The Vocational Aspect of Education

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Student experiences in industry

Michael P. Hornsby-Smith

To cite this article: Michael P. Hornsby-Smith (1971) Student experiences in industry, The
Vocational Aspect of Education, 23:55, 81-89, DOI: 10.1080/03057877180000121

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The Vocational Aspect o f Education (Summer 1971) Volume X X I I I No, 55, pp. 81-89
Student Experiences in Industry
By M I C H A E L P. H O R N S B Y - S M I T H
Lecturer in Sociology, University of Surrey
The Need for Skilled industrial management
In the past two or three years a veritable barrage
of official reports and research studies have drawn
attention to the needs of industry for a more
professional and more technologically sophisti-
cated management. [ 1 ] The Report of the Central
Advisory Council for Science and Technology on
technological innovation in Britain concluded that
'a bigger fraction of qualified manpower must be
encouraged to go into the management of in-
dustry' and suggested that this might be done
negatively by reducing research grants at univer-
sities for new graduates and positively by in-
creasing Government support for industry. The
Swarm Report quoted the frequently expressed
view that the failure of the best graduates 'to go
into British industry in sufficient numbers is not
so much the cause as the result of the present state
of much of that industry'. Among the shorter-term
measures recommended were some restrictions on
post-graduate studies immediately after gradua-
tion, vigorous recruitment by industry of the
ablest graduates to jobs which fully and effectively
employed them and which offered them attractive
and challenging careers and the offering of higher
salaries to compensate for the inherently lower
freedom and security by contrast to university and
public service employment. Finally, the Jones
Report on the Brain Drain referred to the image of
United Kingdom industry as 'bad and rigid' and
argued that the solution was for industry to 'make
a determined effort to project an attractive image
of itself to the qualified engineer, technologist or
scientist'.
Cambridge undergraduate attitudes to industry
In order to find out to what extent a reappraisal of
the image of industry was necessary, a survey of
attitudes to industry of one in four Cambridge
male undergraduates was carried out last year by
the Cambridge University Management Group. A
summary of the findings has recently been pub-
fished by the British Institute o f Management. [2]
Roughly half the students were considering a
career in industry though figures from the Cam-
81
bridge University Appointments Board showed
that only one-fifth of male students graduating in
1968 entered industry immediately. Students
seriously considering a career in management most
frequently mentioned responsibility, prospects of
a high salary and opportunities for rapid promo-
tion as attractive features of a career in industry.
At the same time, social status and prestige and a
'sense of public service' were considered to be
unimportant features in career choice. Nearly
two-thirds of the sample thought that industry
might improve its image by offering more oppor-
tunities for vacation work and nearly one-half
asked for informal discussion with recently re-
cruited graduates. Since over half the sample had
had industrial experience either on a shop floor or
in an office, the authors of the report concluded
that better vacation opportunities were 'the main
solution to this problem of familiarization' to
industry. Vacation jobs should 'directly relate to
the everyday industrial problems which a recent
graduate would expect to face' and individual
research projects in such fields as marketing and
sales, management services, production and per-
sonnel were particularly recommended. While it is
true that the report comments that some types of
work might have a negative value, the dominant
impression given is that the long-term interests of
industry would be promoted if students obtained
'a true impression of industry'.
Different vacation experiences
It is one of the purposes of this article to throw
doubt on the unqualified assumption that vacation
experience in industry (necessarily) leads to more
favourable attitudes and orientation to industry.
While a carefully arranged management-oriented
programme of socialization to the role, privileges
and responsibilities of industry or involvement in
specific research projects might be very successful
from the point of view of improving the under-
graduate image of industry, this is not the type of
experience enjoyed by the great majority of
students who work in industry, mainly in semi-
skilled jobs during the vacation. For these students
82
the experience serves to illustrate in all its stark-
ness the reality of the 'two sides of industry' as
seen from the perspective of the worker. This leads
to a rejection of any unitary or teamwork concept
of industry and to a critical judgement on manage-
ment for tolerating the conditions under which
many employees work. These vacation experiences
clearly do not improve the undergraduate's image
of industry.
Students on many degree courses especially in
engineering and technology are frequently re-
quired to undertake a period of anything from six
weeks to several months approved work in in-
dustry as part of their course. It is at least
doubtful that this work serves to attract students
to industry and indeed students on sandwich
courses returning to complete their academic
studies are frequently highly critical of their
experience. Thus research at Bradford University
showed that engineering students generally expres-
