Big dilemma for DD - what would you do?

[Blackenedsoul]

DD has accepted an offer for her Uni of choice to study Media in September. She’s been looking forward to going, had planned to live at home and travel the 20 minutes in every day.

She had a part time job for a few months in a local office attached to a very small but very busy manufacturing company. She’s very well thought of and works in the office on a Saturday, doing admin, answering enquiries, emails, booking appointments etc.

Today they’ve offered her a full time, permanent post in the office and have offered to start training her up in the use of their accounts systems etc, give her more responsibility. The salary is 18k to start rising to around a max of 25k once fully trained.

This has come as a bolt from the blue, DD really enjoys the job and thinks she’d be happy doing it full time but at the same time was also happy to go off and have the Uni experience, make new friends and study and have fun.

She’s aware that lots of students leave Uni and end up falling into admin roles vey much like this and is now wondering whether bothering with Uni is worth it.

We’ve told her the decision is entirely hers but she’s really finding it hard to decide.

So, the great of mumsnet - what would you do?

Uni all the way! There's nothing quite like the independence and experience it gives. It transformed my son.

I work in a university and we still don't know whether we will be f2f or online right now. I'd recommend deferring,taking the job, and seeing how she feels next year.

I would take the job - she would be earning a decent salary straightaway and she would still be living at home so how much of the 'Uni Experience' would she really have, other than no debt and a load of work experience!
She can still study if she chooses too, but this will give her so much more opportunity in the future.

@Megan2018

I shouldn’t say this as it risks everyone in HE’s job security inc my own- but you have to be very silly indeed to be starting in 22/23. All our planning is for blended learning at best. No-one expects we can give students a good experience for another 12 months. Deferring is definitely to be recommended. There’s absolutely no way it’s worth the tuition fee at the moment.

I agree, having been talking to friends who are lecturers at various universities, it seems there are no guarantees for a full return to face-to-face teaching for September '21. She won't get a full "uni experience" this year. And I wonder whether a Media degree is worth it in terms of cost and potential earning capacity. Is it an area she particularly wants to work in, or is it that it's a course she feels she can do? Is it worth 30k to her to do it? If she's not set on a particular career, then a job which offers training ( maybe an apprenticeship if she can show the benefits of that to the employer) and a qualification at the end of it might be the better option. She can defer the uni course if she wants to try the job to see if she likes it.

Defer uni for a year

I agree with PPs who say she should defer for a year and take the job and see how she finds it. Based on my experience teaching at university, she'll find the year of discipline and self-reliance stands to her, and then she can see what she'd like to do.
I don't agree with people who have said that she'll not be able to do the degree again - there's no reason why she shouldn't work for a few years and then do a degree, surely?

@lemonsyellow

University experience isn't solely about 'the job at the end' (and anyway, those days are over). It's about a unique life experience, growing as a person, intellectually, socially, emotionally.

None of that is happening at university now.

I work at a university. Yes, it's not happening in the same way but it is still happening.

The online environment, while not ideal, has allowed for a new form of creativity, and intellectual growth.

Next year will still be restricted but will have more on-campus experience.

Take the job. I don't mean to be unkind but "Media" is not the sort of degree that comes with a guarantee of good job prospects and high earnings. Different situation if she was studying engineering at a top uni, but a media degree will likely lead to the same sort of admin job in 3-4 years time anyway... if she's lucky, and she'd have a mountain of debt by then too.

I would normally say go for the job for a year and encourage her to really think about what she actually wants to do. Even taking a degree that she is interested in that might lead to a career in something she enjoys. However you say

I also worry that long term she’ll be bored and wish she’d gone to Uni. I know DD and once she’s accepted the job she won’t want to leave and let them down - she thinks the world of her employers and as they are a small family company she’ll end up staying out of duty

I really can understand her not wanting to upset her employers by handing her notice in and getting into the position of being stuck in a very low paying job for life.

She can see the ceiling in this company and then not being able to move because of duty and lack of a degree could really mess her up.

There is a 3rd option
Why doesn’t she take a year out and do a few different jobs even trying to look into what she really wants to do for a year like you say web content writing, copywriting, marketing, PR type work.

Some of those type of things you may not need a degree for. Maybe a short course or working for free to get experience.
Or brushing up her A levels/GCSEs to get into a journalism or English degree course.

