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

My mother went to university and it really helped to someone highly educated in the home

Yes, I'm 65.

It very much depends on your line of work and your previous experience. In some jobs it makes a significant difference.

I'm 42 so suspect you are a generation before me, still there's no pretending qualifying 15 yes late than most of your colleagues doesn't make a difference

Families with generational attendance at higher education do have an advantage. I went through university selection blindly and with zero input from anyone. No idea about careers, graduation schemes, nothing.

People gate keep so much.

It's certainly the case that teachers are now acquiring management roles at a younger age. That's not universal and it wasn't always the case.

It may well be anomalous in your experience, but not in mine. Mind you, we're from different generations (I assume).

When I was a school pupil, there were many teachers who trained after serving in the military. There was also (in Scotland at any rate) a scheme to encourage mature entrants to the profession in the '60s and early '70s. I believe that there are similar schemes in England these days?

I recall that my favourite English teacher had originally been a joiner. His HoD would certainly have been at least the same age and our HT was a veteran who had been an interpreter in the WW2 peace negotiations. (God bless the man, he took me for a crash course in German.)

Even so, it used to be that if you'd gone straight into teaching you wouldn't dream of applying for your first APT/ assistant HoD role until you had at least 5 years experience under your belt. The mantra used to be "It takes 5 years to make a teacher." I recall that there was a 10 point classroom teacher progression when I started out and the probationary period was 2 years. It's down to 6 in Scotland now, if you include the probationer year.

However, both then and now maturity and experience could be taken into consideration when it came to promotion.

I couldn't agree more with OP.
I've seen it sometimes on book jackets of novels, regarding the author. If you know something about them, you know they actually came from a relatively or very privileged background. but it so happens that no one in their family has been to university, eg because they went to agricultural college etcetera. It's so annoying because it's meant to give the idea that the author is some type of phenomenon fo rising from poverty to publlsh a novel.

I both agree and disagree, OP.

There are certainly plenty of people, and families, where getting a degree was seen, and in fact was, the entry to the middle class. So it was seen as a real step up for the family.

But I also agee that to a large extent, the reason so many of my generation (I'm about 50) went to university while our parents did not, is down to major changes in the economy.

None of my grandparents went to uni, but they were quite well educated and held down responsible jobs.

To be fair they used contraception to not get pregnant. Being a mother doesn't make you automatically brighter than them. Where i lived alot if girls were pregnant by the time they were 17-18 but those who wanted too went to uni and juggled young children

I hope you are proud of it when you go to uni op.

I didn't realise I was first in my family to go...until I realised I was.

Main difference was think DPs expected I would just be on a conveyor belt into a good job - but if you don't get internships or onto a graduate scheme at 21/22 it's really difficult. And you need confidence and connections and sometimes parental financial support which you don't have if you don't have them at that age. Parents who have been can also give their child more confidence (or just give more support in finding things).

That's really what the first in family to go statement is about.

Friends who are teachers have generally been in management roles by the time they were in their 30s so that seems like an anomaly to me.

Not that that should put anyone off going to university or changing career obviously but I wondered if that's what you meant. That the age of his management team didn't matter

You don't?

He was in his early 30s when he started teaching.

For a start, his first HoD was someone a good bit older than him. His second HoD was someone else who had had a career change - he was a former police officer and older than my husband. His HT was close to retirement age. The depute was also older.

In fact, many of the teachers at that school had been in other jobs first - and no, that wasn't that unusual.

I went straight from school to uni. Eventually, I became a HoD. Most of my line managers were older than I was, but a few years before I retired I had a line manger who was significantly younger. (In fact, two of the deputes plus the Business Manager were younger.) That can happen in all careers.

I don't see how his career turned out means he wasn't reporting to people younger than him?

Back then? Some of your friends parents will be in their 49s and 50s.

I have never seen anyone on MN mentioning being the first in their family to go to university (this is the first thread I’ve seen that even vaguely relates to the topic), but have experienced it being discussed in real life on numerous occasions.

When you do apply to uni that’s when you will start to hear it mentioned more often. You will be asked within your application whether anyone in your family has attended university. It’s also something I see quite often in my professional life.

You're certainly a decade behind on your career, but you might not necessarily be reporting to someone younger - and that can happen at any stage of your career.

