Welcome to the new Courier section dedicated to the business news that affects students. Here you will be able to find links to careers websites such as Milkround that draw your attention to the latest business/finance related deadlines and the latest business news. Anyone wishing to contribute comment or news articles to the business page can do so by contacting Katie.Bristow@ncl.ac.uk.
At present many financial institutions beginning application processes for both penultimate year internships and graduate jobs. All upcoming deadlines and details regarding how to apply can be found at www.milkround.com
BUSINESS COMMENT
An article in the Times recently of banker who sat the exams of a university student reached a culmination as ‘Career of banker who took exams for student is ruined’
“A City banker received a suspended prison sentence yesterday for posing as an undergraduate to help a student to pass his examinations. Jerome Drean, 34, “a genius” who has Asperger’s syndrome, was arrested at the University of York while using a false identity to impersonate Elnar Askerov, a 22-year-old Azerbaijani.
Drean, the French former head of European equity derivatives trading at Credit Suisse, was paid a total of £20,000 for sitting economics exams on behalf of Askerov, who was “not particularly bright academically”. Both men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the university and each received a nine-month jail sentence at York Crown Court yesterday, suspended for two years. Robert Smith, QC, for Drean, said that he had earned about £2 million over three years through his work in the City. (01/03/2008)
ROUND UP OF BUSINESS NEWS
The Observer: ‘You can tell a great university by the companies it keeps’:
“In the US, despite American universities' world standing, there is growing concern that too many universities and academics have sold their intellectual birthright to the demands of commerce, so killing off the very idea of the university. Some British academics are beginning to voice similar concerns. Their worries reached a new pitch last week by a document, leaked to the Financial Times that sets out how the new Department for Innovation, University and Skills (DIUS) sees universities - or did four months ago. The paper, like the innovation white paper to be published later this month, stresses the economic impact of universities and their research as their alpha and omega. They must further move towards becoming business-led hothouses of local innovation to which other university objectives must be at least partially subordinate. Business must be enlisted to design degree courses and partly fund students' courses, and universities must do more to exploit commercially their intellectual property.” (02/02/2008)
The Times: ‘Oxford’s finest are offered financial lure to work in tough urban schools’:
“The University of Oxford is offering £1,000 to highflying graduates who agree to teach in Britain’s most challenged urban secondary schools. Under the new Oxford scheme, to be introduced tomorrow, graduates of St Hugh’s College who successfully apply to a scheme known as Teach First will be paid a one-off bursary of £1,000. Andrew Dilnot, Principal of St Hugh’s, said the £1,000 would help to cushion financial hardship for the Teach First graduates during the intensive six-week summer training course that they have to do before they start at a school. “We hope that the Teach First people from St Hugh’s will act as ambassadors for Oxford and for other universities.” (03/03/2008)
The Observer: ‘Plans for 20 new university towns’:
“Campuses are to be set up over the next six years at a cost of £150m, with many located in areas suffering high levels of unemployment. Up to 20 new university towns will be created across Britain under plans for a huge expansion of further education. Towns will be invited to enter a 'university challenge', bidding for the right to have a new campus or college in their area, Universities Secretary John Denham will announce tomorrow. A document being published tomorrow spells out how the government aims to support at least 20 sites, 13 more than originally planned, which will open or have their funding agreed in the next six years, at a total cost of £150m.” (03/03/2008)