I don’t think either option atm is really what is what she wants to do otherwise it would be a no brainer and she wouldn’t be so uncertain

I’d take the job, ask to defer the degree for a year and spend the time looking at other courses. Universities should be back to normal in September, but I don’t think they will be. Another year would give your daughter the chance to earn some money, gain admin/office experience, make sure she’s chosen the best course for her and maximise her chances of having a proper student experience when she gets there.
She can be honest with her employer and wouldn’t have to feel she was letting them down if she left the job after a year. A £25k admin role will be easy for an employer to fill.

Take the job. If a 25k a year admin job is all she is expecting after graduating then her degree is not worth it.

I’m a journalist. I don’t have a degree (if you want any more info on how I got into media without one feel free to PM).

Two things: sorry to be so blunt but I wouldn’t wipe my bum with a media degree. If she wants to work in media she’d be MUCH better off finding an apprenticeship with a media company - the BBC and the Times do them for journalism and in sure they exist for film too. What does she want to do for a career?

Second thing: the media (as in the journalistic media) is a race to the bottom. Salaries are atrocious and freelance rates are even worse. The only advice I’d give to someone who wanted to be a journalist is ‘don’t’. I’m looking for routes out of the media myself at the moment.

(Uni's) about a unique life experience, growing as a person, intellectually, socially, emotionally

Not so much when she plans to keep living at home though - especially if this continues because so many courses are now being done online

And another way of looking at the "staying at the family firm out of loyalty" thing is that this too would suggest a lack of drive and ambition

Oh, forgot the punchline - 100% take the job!

This isn't what you asked but...

I work in Media (have had fairly senior roles in Film/TV & Digital).

I didn't go to Uni, but that was then. When employing, I do generally ask for a degree in a job spec but I am not looking for a media degree necessarily would - on paper - pick a candidate with and English degree (or other EBAC) and/or strong work ethic/experience.

Not saying Media degrees are a total waste of time, they're not. But I do think we have to stop believing that Uni is the be all and end all.

Obviously for a specific career path - law/medicine/whatever, then of course. And if you are going for the 'life experience' - also fine, but there should be no shame in taking a job that you like instead.

The idea of living at home while at Uni is terrible. If she was moving away to gain some life experience, have some FUN and study something she found really interesting I'd definitely say to do that.

But living at home and doing a media degree sounds near to pointless. The job will probably open more doors.

After hearing her interests, she should try a marketing degree. She will be on 25k in no time and will be able to keep moving up x

@DarlingWithoutYou

Defer uni for a year and take the job. That's what I'd advise my DD to do. Then make her decision next year.

Completely agree with this.

Tricky one. I stayed in a good job at 18, whilst I don't regret that choice I do feel I've missed out on a section of life. I took up study later in life anyway, but it would have been a lot easier to do that without family commitments.

I didn't get to have the wild youthful freedoms to the extent some friends did. Actually, maybe I do regret it now, at least in part.

Definitely choose Uni but don’t live at home. She won’t get the full experience AT ALL.

Good luck to your daughter whatever she chooses.

"Media" is hardly vocational. What does she expect to do with it? I worked in student support for 8 years and, honestly, so many students were taking these pointless degrees, leaving with massive debts and finding admin jobs. I recall going into Pets at Home one day. I was wearing my work lanyard. The lad on the till spotted it and commented that he did his degree at the uni. I asked him what subject and he said film studies. Tell her to accept the job.

I have a degree in one of the performing arts, and - shocker - a job! I also have debt but I have perfectly capable of finding a job in my industry. I don’t see why my degree would be useless

It doesn't need to be useless if it's genuinely necessary and is being done by someone with a view to an actual career - but neither of these seem to apply

Sports Science was another which took off during the Mickey Mouse years; a worthwhile option for some, but all too often chosen by those who thought it would involve 3 years playing football

I would defer university for a year and take the job. If she enjoys doing accounts & finance job then I'd encourage her to study that at university. Qualifying in accountancy will give her a secure future & a greater earning potential.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/subject-guide/accounting-and-finance%3famp=true

I find myself slightly bemused by the “don’t do media, it won’t help her get a job in media” line, seeing as OP has said her daughter’s got no specific career aim. What’s wrong with just doing a subject she enjoys? Presumably we don’t expect all English graduates to get jobs in ...doing English? Or History to be historians? Surely you just acquire transferable skills? My job’s got no direct relationship to my degree, but it still taught me some very valuable things.

Defer uni. Take the job. Have a think. Media is not the best respected degree and certainly doesn't have the best employment prospects.

Worked in unis all my life. In the present climate, she's not going to have a problem getting in in the foreseeable future. Her offer isn't a once in a lifetime thing.