sed less favourable attitudes to industrial training
after their first period of approved experience. [ 3]
Reflection of graduates from generalist course
The writer has recently had occasion to note
responses of students on three different courses at
the University of Surrey to experience of work in
industry, either for short periods o f approved
experience during summer vacations or on in-
dustrial parts of sandwich courses. In the first case,
a postal questionnaire asking for comments on
their course was sent in November 1969 to all 60
graduates from the first four intakes to the Human
and Physical Sciences course. Full responses were
received from 46 graduates, 24 men and 22
women. The course combined studies in mathe-
matics, physics and chemistry, on the one hand,
with studies in philosophy or sociology or psycho-
logy, on the other hand, in roughly equal propor-
tions. The student was required to complete six
weeks approved vacation work in industry nor-
mally during the second summer vacation. The aim
was to give him some understanding of the human
and technical aspects of factory organization and
to provide an opportunity for him to experience
the reality of one part o f factory life and, from the
perspective of his study of either philosophy or
sociology or psychology, critically to appraise the
interaction between science and technology and
man, his social organization and his values.
Two thirds (27) o f the students worked in the
production departments o f a variety of manu-
facturing firms, mainly in unskilled or semi-skilled
jobs and a few worked either in research labora-
tories or personnel departments. Half those doing
semi-skilled or unskilled work or providing routine
Student Experience in Industry
laboratory or research assistance expressed bore-
dom with the routine of their jobs. Half the
graduates (23) n o w considered their vacation
experience had been a worthwhile part of their
course. These largely referred to the insight it had
given them into the structure of industry, the
frustration of shop-floor work and a greater
awareness of the problems of the working man and
an understanding of his attitudes. One graduate
commented that n o w he appreciated what his
mother (a factory worker) had to endure. For about
one in eight of those who considered the vacation
experience worthwhile it had been useful in getting
a job on graduation. Of those who did not consider
their vacation experience a worthwhile part of
their course, one-third commented that the type
of work done was not specifically related to their
course or to their likely future careers and
one-fifth that they had learned nothing new since
most students already had previous experience of
shop-floor employment during vacations. Over
one-third of the respondents (14) considered their
vacation experience had helped them 'appreciate
more clearly the applications of science and
technology in industry', two-thirds '(24) appreci-
ated 'more clearly the social implications of
advanced science and technology' and two-thirds
(27) appreciated 'more clearly the nature of
industrial conflict or the divergent interests of
management and labour'. Differences in the res-
ponses of those graduates who had studied philo-
sophy, sociology, or psychology as part of their
course strongly suggested that a favourable res-
ponse to their vacation experience was closely
related to the amount of guidance the student had
been given before undertaking his experience and
the amount of discussion and analysis with tutors
after writing up a project or essay on his experi-
ence.
First-year social science students
The second example relates to students on the
Human Relations degree course who have com-
pleted one year's study of sociology, psychology
and philosophy. During their first summer vaca-
tion they are required to spend six weeks in
employment at shop-floor level. 'The aim is to
ensure that students gain first-hand knowledge of
the organization and management of an industrial
concern and particularly o f relationships within it
from the point of view of the employee'. This is
held to be a valuable educational experience
especially for those who after graduation might
reasonably be expected to hold positions of
responsibility whether in industry, the social ser-
vices, teaching or administration. It is assumed
MICHAEL P. HORNSBY-SMITH
that some insight into the work experiences of
large sections of the population will contribute to
understanding and sympathy. In the Summer o f
1969 students were asked to write a report on the
social structure of the work place, noting in
particular the formal and informal structure, shop-
floor norms, roles and statuses, the social composi-
tion of work groups, the influence of the techno-
logy involved and organization of work, the extent
of interaction outside the workplace, the extent to
which informal work-group norms complied with
or differed from management norms and the
reasons for this. Three introductory lectures aimed
to provide a basis for the analysis of their work
experience. The first drew attention to the argu-
ments for a pluralistic frame of reference outlined
by Fox [4] in his research paper for the Donovan
Royal Commission and students were invited to
consider industry as a coalition of conflicting
interests. Secondly, students were introduced to
the concepts of formal and informal organization,
Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy, the Scientific
Management and Human Relations theories of
organization and to a number o f empirical studies
of the influence of technology on work organiza-
tion. [5] Thirdly, a review of industrial attitudes
and behaviour drew attention to the recent studies
