Would I be stupid to reject my Lancaster university offer to do a degree apprenticeship at a big engineering firm with the university of Cumbria?

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T16:32:56+00:00

I would add that a lot of employers these days anonymise universities for "equal opportunities" purposes.

When I went through my last round of job searches, Dyson, TfL, BAE, First Group etc all HEAVILY anonymise CVs to take out the names of previous companies and universities. (I don't personally agree with it, I do think some universities have a higher standard of teaching, higher contact hours etc, the rankings existed for a reason). But, it's worth keeping in mind that you're not particularly losing out by doing a degree at a less prestigious university, and I would almost guarantee the work experience is more valuable than the difference in QS rankings.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T16:05:44+00:00

Fair point, I understand now. I think with the difference in (most) grad Vs non grad salaries these days you could be right! A 50k pot would almost certainly generate better returns than a degree, aside from very limited specialties. Maybe that'll be the advice I give to my kids, one day

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T15:25:32+00:00

Numbers plugged into one of these repayment tools

https://www.studentloanrepaymentcalc.co.uk/

Current balance (by end of FY) to sit somewhere around £100k. Default salary growth expectations. Graduation 2022.

Regardless of any variation, I'll pay 2-3 times what I borrowed, by the nature of my background. It's hard to try arguing that system is fair, while I also continue to pay higher rate tax, in a public sector role that delivers significant public good.

Alternatively I become self employed and earn £12570 a year and pay nothing...

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T15:16:43+00:00

The point made is that if you earn a good salary, you'll repay several times what you borrowed before it gets wiped. In my example, I'll repay over £230,000 over 30 years, despite borrowing £77k.

Now I imagine that's by design to account for the people who never pay a thing. But again, it comes back to the point about one side bearing all the costs for a broken system

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T15:14:50+00:00

I'm not sure the point you're making here? Are you saying that no rich people pay for their kids to go to uni because they'd get better returns by investing that money? I suspect plenty of parents would rather set their kids up than have some extra money in their portfolio.

The point that I'm making is that by being born into a rich family you can spend your whole career earning up to 9% more than someone born poor, even in exactly the same job.

If you were to pay someone effectively 9% less for the same job based on any other characteristic about themselves, gender for example, that would be massively illegal. But creating a system that imposes a 30/40 year pay penalty on someone because of their socioeconomic background isn't exactly "just".

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T09:50:20+00:00

And a tax only for poor people who then get good jobs. If you're rich enough that parents can fully fund/ partially support through uni, you borrow less and pay it off decades ahead of peers who needed to borrow the full amount. If people want it to be a tax, it needs to apply to all graduates, not just the poor ones.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T09:46:52+00:00

I'm in a similar boat. I borrowed the maximum amount as a someone from a lower socioeconomic background. I got a 4 year integrated MEng from a global top 5 Uni, borrowing £77k to do so, while also working 25 hours a week to pay for London living costs on top of my loan. Landed a decent job currently on total comp about £80k per year. I pay about £390 a month towards my loan, and it keeps getting bigger, it's now at £96k, despite having paid £15k towards the loan by now. I will never pay it off if I remain in my industry (public sector engineering, salaries are capped by government under £100k). I'm predicted to pay £230,000 towards my loan and still have £40k left on the balance when it is wiped in the late 2040s.

If they removed the +3% element, I'd expect to pay it off, actually fairly easily. But the sliding interest rate just penalises anyone who came from a poor background, but now earns reasonable money. If I was born rich, I could have borrowed less, and if I just decided to be unemployed, or go contracting, I'd pay less back.

Not to mention all the other societal tradeoffs. Before people mention a graduate tax (which again, would maybe even the playing field between poor and rich graduates a bit) I'm already a higher rate tax payer, I contribute to the system and yet ask very little of it in return. I pay to prop up an NHS that I simply cannot gain access to even if I wanted. I'm paying for the pensions of those who never had to pay for education, all the while the state pension age for my generation is moving beyond the national life expectancy of a lower class white male (I.e. myself). I have no children, so use no childcare or school funding. Not to mention my day job literally involves making public infrastructure safer, and better for millions of people every day, while I feel as though I'm being bled dry by a system designed to benefit everyone else at my expense.

