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Is being a student a necessary part of life?
Im eighteen years old, and i have a not very exciting, but well paid job (If my commision coming in this well i'll come out with over £20,000 this year)I'm pretty happy and could easily do this for a few more years, but i cant help feeling sometimes i missing out on being a student. Is going to university really that necessary in life, both socially and in terms of education. Who here didn't go to uni? What do you do now? Do you regret it?
No, not necessary
but damn good fun if done properly.
I go to
uni and your really not missing out on much, I think people can achieve just as much whether they've been to uni or not.
it's not necessary
but if you're working a commission based job expect your friends that do go to uni to hate you by the time their first year's out
^
got a mate who works on commission now, earns in excess of 30k, doesn't ahve to pay for rent, gets a company car with free insurance, lives with ma and pa so gets home cooked meals...
and he says he's skint.
I didn't go to uni
Now I'm unemployed and am being turned down for every job ever. Don't at all regret not going though.
For me, yeah. But everyone is different. So maybe not for you. Word.
your screaming on the phone to fishplums on saturday scared me.
just so you know.
:(
:D Really?!
I couldn't have done that without University. Hours and hours of pent-up Chris Kamara viewing came flowing out of me.
So you're saying if i go to uni i can be just like you?
... wow
I know, I know. It's a dream, but work hard enough and you can attain it too.
Sorry by the way. I was just really, really excited. And a touch drunk.
Im scared all of the young trendy students will think im a wierdo though
who cares what students think?
students are twats
cheers, you massive bastard
I'm one as well you bell
sweet, i'll just buy their friendship
:)
I don't think so.
I didn't go and I haven't noticed any negative impact on my 'career'. I think experience counts for more than a degree, but a degree probably means you don't have to start at the lowest entry level. I dunno.
i've only been here for a couple of months
but i think i would definitely regret not coming.
Being a student can get repetitive quickly.
I prefer working and having money to spend on things I enjoy doing, though being at uni was quite good for me in terms of becoming a bit less shy. On the other hand I hated snakebite and never want to hear the Baywatch theme ever again.
You're only 18 so there's nothing to stop you from going in a few years.
you can always go in a few years
i regret being at uni now in many ways. I would much rather of waited until i was 24/25 to start, and just worked/travelled/bummed around for a few years.
Don't go because you feel you should go, go because YOU want to go.
I never went to university.
I'd have ended up a waste of space either way, though.
You're 18! You can still go to uni next year or the year after! Plus you'll have experience...
You'll be VERY employable if / when you finished a degree.
Regret nothing though. You're not missing out on much. It's repetitive as hell!
I dropped out
and wish I didn't bother at all (although I made some friends, I'm only in touch with about 2 of them now) - student life wasn't for me and in hindsight I only went because it seemed like the done thing. So if you feel happy in your job at the moment then stick with it and in a couple of years you might want a change and Uni could be an option then.
here's my tuppence worth:
Some folk I know had a WICKED time at uni, made friends they'll keep for life and no matter how shit teh town was that they went to had a tight knit group to be able to "get on" with the whole leaving home/studying thing.
On the other hand, for me, I stayed at home and went to uni and had a relatively shit time of it for 3/4 years.
If I have little 'uns, I'd genuinely tell them to think twice before going to uni. Everyone I know is £15K + in debt, and on graduating didn't go into the amazing job they were promised they would get, only 1 person I know who did my degree (Politics) has done ANYTHING relevant with it.
The folk I know from school that left and went straight into work are now pretty comfortably off and seem to be happy in their jobs as they are where they "should be" for their age. Whereas I feel that I am doing a job that someone of 17 could do no problem at all.
It's hard. There is a part of me that does believe to some extent in the inherent benefit of getting in a degree, but i don't know what it is becuase I can't see it.
If you are going to go to uni, do something vocational. It's not all dreaming spires, jazz fags and big scarves and if you do a voc degree you stand a much better chance of getting a job that reflects the work you did for said degree and wiping your debts much faster than if you don't IMHO...