of Goldthorpe and Lockwood. [6]
Ten men and 22 women worked in Britain
during the summer of 1969, mainly as semi-skilled
operatives for a variety of firms mainly in London
and the Home Counties, manufacturing everything
from bottle tops, toys, suitcases, metal compo-
nents, shoes and packings to beer and soft drinks,
drugs and comestics, and a range o f foods and
confectionery. No direction to specific firms was
made and students selected those most convenient
to them, normally near their homes. Generally
there were no significant differences in the res-
ponses of the men and women students though the
men more frequently mentioned the absence of
trade unions and the women bad conditions and
bad management-worker relations.
For three-quarters (24) of the students a
polarization of interests between the workers, 'us',
and the management, ' t h e m ' , was at least implicit.'
Frequent references were made to the strategies by
which informal work groups were able to control
their work rate, bypass clocking-in and -off require-
ments, institutionalize tea breaks and lavatory
breaks for a smoke and a chat. Some students
referred to the bad local reputation of their firms
sometimes explicit at the E m p l o y m e n t Exchange
[7]
I take it y o u don't want to work at X?
83
Others were sceptical of the functions of Personnel
Managers:
Despite quite obvious ability, he is no genuine
arbiter between the workers and management.
His task is to keep up the image of the
company as " o n e big, happy family".
Another student quoted a workman's view:
You're just a number in a place like this, a
robot that works a machine; they're not interes-
ted in you at all. If you can't produce y o u
d o n ' t exist [and commented] who can doubt
that this is true?
Developing the notion that the management view
of workers was limited the same student wrote:
Its Personnel Officer said they had excellent
c o n d i t i o n s - i m p l y i n g (I am quite certain) that
this was all there was to workers' happiness at
work; it was undoubtedly 'a model cow-house'.
However, as another student in another factory
put it:
'Humans are not cows' and even the glossy firm
newspaper, in the words of a fitter 'Wakes up
their self contempt at being part of the same
money-grabbing machine'.
One-third of the students made comments about
provocative or antagonistic management, and
varying degrees of exploitation. F o r one student
this was lower payment during the first two weeks.
It was the policy of the company to pay lower
wages for the first two weeks of employment,
which were described as a training period. In
fact there was no training given, and everyone
was supposed to be as adept and efficient in
their first two weeks as the permanent old
hands.
This sense o f initial disgust was well-described by
another student:
The first and obvious thing which struck me
during my stay at X firm o f die-casting engin-
e e r s . . , was the complete disinterest o f the
firm in the welfare of its employees and its
complete incapacity to pass on information
both to and about them.
She explained her initiation to her work in the
following dialogue:
Bill (the foreman) said ' D o n ' t bother to tell me
your name; there are too many girls here for me
to remember it. Go and sit on belt 3, third seat
on the right'.
84
But what am I supposed to be doing?
' D o n ' t worry about that, the girls will tell you'.
One-fifth of the students (6) specifically com-
mented on high turnover rates o f casual workers,
on the one hand, as an apparent policy of
management in areas where there was plentiful
alternative employment and on the other hand, as
an expression of worker defiance in a conflict
situation with management. In some firms, a
turnover of 75 per cent of some work groups in a
week was noted.
Nearly two-thirds (20) of the students com-
plained of bad working conditions, especially poor
ventilation and the heat during the summer
months, and the incessant noise associated with
many factories.
The noise was so loud that you literally had to
shout at the top o f your voice if you wanted to
talk to the gift who was sitting 2 feet 6 inches
away from y o u on the other side of the belt.
Conditions in the factory were noticeably bad,
particularly the almost unbelievable squalor in
which drugs were packed for consumption, but
which was apathetically taken for granted as
unavoidable because as a warehouse the factory
was not affected by the Factory Acts so that
the management could get away with it.
In general, the physical conditions in the
factory were appalling and indeed an inspector
came round while I was working there and gave
the management two weeks to clear up and
conform to the Factory Act.'
The factory's conditions were criticised by a
pair of Public Health Inspectors who visited the
factory during the period of this project, and
there was some talk of the factory being
threatened with closure.
One-half (16) of the students complained about
the frustration, boredom and m o n o t o n y o f repeti-
tive and routine jobs so meaningless and unde-
manding that they were capable of performance
by the mentally handicapped in a number of
instances. One student described her strategy for
coping with boredom:
My personal experience was that one quickly
became dazed, almost hypnotized by the indes-
cribable boredom of the job. Trivial details,
such as writing a number on a box with a
feltnib pen, or counting Y which had different
coloured labels, became opportunities for
breaking the monotony.
One o f the most significant findings of this
survey of student attitudes to their industrial
Student Experience in Industry
experience was that nearly half of them (14) noted
the absence of trade unions in their factory and