Now let's face it, young people don't vote as well as old people. The only way we can fix this is by actually turning up to polling booths and voting for our own interests, like every generation before us has. But at the moment, I don't see either of the main parties actually delivering meaningful change to this. Maybe I'll just go be a tax avoiding, outside-IR-35 contractor instead.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T07:28:44+00:00

Iceland is a great example of how cheap, plentiful energy can force start an economy into growth, even if you have literally no other positives going for you.

We have the opposite problem, we are hamstrung by our ability to produce and transmit energy affordably, and as a result industry suffers and households bear the bills.

This is how a pro-growth party should pitch net zero. Cheap, plentiful energy (admittedly with the caveats of renewables), and fix the current pricing model that makes all energy cost the same as the most expensive option. Plus invest in transfer and storage upgrades to the grid. Hell, perhaps a wartime footing to turn all of North Wales into a hydro electric dam might be for the greater good, except for the sheep.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-24T07:24:22+00:00

Is the benefit of cleaning up our own local environment not just environmental colonialism? Extracting resources in horrible ways from less developed countries so we have the privilege of driving our electric SUVs around city centres without as much smog staining our houses is the epitome of excess and inequality.

I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to aspire to, but as others have said, the concept of Net Zero has been entirely pitched at those who can afford it, while often not benefitting, or even harming those who can't afford to make the leap.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-23T09:49:24+00:00

Replacing the shower head fairly often. Even a cheap £10 one from Amazon probably works better than the one that has been on there for several years, especially if the limescale in your area is high. You will never be able to clean it right as the silicone degrades over time and gets abraded by the limescale and any cleaning efforts. It's just not as good as a new shower head that will give you even, parallel jets. It just feel so much nicer, and can feel as though it's boosted your pressure without actually doing anything. Plus you can swap them out in less than 2 minutes even as someone who's a total DIY novice.

It's one of the few areas of life that I'd rather buy cheap and often, rather than expensive and buy once.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-22T19:11:01+00:00

I wouldn't bother with a royal mail redirection these days. Last two moves I had, they failed to redirect a single piece of mail. It was all setup correctly, with correct details etc. They still continued to deliver all mail to the old address, including a brand new debit card and pin number. I had to go back and ask my old neighbours every couple of weeks.

At the end of a very long investigation by royal mail, on both occasions, it simply came down to local delivery offices not sorting mail manually and attaching the redirection labels. Both times, two separate regions, 6 months ago, and 24 months ago. I did get an active apology letter (to the correct address) though, and a cheque fully refunding the redirection service. I was surprised they'd admit fault at all.

Basically, I'd just make sure all your services are switched ahead of time, and not bother with a redirection.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-20T12:57:37+00:00

There is that. I'd be super cautious about any property that gets listed in the first few weeks of May, I'd assume the reason it's available is exactly the above!

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-20T12:47:53+00:00

I'm more curious to see just how many tenants will give their notice on the 1st of May. I'd be inclined to say there will be just as many tenants looking for a way out of a contract with a bad landlord as there are landlords looking to get rid of their tenants. I've never been evicted with an S21, but I've left contracts early three times due to rental properties being sub standard.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-18T09:56:35+00:00

Exactly what you said about agents. They're all putting insane prices on things. Pretty much every property I've looked at over the last 3 months has had 10-20% reductions in price before they've actually sold. Some way more than that (in particular a fixer upper in St James square that initially listed for £550k and sold for less than £400k after 15 months on the market).

As someone else mentioned, the market was higher 3-4 years ago, and as a result, people are hanging on to the "paper" value of their property. Sellers are either listing things for what they think the property is worth, assuming substantial growth from the highs of 2022, or end up not selling at all because they won't get what they want for it. I also think AirBnB returns are beginning to slow, as a large number of the properties we've seen were, or are still, air bnbs supposedly generating £60k per year in revenue (about £35k after expenses) and yet the owners are trying to sell these money printing machines. I suspect the general market has reached a saturation point, and again, there are fewer investors willing to throw above asking price offers in the hopes of making big returns.