I've been thinking of doing either a philosophy degree or a degree in illustration with animation
if you can afford to
get work experience (re animation etc) and not flush thousands that you will have to repay over the next 150 years.
As for a philosophy degree - you will get the same job you are in now with that once you finish. Except you will be 3/4 years older.
Philosophy is actualy really well valued by employers
it teaches you good thought processes aparantly
It does.
I can basically see round corners with my thoughts.
Of course occasionally I have stupid thoughts like "hey how about I shave off all the hair on the back of my head?" but I put them down to the half of my degree which is politics.
This may very well be the case
but I'd hazard your average employer will see "Social Science" and put you on £10K less than you should be earning at age of graduation.
What is your dream job? Honestly?
honestly
freelance illustrator. But im also happy doing it in my own time and working in a job that earns me lots of money
well start illustrating your arse off, send your drawings EVERYWHERE
and get the Writers' and Artists Yearbook (if it stil exsists).
I personally do not think you should go to uni right now
not according to this
http://tinyurl.com/57h9vm
I needed it really
but then I had a fairly shit/dull time at school, and an amazing time at uni. I wouldn't do what i do now without having been (although I didn't need any univeristy qualifications to do my job), and to be honest i'd probably be a pretty different person. I dunno if I'd be 'better' or 'worse' but I kinda like who I am, and who my friends are, so I'm glad I went.
But I know plenty folks from back home who didn't go, and the level of happiness/contentedness/whatever amongst those friends is probably fairly equal to that amongst my uni friends. Although they do tend to have different priorites (generally, the job itself tends to be important for my uni friends, whereas those that didn't/haven't go/gone tend to view work as just something to get through before the evening/weekend. MASS GENERALISATION, but i think you take my point)
You're on 20K? Oh god.
*INSERT "THIS ISN'T FUNNY, I REALLY NEED A NEW JOB" MOAN HERE*
I didn't go.
I've been thinking about going recently, but not passionately enough to do it.
Just now I'm in a fairly dull job, earning enough to let me do a lot of fun stuff. Alternatively, I could be in university, up to my eyes in debt, and trying to stay awake through fairly dull lectures and essays. I used to think that if I went to uni then I'd probably make more friends, but I've realised that's bollocks.
So, y'know, I dunno...
Bascially having no time to oneself though
Unpleasant
plus i work 8-6
if i studied as well id start slowly dying inside
It's becoming less essential every year.
Neither of my parents went to university and they've done pretty well for themselves.
but doesn't the sheer amount of people going to university nowadays
mean that a degree is pretty much necessary to be considered for lots of jobs?
I would say the reverse applies
Take 2 folk of 21 applying for the same job.
On first sight prospective employer would probably think "FFS 2 Graduates".
But on finding one of them had workplace experience relevent to that job as a result from having been working since 18, THAT person would get the job.
It's fucking true, the grad market is SATURATED. Everyone's got a fucking degree.
*working full-time
the uk is still behind alot of the world skills wise
For sure, but in medicine, accounting, engineering.....
we're world leaders in media studies, sports science and squash court management....it's just that there are no jobs in those, at least not for people who've taken Mickey Mouse degrees.
I read some report into it once
leitch report or something, it says education is going to change more infavour of employers needs, not sure I agree with that
It could be a good thing if it leads to a new generation of
apprentices.
My uncle left school at 16 and got an engineering apprentice, by the time he was 21 he was earning the same as an equivalent newly qualified solicitor and worked his way up the company. I think it;s great that it was possible to do that back then, I worry that it would be near enough impossible to do the same nowadays.
Social mobility has decreased rather than increased.