their critical reaction to the discovery that a
significant number of employers in small establish-
ments immediately sack any worker attempting to
start a union.
• there was no trade union or other official
. .
organization amongst the workers. Mrs. Z (the
manager) w o n ' t have one . . . . these workers
could not afford the risk involved in arguing
with management.
The factory wa¢ not unionized and there was
no worker representation on policy committees
etc. Thus the workers had no formal control
over their work-situation. Anyone who had
attempted to organise the workers had been
dismissed.
Trade Unions were banned; the owner had
threatened dismissal to anyone starting a union.
I asked what management would do if someone
tried to start a union branch and she said the
person would probably be sacked.
The dysfunctions of this sort of management
attitude were well brought out by the student who
observed:
when any attempt had been made to start a
union, those who initiated it tended to get the
sack. The result was that most workers were
apathetic towards doing anything positive; in-
stead their discontent came out in the form of
complaints, low rates of output and even
absenteeism.
F o r many o f the students their experience of
shop-floor work for six or eight weeks was 'almost
interminable'. The sense of critical disgust at the
conditions under which many semi-skilled opera-
tives devote their working lives is manifest in the
concluding sentences of two students:
It was obvious from this experience that the
majority of factories must be unbearable to
work in . . . Not only-are you cut off from the
process of producing a whole product, but also
the formal structure imposes a completely
unrealistic system of rules and communication
patterns w h i c h . . , must result in a loss of
personal significance and identity and a feefing
of degradation . . . .
Even if you flood a worker with pay, but make
him feel as low as an animal, his basic needs will
not be met, and it these needs that should be
our concern.
M I C H A E L P. HORNSBY-SMITH
It cannot be argued that the experiences of this
sample o f students is in any sense representative of
the vacation experiences o f all students or of the
whole range o f potential vacation jobs available.
On the other hand to suggest that their comments
were based on an invalid impression of industry
would be quite unreal. There is no reason to
suppose that their experiences were not typical of
most routine semi-skilled jobs in industry and a
cursory reading of the literature would provide
ample confirmation of this. Nor is there any
reason to suppose that the value judgements made
by the students on the nature of these jobs were
distorted or that their general revulsion at an
industrial technology and organization which
seems so oblivious to the needs and dignity of its
work force is dysfunctional. Indeed it could be
argued that the demand by articulate students for
decent work conditions and respect for the intelli-
gence and humanity o f all employees as a prerequi-
site for their own future e m p l o y m e n t in industry
would serve the long-term interests of industry.
Metallurgy students on sandwich course
The third example of student attitudes to experi-
ence of work in industry relates to metallurgy
students on a 'thin' sandwich course which com-
menced in the 1962-3 session. [8] This course
alternated periods of six months in industry with
six months (two terms) at the former Battersea
College of Technology. The course was originally
designed to last for five years. The sandwich
students were generally favourably impressed
when they were wanted and accepted at the works
where they were training and when they were
given a responsible and useful job to do. All 12
students considered their first six months indus-
trial period had 'provided some understanding of
some industrial processes' and 11 of them that it
had 'provided some understanding of industrial
relations and communication between manage-
ment and labour and of their respective problems
and grievances, real or imaginary'.
The same students were later asked in the
Summer of 1965 about their second industrial
period (July-December 1964). Seven of them
thought it had aided their understanding of the
work of their previous academic period and eight
the work of their following academic period. Only
three thought their second industrial period had
no direct relevance to their academic work and
nine thought it had integrated the work of the
second and third academic periods well. As before
11 considered their industrial period had given
them some insight into the problems of industrial
relations.
85
The most favourable comments made about
their second industrial period related to the sense
of achievement which they experienced upon the
successful completion of a small-scale research
project. Comments by two students illustrate this:
The project was very instructive in that it
required extensive literature research before
starting it. Also when doing this I was fre-
quently extended to limit.
I was left to myself to find the answer. This
gave me a sense o f achievement when I found
it, even though A.E.I. patented the process
before we did.
Other students commented favourably on new
experiences in positions of authority, on the
opportunity of seeing new processes and of ob-
serving the type of work available for qualified
metallurgists.
Unfavourable criticisms generally referred to
the narrowness of some experience or to inade-
quate academic preparation for specialized re-
search. Other comments, however, were more
critical o f management:
The people at Q pretended that we would be
put on research work. All they wanted us for
