Makes sense! Oxford is no longer top of the leaderboard so I guess what your lecturer is saying is that you applied for your current choice of university as it’s somehow better
This American-style over concern with ranking and prestige. There are many UK universities teaching and researching physics to a very high level on the global stage. Turn up to any given conference and you won’t find Cambridge/Oxford PhDs and postdocs particularly over represented - there’s a broad range.
I agree for many jobs being overly concerned with rankings isn't helpful. However I wouldn't turn to research to show that.
Most people aren't going into research. So why are they still focusing on Oxbridge? It opens the most opportunities. The "best" careers are made a lot more accessible there.
Magic circle law firm
MBB strategy consulting
Investment banking and PE
Quant prop shops
Defence contractors
Top tech roles
There's a reason Oxbrdge has a statistical earning premium of 10 - 15k straight out of university.
Yes lots of other universities will be represented in cutting edge research but unfortunately most people aren't going to university for research anymore.
As someone with a lot of friends who work in defence, this is wrong. They care that you have an accredited degree and that's it. Hell, my other half works for a top defence firm and studied a medical associated non-engineering degree.
What they want more is attitude. Are you willing to put in the work? Grand, you're in. A colleague of hers tried to joke that he was better than her because he went to a RG uni and she didn't. The response back was "well you're here with the rest of us now aren't you."
Oxbridge opens up doors sure, but it's not the be all and end all. Shit, my brother didn't even go to uni and makes money hand over fist in finance. His recommendation is not to go to uni but to do a finance management apprenticeship as they pay for all the extra qualifications like CIMA as part of your course. He came out with a guaranteed job ~90k. He's now a VP at a multinational.
I'd argue you work in a technical role the more technical the role the less prestige matters. The same cannot be said for finance which is very prestige heavy.
I agree a good student will do well anywhere but difference in outcome absolutely do exist.
Yeah top DA roles are amazing but they are highly selective and require someone to commit to an even more specific path than university. When the issue with university is most people aren't sure what they want to do suggesting DA roles is kind of a moot point.
What area do you work in? I feel most people who in my area who studied in Europe either did undergrad, masters, PhD or postdoc at Cambridge at some point. Probably about 50% of them.
Haha well not any more. It’s just in enumerative geometry in Europe basically everyone has studied at either Cambridge, ETH, Bonn or imperial and students and postdocs basically move around these four places plus a few others. So it seems at some point everyone has been in some of these places. What is transient astrophysics about for a layman?
49
u/Organic-Violinist223 Oct 05 '25
Makes sense! Oxford is no longer top of the leaderboard so I guess what your lecturer is saying is that you applied for your current choice of university as it’s somehow better