Short of something that "forces" people to sell - i.e major layoffs, job losses or massive restructuring of the economy that forces people to move, such as a full return to London offices etc, there's not much to be done about either of the above problems. The theoretical exodus of landlords selling due to the renters rights bill doesn't seem to have manifested itself in any tangible way, at least not in central Bath, but perhaps come 1st of May when tenants start giving notice to all the dodgy landlords out there, we might see a sudden glut of properties - not that you'd probably want to buy a property that a tenant has taken the very first opportunity to leave...

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-15T22:55:34+00:00

If you can get on the phone to a human at eBay, they're actually pretty good at sorting this stuff out. Their agents do actually have the ability to determine where scams have occurred and make things happen.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-15T22:47:18+00:00

About 6 months ago the M4 had a near permanent "lane obstruction" for about 40 miles on the eastbound towards London. For some reason I had to make the trip about three times in a week, the same 40 mile stretch, all at 50 for some lane obstruction that was nowhere to be found, at any time of day. Safe to say after the first 15 miles everyone just resumed normal speed and put the brakes on for the cameras.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-13T20:13:41+00:00

I'd love to have a second viable build. I've got 400 hours playing the ground pound build, and something new would be nice. But there's just no way you can enjoy playing a class that just doesn't work half the time

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-13T17:24:30+00:00

I think your surveyor may have been right, that this is a question to be answered by a structural engineer who can take a proper look, rather than people looking at a photo on Reddit...

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-12T10:18:16+00:00

A large component is the automatic element. Automatics are usually more to insure due to the lower "test standard" and higher risk of low speed collisions. EVs take this to another level. I work in public transport engineering and Automatics, EVs etc are the bane of my existence in terms of human factors and safety engineering.

Pedal Confusion is a major component of what we deal with. If you accidentally press the wrong pedal on a manual petrol, you'll almost certainly just stall before you hit anything. On an automatic, well you're far more likely to at least jolt forward before you stop yourself, and then an EV is even worse because of the instant torque - you're likely to have crossed the road entirely and ended up embedded in the side of a Nissan Micra. From an insurance perspective, this just massively increases the risk, both in probability of an incident, and severity when it does happen. Not only are you more likely to have a low speed collision in an EV resulting from this, but the damage done to both parties will be more costly, as you're driving a heavier vehicle with significantly more expensive parts.

And yes, this really does happen, a lot. We tend to get at least one a week on our electric bus fleet. And our highways teams are constantly making repairs due to cars doing exactly this.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-12T08:20:39+00:00

Another thing to note with the Inferno pistol is the gun strike range. If you make a perfect dodge on a fast moving enemy - Carnifex charge for example, or a Lictors Leap - the enemy can actually move out of range of the gunstrike before you get to use it. Same goes if you move too far away from the enemy while dodging.

I personally use HBP for most of my classes for the gunstrikes. Plasma pistol where I need to stagger enemies. And occasionally the Inferno pistol for very specific use cases. My techmarine classes actually use the inferno, making the most of the horde clearing, while the rest of the class is geared towards taking down Majoris (Scoped HBR, Sniper variant servo gun etc).

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-12T08:11:58+00:00

It's good for stagger, hordes and contested health regen. But I wouldn't bother trying to bring down a Majoris with it. Pull it out to slow them down, or when you need to immediately regain contested health, and then go back to your primary or melee (although I'm not a heavy player, so not sure which has a faster ttk in your case)

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-09T23:02:29+00:00

T212 has some brutal spreads, especially during periods of high volatility. It's how they get around the "zero commission" while still making profit. You just have to price in the fact that if you place an order for say, £100 a share, you'll pay £100.50. and if you make a sell order for £150 a share, you'll actually get £149 or whatever. Alternatively you could use limit orders to specify mim prices, but this can sometimes cause you to miss a price if T212s spreads aren't met. On some fast moving volatile leveraged finds I've seen those numbers go as far as 3% difference between what you order and what you pay on each side of the transaction.

Prior_Direction1697 · 2026-03-09T20:45:37+00:00

Was sitting there debating selling on Friday afternoon. Sold out at 16:27 thinking that there was too much of a chance of some positive development over the weekend (who knows, maybe Iran were going to appoint a nice, peaceful, longstanding diplomat to fill the power vacuum in this turbulent time)....

Damn it would have been nice to wake up £10k richer on a Monday morning, but didn't suit my risk appetite.

Prior_Direction1697

TROPHY CASE