was as unpaid labourers. They do it to anyone
who goes there.
Firms are o u t of touch with the purposes of the
industrial period. Uninterested and sometimes
unaware where you are. Not open to construc-
tive criticism. Too rigid, not flexible enough.
Over estimated the students' ability and
patience to stand and watch.
A conflict of goals
The desirability of getting students into industry
for a period of their undergraduate training is a
conventional wisdom for which there does not yet
appear to be any overriding empirical support. It
was the suggestion recommended most frequently
by a sample of industrial chemists and physicists
for improving the design of courses in a survey
published last year by the Society for Research
into Higher Education. [9] The recent Cambridge
study similarly urged more contact with industry
by the expansion of suitable vacation work es-
pecially for arts-men or scientists who are interes-
ted in management. The evidence of the three
surveys of student attitudes to their industrial
experiences suggests, however, that the conven-
tional types o f vacation experience, which a large
proportion of students undertake during the
summer months mainly in order to supplement
86
their grants but also in many cases as a course
requirement, serve rather to alienate students from
industry and, if anything, to increase the aware-
ness of features found in the Cambridge study to
be unattractive in industry, for example, 'unattrac-
tive political and ethical environment', 'involve-
ment in the rat-race' and 'loss of identity'.
There does also appear to be a conflict between
the goals of vacation experience as defined by the
university or other academic institution on the one
hand, and industry, on the other. Where the goals
of the university and industry are closest, as they
are on the industrial parts of sandwich courses,
where the student may be available for 6-12
months and where industry considers it worth-
while to provide a well-organized training, the
student's image of industry may not become
unfavourable. On the other hand, where a large
number of students are available for only a few
weeks they may be seen as something of a
nuisance by industry and may not contribute
much unless given a very routine job. This is the
type of work more commonly experienced by the
majority of students. Students of the social
sciences are particularly likely to view these
experiences critically. This is in the very nature of
their disciplines which draw attention to the
divergent goals of competing interest groups in
conflict situations, to the ideologies of rival
factions, and direct attention to the latent func-
tions and dysfunctions as well as the manifest
functions of social institutions. The task of the
student is to criticize in order to further under-
standing. To the social scientist the expressed aim
of enhancing the long-term interests of industry by
providing a 'true impression of industry' mainly
through appropriate vacation experiences, is
simply a plea for more effective socialization to
the management-defined goals of industry, and to
the ideology of management. What industry might
define as a bad vacation experience might not be
so defined by the tutor of a student in the social
sciences.
The reported experiences o f many students
indicate clearly that in much of British industry,
Academic Segregated
and
training
Integrated
functions
Fig. 1 A Typology of Academic Experiences
Student Experience in I ndustry
particularly in the smaller establishments, manage-
ment attitudes are still dominated by theories
discredited decades ago. Students have also be-
come increasingly aware of the poverty of the
work lives o f a large part of our industrial work
force. It seems clear, therefore, that a substantial
improvement in the image of British industry will
follow not so much from an increase in the
number of exercises in professional socialization
through exposure to management norms and
privileges in carefully managed vacation experi-
ences, as from a realization that in order to attract
graduates into management it will be necessary to
ensure that the conditions of the work force are
more human and more dignified. The reluctance of
graduates to enter industry reflects a reluctance to
participate in a system which in their experience
corrupts, degrades and devalues the human beings
who service it.
A typology o f vacation experiences
It is clear from the above discussion that there are
a number of distinct types of student experiences
in industry. Some understanding of their different
aims and outcomes can be achieved by considering
the work of Clark and Trow [ 10] and Marris [ 1 1 ].
Clark and Trow identified four student subcul-
tures, the academic, collegiate, non-conformist and
vocational in terms of the two dimensions involve-
ment with ideas and identification with the col-
lege. One weakness of this typology appears to be
the omission of any distinction between a profes-
sional c o m m i t m e n t to a future career combined
with an involvement with ideas and a vocational
orientation concerned solely with the achievement
of a necessary job-ticket. Marris discusses the
problems of segregation and integration of higher
education and contrasts the unconcern of tradi-
tional university courses with subsequent careers
with the explicit aim of sandwich courses to
integrate academic studies with the student's
future. These two approaches can fruitfully be
combined to give a typology of academic experi-
ences (Fig. 1) which has the advantage of distin-
guishing a professional course (e.g. medicine) or
Involvement with Ideas
Intellectual Instrumental
Academic Pecuniary
Professional Vocational
M I C H A E L P. HORNSBY-SMITH 87