*apprenticeships, even.
i'd loved to have done an aprenticeship and have an actual skill
go to work and do something tangable, instwad i've got a degree in sociolology
I was thinking this recently,
I didn't have the chance when I was younger. Now I'm 30 I still have pangs of wanting to go and do something that would interest me, it's taking that leap I guess, oh and money being another huge factor! You're still young, mull it over for a few more years.
i am glad i didn't go, overall
the money and the fact that the job i want to do does not require university means that it's not necessary at all for me. however, after staying with my friend in halls a few times i do kind of wish i could experience the social side of it, it seems like a lot of fun (bar the getting massively wankered thing, but i can skip that). i wouldn't say it's worth it for the work and the money though. i'm glad about my decision.
also
if you go to uni you come out and try and get a job (unless it's in medicine or something with a specific follow-up job), you're fighting against someone who has three years experience in work. i think a lot of the time for generic office jobs they will go for the person who has experience.
worst three years of my life
depends what you wanna do, you might hit a career ceiling without going but sometimes I think it is only go-gettery types that benefit from it. Probably best to stay a way until you work out what you want to do, then you can pick a course that aims towards a goal rather than just automatically going through uni as it seems the thing to do. Some of my friends went to uni a bit latter on and it blatantly seems the better way round to do it, you can casualy work for a few years having fun, save/spend money, then when people who went to uni are getting their souls destroyed by the prospect of full time work forever you get to go off to uni for a few years, you'll come out of it with work experience under your belt a qualification relevant to what you want to do and hopefully be in a strong position to get a job, you also get alot more financial help if you are older
for me, it's definitely one of the best decisions i've made
but i don't think that's exactly to do with the university thing itself; i was pretty discontent where i was before and this was really just the most convenient option for me to fully get away and be somewhere new and meet people and do stuff. if you're happy where you are right now, stay where you are. you've got loads of time to think about it. definitely don't be concerned about the idea of being a bit older in terms of social stuff - quite a few of the friends i've made here are early 20s and they're way cooler and more interesting than most of the 17/18 year olds
20 grand?
i'd stick with that instead of being a broke class skipping drunkard
uni is ok
i think i'd rather just live in the same place and have a good wage though to be honest
i'll have been at uni 1 1/2 years at christmas, and i have learned absolutely nothing new since starting, and im stupidly skint (and obviously in debt to the government too)
before I dropped out, I was massively enjoying university.
I'll be reapplying for next september for sure. Not just for career prospects, you meet interesting people, and its kind of like an important chapter in your life that you might regret missing out on later in life. I made some good friends in the 2 and a bit months at uni, and I definitely don't regret going, even though I hated my course.
ps. im not studenty at all. Traffic cones dont particularly interest me.
with the work thing
friends of mine who go to like, "bad" universities seem to be having a really good time socially, whilst if you go to like a "top" university, the work definitely piles up in the first year and it kind of gets in the way of any social life. Like, the reading I had to do at Kings was insane, and my friend at UCL is often in his studio's till about 10 at night.
im in similar situation
i help manage a singer/band after doing 2 years of internships at different record labels and feel that if i went to university it wouldnt have been very useful and would have to do the work experience after anyways.
On the other hand my girlfriend is at university and when i visit her i do get a bit jealous of the care-free-ness of it all and the living away from home as well.
On the other hand....if you skip uni and start trying to work in the area you want to end up in then you will most likely meet lots of likeminded friends anyway.
so no, i dont regret it. also, its a waste of money if youre only there to delay any decision making
I loved it
but I suppose the most important bit of it for me was leaving home, going to a big city and making loads of friends (who I still see regularly 8 years on). That's the bit that really helps you grow up, so if you've got that anyway you might not need uni. I did enjoy the academic side. I'm earning good money, and my degree definitely helped me get my job, but I have friends who didn't go to uni who are earning the same or more. And there's no difference 'academically' between my friends who did and didn't go, we're all ubernerds really.
I went in September 2006 and quit in December 2006
Only go
if you genuinely want to go for more than just the social life/not knowing what else to do. I graduated this year and already owe £19,000 (there'll be another three years of interest on that by the time I start paying it back). Also, I got a 1st and am now a waitress. A degree isn't necessarily helpful to your job prospects.