Should train driving be a graduate profession?

[supervc-10]

A person's ability should not be solely be based on academia. These days there is so much neurodiversity and people are mismatched . If someone was passionate and had the capabilities to pass the assessment then don't see why not? Is Asperger's and dyslexia a bar , so many kids these days have this diagnosis.

I'm dyslexic and I'm a doctor. I know quite a few neurodivergent doctors too- one person who has Autism Spectrum Disorder is very high up in the BMA and has been interviewed on TV regarding the junior doctor strikes even. With the right teaching, bright people with these conditions can achieve amazing things.

And if anything, it's the easily bored and distracted that fare badly in an academic environment, as well as those who are simply not smart enough to produce work of sufficient quality. In the latter years, it necessarily takes a lot of concentration and commitment.

I definitely disagree with this. Again, from my own experience, I have a terrible attention span and I'm easily bored and distracted. But I have a medical degree. I'm a GP trainee (Junior Doctor) and one of the main reasons I like GP is that it's short consultations which vary a lot from person to person, so I don't get bored.

But I did fine academically. I wasn't top of my class or anything - I was enjoying the nightlife of Manchester far too much for that - but I did well and I now have a great career ahead of me. The difference is that I found my degree interesting and the way it was taught was engaging and worked well for me. Prior to medicine, I'd studied mechanical engineering. That course was a very traditional course and I really struggled, because it was much more lecture based and sitting with 400 other students listening to someone talk about vector mathematics was not something compatible with my way of learning.

Various people have already talked about how some jobs definitely require a degree, and medicine is definitely one of them. Many do not, however, and I'd defer to those in the know as to whether train driving is one of them (although based on the opinion of all the train drivers who've posted on here, there is no *need* for a degree)

 

[12LDA28C]

Various people have already talked about how some jobs definitely require a degree, and medicine is definitely one of them. Many do not, however, and I'd defer to those in the know as to whether train driving is one of them (although based on the opinion of all the train drivers who've posted on here, there is no *need* for a degree)

Common sense, good judgement, prioritising and decision-making skills are much more important than academic qualifications when recruiting potential train drivers. You'd be amazed how many unsuitable people apply for the role who seemingly can't even understand the most basic of instructions, without imposing additional criteria such as the requirement for a degree.

 

[GusB]

Prior to medicine, I'd studied mechanical engineering. That course was a very traditional course and I really struggled, because it was much more lecture based and sitting with 400 other students listening to someone talk about vector mathematics was not something compatible with my way of learning.

I started an engineering degree course and really struggled with some of the concepts, despite being fairly good at science and maths at school. The course I actually applied for was Microelectronics Engineering, but there was a common two year syllabus for all engineering disciplines and the mechanics stuff bored me silly.

The maths lecturer I had was very good and was quick to recognise when something wasn't registering with me; in one tutorial he told me to forget everything he'd taught that morning in the lecture, showed me a different way and the penny dropped right away. Unfortunately I didn't have the same experience with all my classes and I dropped out. There were other factors involved which I won't get into, but after repeating my first year I wasn't so keen to go back to it.

The need to find a job after that took me into retail and it seemed that the management training programme would be good to get into. Unfortunately there was a company-wide restructure, it became a graduate training programme and if you applied for a job as a checkout supervisor you had more chance of getting it because you had a degree. It was a slap in the face to existing staff who showed promise, and a double slap to those who had already been trained up to deputise for holiday and sickness cover! I will admit to having an "I told you so" moment when the graduate, who had only been responsible for running a small shop with a handful of staff previously, couldn't cope with the pressure of the Christmas rush and was told to leave the shop floor while the deputy manager took over their duties.

TL;DR - a degree is absolutely not necessary in many occupations and I feel that if a degree was a pre-requisite for driving trains you'd be excluding a large number of people from the job.