T A B L E 1. Student experiences of Industry

Type of Pecuniary Academic Professional Vocational

experience

Involvement - + + -
with ideas

Involvement + +
with training

Primary goal Supplementing Understanding Integration Socialization

grant; & appraisal of academic to specific
Accumulating of industrial studies occupational
cash processes or with roles and
industrial practical professional
relations experience ideology

Usual type Semi-skilled Various; Various; Carefully

of work or semi-skilled, frequently managed
unskilled routine involves experience of
laboratory tour of specific
assistance, departments roles
social work or project
work

Typical Nil Vacation Report or Nil

academic Essay or Project
requirement Project

Initial Instrumental Enquiring or Expectant Submissive

student Analytical
orientation
to industry

Responses of Calculating Critical Inform ed Enthusiastic

student to
experience

Student Indifferent Unfavourable Realistic Favourable

image of or
industry Unimpressed

orientation from a vocational course or orientation
concerned only with providing an entry qualifica-
tion to a specific career and from a pecuniary
experience concerned solely with the salary and
career advantages of a recognized qualification of
any sort.
This typology would appear to cover ade-
quately and distinguish between the various types
of student experiences in industry (Table 1). Four
distinct experiences are indicated.
1. The Pecuniary: Marris reported in 1964 that
over three-quarters of his sample of univer-
sity students undertook some employment
during the summer vacation. Many of these
students work for the sole purpose of
supplementing their grant or other sources
of income. They are normally to be found in
a host of semi-skilled or unskilled jobs
working long hours for relatively high wages.
They are concerned mainly with maximum
88
earnings and their attitude to industry is
indifferent.
2. The Academic: An increasing number of
university courses require some form of
semi-directed practical experience in in-
dustry or other employment during one or
more summer vacations. The aims are fre-
quently to increase the student's under-
standing of the nature of industry and, with
varying amounts of guidance and supervision
from academic tutors, they may be required
to present some form of report or essay on
their experience. The student therefore
enters industry with an enquiring frame of
mind and social science students, in parti-
cular, will be expected to analyse and
evaluate their experiences critically. That
many of these evaluations may be very
critical is clear from the account given above
of the experiences of the Human Relations'
students.
3. The Professional: Some student experiences
will be designed explicitly to promote the
integration of academic studies with prac-
tical experience relevant to the likely subse-
quent career. This is particularly true for
students on sandwich courses in science and
technology but it may also hold for profes-
sions such as medicine or teaching. Here the
References
1. Committee on Manpower Resources for
Science & Technology (1967), The Brain
Drain: Report of the Working Group on
Migration (Jones Report), Cmnd. 3417,
HMSO. Council for Scientific Policy (1968)
Enquiry into the Flow of Candidates in
Science & Technology into Higher Education
(Dainton Report), Cmnd. 3541, HMSO. Cen-
tral Advisory Council for Science & Techno-
logy (1968), Technological Innovation in
Britain, HMSO. Committee on Manpower
Resources for Science & Technology (1968),
The Flow into Employment of Scientists,
