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SG off to uni - but why?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Right then, deep breaths... Whenever I have mentioned this topic in the past, everyone seems to moan "oh, not again", though not for the same reasons. As many of you know, I was due to start university last year, but I had to leave due to very serious financial difficulties. There were some particularly vocal critics when I made the decision, whom incidentally, I'm not interested in hearing from here. Anyway, after a few more difficult months, I managed to get a job working for an arcade. In the meantime, I put in another application form to UCAS. This time, I only applied for two universities. I've confirmed my final choice as Manchester Met University. And that's where the problem starts...
Earlier this week, during a 'candid' conversation with a friend, she asked me “Danny, why are you even going to university?”. In all honesty, it was a question I seriously struggled to answer. Initally, it was more about gaining a sense of independence and trying something out for myself. As time has passed though, that doesn't hold as much water as it used to. It seems the main motivation now is getting out of the area I'm in. The truth is, I would have very few prospects open to me by staying here. University appears to me to be the only viable option for getting out of that rut, though I'm well-aware it may not succeed. If I don't go, my options would be extremely limited.
Increasingly, it's leading me to question why I've chosen to do an English & Politics degree. I risk the wrath of many a student when I ask - what use can a degree in Politics be?
Ultimately, what I'm asking here is - is going to university merely to try to better your prospects sufficient? Or does there need to be another 'driving force' behind it?
Earlier this week, during a 'candid' conversation with a friend, she asked me “Danny, why are you even going to university?”. In all honesty, it was a question I seriously struggled to answer. Initally, it was more about gaining a sense of independence and trying something out for myself. As time has passed though, that doesn't hold as much water as it used to. It seems the main motivation now is getting out of the area I'm in. The truth is, I would have very few prospects open to me by staying here. University appears to me to be the only viable option for getting out of that rut, though I'm well-aware it may not succeed. If I don't go, my options would be extremely limited.
Increasingly, it's leading me to question why I've chosen to do an English & Politics degree. I risk the wrath of many a student when I ask - what use can a degree in Politics be?
Ultimately, what I'm asking here is - is going to university merely to try to better your prospects sufficient? Or does there need to be another 'driving force' behind it?
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
What i'll say to you is, i dont think there will be many times in your life when you'll be put in a place with so many different people, all types of people. The chance to make looooads of new friends is there for ya, of course your ultimately there to get a degree and yeah i think it will improve your prospects. But from my view of my first year at Uni, it was about making friends and being away from home and doing your own thing.
Having a degree will always broaden the number of jobs available to you. Having tried myself after quitting uni the first time to get a decent job with prospects from only A-Levels I know how difficult it is. I was either over qualified or under qualified, but no one just wanted A-Levels. However, you do need to know or at least have an idea, about what you want to do after uni. The degree you've chosen leads me to believe that you don't really have a clue, but just want a degree. Maybe I'm wrong there?
Of course going to uni merely to better your prospects is a good enough reason. I can't think of any other major reason why I went and I'm sure its the same for most people.
However, if you purely want to get away from where you are, why can't you just move to Manchester (or anywhere else) and get a job there? Where there is a wider choice of jobs and prospects available to you.
Congrats
Would be interesting to know how much those figures have changed over the last 4 years since they were published as well.
Isn't it a more worrying fact though that someone with practically the top level of qualification in the country can't get a job and therefore more interesting to report on than someone who just has A-Levels.
I can only talk from my own experience. But there was a definate gap in the jobs market for people with A-Levels, who wanted to actually get somewhere in life and have a career as well. Everyone wanted either 16 year olds that they could train and pay crap wages to without them worrying, or people with degrees and the relevant qualifications who they didn't need to spend money on training.
Yes I could have walked into any retail job, secretarial job etc but they aren't the sort of jobs that would keep me interested or make me feel I had prospects.
Secondly, I think there may be a certain snobbery amongst some graduates. I emphasise the word "some". Perhaps they emerge from university thinking "oh, I've got to get a graduate job. Nothing else will do". I have no idea if this sort of attitude is widespread, but I think it does exist. To what extent is harder to judge.
Appologies for that then. What sort of things are you toying with? Might help us be able to advise whether your chosen degree will help or not.
Replace the word graduate with the word Jomery?
There does sadly exist a small minority of people who emerge from university with that attitude but most people, or at least, virtually all of the people I know, come out with a love for their subject that they didn't have before (myself particularly), a wider appreciation of the world, its people and basically as more rounded, mature, tolerant and intelligent human beings. I've come out completely in love with a language I didn't even apply to do and a firm idea of what I want to write a PhD on when I can afford to take the time out and fund it myself. Who'd have thought it?
Naturally there are always anomalies...
