climbed the fence,
> and “surveyed at close hand the gigantic symbol of my future.” He made some
> sketches and climbed all over it to learn how it worked, what its
> proportions were, and what it was made of.

> The next day, Dyson and his workers welded a 30-ft cyclone together from
> sheets of steel and attached it to the roof. He “gleefully” tore the cloth
> screen from the opening of the duct and started the conveyor. The overspray
> “went straight into the gaping hole, up the [duct work] and around the walls
> at the top of the cyclone, spiraling down through the inverted cone to be
> collected by a bag at the bottom, while the air escaped into the sky.
> Production went on and on, with no stoppages until the end of the day,” says
> Dyson.

> The similarity between ripping off the cloth filter and tossing out a
> vacuum-cleaner bag was obvious. It also occurred to him there was “no reason
> why it shouldn’t work in miniature, using a cyclone about the size of, say,
> a Perrier bottle.” That night, Dysonmodeled a foot-long version of the
> cyclone out of cardboard and duct tape. He covered the large end, leaving a
> hole in the top for the escaping air. Then, he attached a short length of
> hose to the discharge hole of the machine (where the bag had been) and
> connected it to the top of the cyclone, which was fixed to the shaft of the
> cleaner. The world’s only bagless vacuum cleaner worked flawlessly.

~~~
abstractbeliefs
And what's specifically wrong with this, aside from the way the information
was specifically acquired?

In tech, we bemoan laws against technological breaking and entering with a
view to learn about how things work (we call it reverse engineering), but
applied to mechanical engineers this is not right?

While I understand the law regarding trespass is different, this is just a
means to an end.

I think your argument would hold more weight if you could elaborate more on
the patent and monopoly stuff, but instead you focus on the act and context of
learning how the cyclone works.