Engineers & Technologists: Report of the
Working Group on Manpower for Scientific
Growth (Swann Report), Cmnd. 3760,
HMSO. Department of Education and Science
(1968), Science Policy Studies No. 3, The
Employment of Highly Specialised Graduates:
A Comparative Study in the U.K. and the
U.S.A., (McCarthy Report), HMSO. See also
Richard E. Caves & Associates (1968),
Britain's Economic Prospects; A Brooking's
Institution Study, Alien & Unwin.
Student Experience in Industry
student will return from his experience in
industry much better informed about the
realities of the work-a-day world.
4. The Vocational: The type of experience
recommended in the BIM study would seem
to be concerned solely with training and
socialization to specific occupational roles
(e.g. in management) and not to involve any
explicit concern with academic ideas or with
analysis. Where these experiences are care-
fully managed they can clearly result in very
enthusiastic responses on the part of the
students. It is at least possible, however, that
the favourable image of industry which
results may be seriously misleading and lead
to disillusionment with the realities of sub-
sequent employment.
Conclusion
The typology outlined above would seem to have
some utility for the understanding of student
experiences in industry and may well have further
applications in the analysis of student subcultures
or academic courses. In particular in future re-
search it is hoped that it might be useful in
distinguishing between sandwich courses and tradi-
tional degree courses for science and technology
students and for the analysis of professional
courses in general.
2. British Institute of Management (1969). A tti-
tudes to Industry: A Survey of Undergraduate
Attitudes to Industry by the Cambridge
University Management Group, Occasional
Paper-New Series OPN5).
3. Derrick, T. (1967). 'The Experience of In-
dustry (1): An Initial Survey of Engineering
Undergraduates', in F. Musgrove et al, Pr-
eliminary Studies of a Technological Univer-
sity, Bradford, Ch. 9.
4. Fox, Alan (1966). 'Industrial Sociology and
Industrial Relations', Royal Commission on
Trade Unions and Employers' Associations,
Research Papers 3, HMSO.
5. See Etzioni A. (1964), Modern Organisations,
Prentice-Hall (1965), Woodward, Joan I-
ndustrial Organisation: Theory and Practice,
OUP. (1966), Burns, Tom and Stalker, G. M.
The Management of Innovation, SSP.
6. See, Goldthorpe, J. H. et al (1968), The
Affluent Worker; Industrial Attitudes and
Behaviour, CUP. Blauner, Robert Alienation
and FreedOm: The Factory Worker and His
Industry, Univ. Chicago Press.
M I C H A E L P. HORNSBY~SMITH
7. I am grateful to 14 students on the Human
Relations degree course for permission to
quote from their vacation projects.
8. Hornsby-Smith M. P. (1967). A Study of
Three Parallel Degree-Level Courses in a De-
partment of Metallurgy', Lancaster Studies in
Higher Education, No. 2, July.
9. Jones, D. T. L. (1969). The Education o f
Scientists for Industry: Report o f a Survey o f
the Views o f Professional Scientists, Research
into Higher Education Monographs. See also
[Script received: August, 1970)
89
Gerstl, J. E. and Hutton, S. P. (1966),
Engineers: the Anatomy o f a Profession, A
Study o f Mechanical Engineers in Britain,
Tavistock, pp. 160-1.
10. Clark, B. R. and Trow, M. (1966). 'The
Organisational Context', in Newcomb, T. M.
and Wilson, E. K. (eds.) College Peer Groups,
Aldine. See also Clark, B. R. (1962). Educa-
ting The Expert Society, Chandler, ch. 6.
11. Marris, P. (1964). The Experience o f Higher
Education, Routledge, 1964, espec, ch. 7.