Well other than business I think it should help with any of those lines. According to the mmu website they are also all fields of work that their grads in your subjects enter into. I couldn't find any actual stats as to the percentage who got jobs straight from uni unfortunately, although I did only have a cursory look.
This is the problem with being 22 years old and out of education for nearly four years. One starts to ask questions...
I think, but don't quote me, that the stats are done on the people who get jobs relating to their degree in some way, but how they do them really I don't know. Don't think I ever looked.
Maybe I'm just not clever enough for university. My A-Level grades were pretty average, to say the least. I just think I was accepted simply to make up the numbers.
IN what way did she think there was something lacking? Motivation, commitment, etc? If it was purely reason, then I don't think you need to worry. Your reason can quite simply be to get a job in a career that you're interested in and doing a degree like you've chosen keeps those options open.
Oops yes that wasn't very clear. I'm getting tired. I think I was really trying to say that you are intelligent enough to go to uni and don't worry about your grades. Sod the rest.
As long as you feel that you will be commited to studying and putting the effort in required then being excited and what nots about actually going isn't required. I certainly wasn't, the idea of going back to being a student, not having money to live on, being older than the majority were all things that really made me tentative and nervous about going to uni and it wasn't until after the 1st year that I was really sure it was the right thing for me to have done.
If I was 18 now, I wouldn't go to uni. I don't think the debt is worth it, but it obviously depends what you want to do with your life.
Im about to Graduate with a Politics degree from Exeter (Only a 2:2 Unfortunatly... 2% more across the whole of last 2 years and it would be a 2:1 :impissed: ) and yes, i suppose the aim of university is to get a degree but its also a time where you can use opportunities to decide what you want to do.
I joined my university Radio Station because it looked fun doing radio shows, news reports etc. Ive enjoyed it so much im starting a Postgrad Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at University College Falmouth in October (They only wanted a 2:2 thankfully!) Note, also the name of the uni doesnt mean a thing, its one of the most well respected courses for Journalism in the country with many high profile alumni working for the likes of the BBC and Sky.
So i guess what im basically saying is that yes you are there to ultimatly get a degree, but its also about taking advantage of opportunities you will have at no other point and also gaining a bit of life experience.
I think what Jomery's saying has a point, if you're only looking at it in a career or financial sense.
I wouldn't say don't go to MMU because it's not one of the best universities in the country, but you do need to weigh up what you would gain from it against what you would lose. If what you want is to come out with a degree level education and hopefully a 'life experience' of three years of fun and very little responsibility, and that to you is worth however much (9k plus living costs is it now?), then go for it. If however, the point of you going to do a degree somewhere is purely for career prospects, then you would need to look at the destination of those graduates on the course and whether they're now doing something you'd be interested in doing, and at what level, because it IS possible to do well without a degree (harder now than it was 20 years ago, but still possible). If it does turn out that you'd probably be on the same level as someone who had worked for the further three years, then is it worth it? It's your call.
I personally would say yes, the three years i spent at uni were fantastic and not just because i now have a degree - i met some amazing people, had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed myself. And it was worth the £7k debt i'm in now.
Now I'm hoping to go and teach English in Japan, and you can't get a Japanese work visa without having a degree, so you never really know what you can't do without a degree until you try and do it and they say no.
As for Jomery's point, it's certainly more about the course than the university that happens to run the course. My university was nothing special, but it is one of the the worlds leading centres of audience research in film and TV, which means you're being taught by the very best in that field (which is obviously a bonus if that's the field you want to go into). Similarly, all of the Japanese students I knew were doing International Politics, which confused me, until I found out that our uni was one of the world leading uni's in that field too. Cambridge and Oxford aren't the best at everything, you know? But choosing individual courses that are the best in their field kinda requires a bit of knowledge of what you want to do, so I don't think it applies in your case.
I think English is respected whatever you want to do, and can get you a job doing a huge number of things. I'm not sure about politics, because I know nothing about it as a degree though. But just as a quick idea, the vast majority of top journalists didn't do a degree in journalism or media, they did a degree in whatever it is they report on most often. Your degree course sounds perfect for a political reporter in the media, for example.
But it can also work the other way around, as someone else was saying, if it's a well known good course at perhaps a second tier university then it still has the same potential to get you a job.
Totally agree. Unless you're doing something that needs a definite degree (Doctor, Engineer, Actuary, Programmer), employers are really looking for evidence that you can apply yourself, work hard and well with others and have some capacity for lateral thought. The obvious choice of career with my degree - translation or interpreting is about the last thing I would ever want to do. So I landed myself a job doing consultancy with RBS - and I know from my final assessment day I was the only arts student there and I still got the job. Arts degrees perhaps are less specific than science degrees but I don't have any stats to back that up.