To not understand people who talk about being the first in their family to go to uni like it’s a badge of honour?

@Bambamhoohoo
You get it - thank you so much!

See Op how can you read posts like this and think “no big deal, don’t know why she’s so worked up about it” rather than WHAT A QUEEN GIVE THIS WOMAN HER FLOWERS ?!!? I am boggled

I’m not passive aggressive, and I’ve expressed myself very clearly. Again, the issue is your reading comprehension. I apologise for being more articulate than you are equipped to deal with.

but you were hoping I’d say I had no job at all because then it really would of been open day with the insults wouldn’t it?

Nope, your actual lack of academic or professional achievements is entirely sufficient for said open day.

I’m married to a lovely man with children and a nice home and have the qualifications that can get me into uni whenever I want.

Again, your marriage and kids are neither academic nor professional achievements and your much vaunted qualifications are limited and considerably less impressive than the degrees you claim aren’t that special.

Agree with all this. It's having to navigate and figure this out on your own with little to no support or guidance at age 16/17 and making big decisions that may impact the rest of your life without a sounding board, useful advice

I did both. Had a child at 17, went on to get first class honours, distinction at masters and PhD. You can do both. The world isn’t over if you mess up as a teen, or if you were born into poverty. That’s why going to uni is a big deal for kids like me. My son is also set to get straight 9s in his GCSEs. You’re not a failure if you mess up in your teens.

But it is a big deal though. If you’re a working class kid who went to a shit state school, grew up on FSM, parents in extremely low paid jobs, lots of financial insecurity and definitely no remote whiff of academia (parents perhaps didn’t even finish school) then how is it not an achievement?

I grew up like that. Council house, mum was a dinner lady, stepdad abusive, we had no money at all ever, concrete flooring, broken furniture etc. I have a PhD. My brother doesn’t even have GCSEs. So yeah, it’s a big deal.

But you haven't done it, so what do you know? Yes yes, you'll do it 'one day' potentially. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. And one day I'll become an astronaut. Potentially.

'Going to uni' is certainly a much bigger achievement than having kids at 16 in my book.

@Kyrgyzstan

I wonder if perhaps you’re just not articulating yourself very well and that’s why you’re still wedded to your opinion in spite of probably hundreds of people who are presenting well informed challenges to that.

Are you trying to say that we will see more people being the first person in the family to attend university as numbers of students increase? Because that’s quite different from it’s not something people should be proud of.

I'm in my early 60s and went to a comprehensive school in a northern town and I would say about half the pupils in my form (A stream) went on to further education and of the whole year group, maybe 30-35%. Most pupils were from solidly working class homes, very few had parents with professional jobs, but most wanted their children to go on to better things. Our parents were mostly children and young adults in WW2 and knew the sky was now the limit for their children. I have solicitors, barristers, doctors, teachers amongst my old schoolfriends. It was a matter of pride to their parents that they were able to allow their children to go to university and it's not surprising that they wanted to tell the world. There were a few whose parents were of the opinion that if you're working class that's where you should stay and if you take a job in an office you're betraying your class. I never understood that point of view, but I have a friend whose dad stopped speaking to him when he got a job working for the civil service.

And so you should be my darling

I am the first of my family to go to university and I’m proud of that and think it is a huge achievement.
It's all about context.
I come from a large working class family and am the only one of my generation to go to university.
We all left school at 16 and followed our parents into working class jobs or undertook a training in a trade.
I took GCSE evening classes as a mature student then A levels to enable me to get a BSc and qualify as a HCP.
It was tough going and my family probably thought I was nuts or amazing (or somewhere between the two!).
I really think it’s much easier if going to uni is the norm in your family; it’s accessible and achievable, rather than an oddity!
It’s really rewarding to be able to say “look you can do this if you want to, I managed it and juggled a job and a family to get the necessary qualifications and then a three year degree course”. I’ve actually inspired others to do the same! I am proud of my achievement.

If you’re talking about people in their 50s and 60s now, they didn’t go to university in 1960.

You sound bothered.

I'm not the first in my family to go to university, I am the first generation of my family to go to university. For me it was relatively easy to go to university - my family absolutely supported it as far as they could - although they lacked the knowledge to help me with the decision or application process at all. For me the pride of being the first generation to go to university in my family is my pride in my parents - they worked very hard and sacrificed to give my siblings and me the opportunities that they deserved but that were denied to them due to the poverty they grew up in.

And as much as it's true that far greater proportions of young people went to university in my generation (I left university 20 years ago) than in my parents generation, as someone who went to a Russell group university - and went on to do a Masters at one of (if not the) best universities in the world for my subject, it was noticeable to me that amongst my classmates and hallmates I was the only one who didn't have at least one parent who went to university.

EXACTLY FOR FUCK SAKE

OP are you even reading your replies?! Absolutely mental

Not nice when someone dismisses things you consider achievements, is it?

Perhaps you should have a think about the social conditions in which that occurred - it was previously very common for working class people to work in factories often for many many years, however deindustrialisation which occurred predominately in the 80s under Thatchers government pretty much saw the end of that era. Factory work wasn’t simply a job for many, and this decline is also strongly linked to social issues within those communities, not to mention how they caused wider economic changes. So yes, with this in mind that is why more working class people look to higher education, because traditional working class ‘life’ as it were simply no longer exists the way it did 50 plus years ago.

How can your niece be the first if your DM went and your DH went?

Well, that was me, but I think I usually only talk about it in one context: the incredible resource of having parents who can guide you through the process of getting to university. For me, uni wasnt planned at all and it was only through a number of ridiculous pratfalls and sheer good luck that I ended up there. Whereas my daughter glided in on a raft of maternal wisdom!

Actually, just today my dd showed me a video clip of a boy she used to be sat next to in secondary, before he got expelled. It was one of those sit-the-good-girl-next-to-the-rowdy-boy fixes. Anyway, the clip was of him on TV talking about how he got his life back on track after a hideously abusive childhood, long journey through the care system, being expelled from multiple schools etc. He is now reading law at a top uni. I don't know where he got the inspiration and guidance to get there, but surely there was someone who stepped up to support him.

I am really proud to be the first person in my family to go to university (30 years ago). It may be "ordinary" to some people, but pretty recent ONS data shows that I am from a place which comes 320/331 for local authorities ranked by qualification levels, and currently live in the area which comes 317/331, so actually no, it's not "ordinary" and I know that my grandparents would have been beside themselves with pride if they had lived to see it. (But sadly areas of low qualifications also tend to be areas with lower life expectations and they had all died by the age of 63).

Maybe not unusual but unusual enough that you haven’t done it.

Barely anyone in your social circle.