My late husband was the first in his family to go to university: his parents had an agricultural/labourer/estate worker background and had high hopes for him, but his headmaster's dismissive comment was "I don't see him in a desk job...Do you?"

Ergo, DH left school at 15. After being in forestry, the military and working on an estate he decided to go to evening classes and to sit the Aberdeen Uni entrance exam. He matriculated in his 20s and graduated in his early 30s.

He became a secondary school teacher (and later school middle manager) and was able to use his own experience to show his pupils that it's possible to make changes in your life.

• It’s a rather large chip. Possibly visible from space.
• I see that numeracy isn’t a strong point of yours, either.
• I suspect you’re trolling because it’s a bit unbelievable that anyone could be quite this obtuse, for such a sustained period of time, in the face of so much evidence that they’re wrong, from so many people.

Good night, OP. I wish you and your insecurities sweet dreams of besting all those silly stuck up people who think they’re better than you.

Starting a thread saying “a degree is nothing special, I could totally have got one if I even wanted one, which I definitely don’t, because it’s not even an achievement” is the only strange thing here. People are just reacting to your strangeness.

if you have not been to university ( not the local college or polly ) you may not have spent much time with others from more privileged backgrounds . It’s stark!

you just won’t know unless you’ve been forced to mix. Uni is a leveller.

tall poppy syndrome to yourself - why because you’ve had to develop a tough skin to protect yourself and it’s the culture of the working classes . It’s liberating to break out of it when you realise it’s a self defence mechanism.

I feel proud I can offer intellectual and social advantages to my children at home that my parents couldn’t give me .

You’re mid 20s? Yeah then I agree it’s less of a thing nowadays amongst your generation but I’m in my 50s and I was the first one in my family to get a degree in my 30s. And yes I was proud to share that (as were my family).

Why do you aspire to go to university, OP?

I did as an escape, at first. I had universities sending me their brochures back in the 90s when I was 10 and they still sent out paper brochures. There was a clear difference between those where the expectation even before finishing school was to work for income as much as possible, that for many is a normal family, and those where university is normal, living in areas where teenagers can easily access university libraries. It then became the only way not only to get out, but to continue with my interests.

People discussing things in a positive light or saying they are proud of what they've done doesn't mean they are bragging. For it to be bragging, it needs to be excessively boastful. People can just be happy with things they worked towards or statements of fact, as all the examples I'm seeing have been.

I'm not the first in my family - my father went, my grandfathers both went, they benefitted from the US's GI bill and similar that more actively supported them in ways those trying now will really struggle to get. I'm the only one of my siblings to go - I'm the only one without legal/drug trouble, I'm the first woman in my family, to my knowledge, and I got into university based on an email conversation I had with a head of department on his niche - they bent the usual admission rules to admit me based on my interest even though I didn't mean the qualification requirement because, as they said, the way I wrote about it was enough evidence. I'm not sure how many unis would allow that these days.

I said in my op if you’re from an actual dysfunctional family like heroin addicts or alcoholics of course it’s an achievement.

My parents were both addicts for my entire childhood, even the university educated one. They literally got together over sharing drugs. My mother lost custody due to her violence. Dysfunctional would be an understatement.

It was still fairly for me to imagine and work towards university as a way out compared to many of my peers who had no experience of that. I figured if they could do it, I could figure it out. That wasn't true of many I knew who didn't have that around them, even without the drug addict and violence in the family.

Even with more kids going to uni, I think the divide is only getting bigger. I was a governor at local secondary and even with staff very focused on promoting universities, the benefits are becoming less visible as many with degrees are working jobs with those without. I've met more than a few kids who only want to go to uni through a degree apprenticeship or similar route where they get paid because even with so much trying to make it normal, normal in many places is still needing to pay the bills that are only growing. Potentially putting that off/making it much more limited for 3-4 years is not something every young adult can feel is realistic or safe to do.

Lots of personal attacks because I was a young mum but I’m going to uni once my kids are a little older

I was a young mum, had one as a teen, had two more while at university. I have fond memories of writings and finishing my dissertation with a baby sleeping on me. You can likely do it, though to get through the difficulties, a strong reason why is often vital, as it acceptance that it doesn't automatically lead to that better job. There is a reason some industries brought requiring removing dates on 'blind' CVs - there is a hiring bias about those gaps and age.

I think you are incredibly naive OP.