to ask if DC shouldn't bother with university if they can't get into a Russell Group one?

[TuTuTilly]

I'd never heard of the ruddy things before I joined MN. Didn't even realise I'd been to one. I do recall when I had a tedious summer job in Human Resources which included "sifting" job applications for an international firm of accountants, being told to dump any that weren't from a handful of universities.

So my question is; if your child can't get into an RG university - should they accept that they will be unemployable oiks upon graduation and resign themselves to a life working in call centres?

I agree that this canard about successful career = unhappy home seems to be most often parroted by those with unsuccessful careers who need justification for their life choices.

word Whilst my skills could have taken us out of London, typically if you persue a career in marketing you would move from company to company around the country, my DHs could not. They did however did take us overseas for the adventure of our lives, one that, together with Cancer, caused me to embark on the next portfolio in my life, and a return to academia, to study the culture of our former home in a non RG uni rated second in the country for my subject . Our graduates are very much in demand, by NGOs and development agencies, charities etc. as well as law firms, IBs, the media , hotel and travel industries, they have global options and can choose where their priorities lie. But they wouldn't study that subject there if they didn't have a real interest in other cultures to start with.

The reason this area of London is such a bubble is that it is indeed a very nice place to live but DH has very much been caught up in the thrill and status of being senior in an IB but also the unreal materialism that pervades people's values and measures them by house, kitchen, car.... I am trying to wean him off, not least because I really do think that the stress will kill him. I really wouldn't advise anyone to embark on a long term career in IB at the moment unless you were going to get out of the country, whatever the lure of a six figure salary. Having said that my family very much enjoy what London has to offer, the culture, the universities and libraries, the chance to experience different cultures and their food etc etc I am not sure I could wean myself off big city life now.

But if I had known then what I know now I would have got my DDs out of here for their education. It's not for this thread but their years in a slightly hippy liberal International School were most definitely the happiest and most formative of their lives.

Xenia - I don't think financially successful people are necessarily better parents than anyone else. Apart from the fact that it's a ridiculously large bracket (from just into six figure salary to Paul McCartney or JK Rowling I suppose - I certainly am closer in income to someone on minimum wage than I am to JK, that's for sure) you just can't credibly make sweeping generalisations like that. For myself, I suspect I am a very poor parent. But that has got nothing to do with my career, the aspects of my parenting that are probably better than average all depend really on the fact that I earn a decent amount. the aspects of my parenting that are poor are not related in any way to what I do for a living and how much I earn.

Nor would I describe myself as good at everything. I am fairly rubbish at most things. But at least I can laugh at myself.

I don't mind if that provides them with comfort.
There are plenty of ways to lead a life and it would be very dull if we all wanted to lean in and be "successful"

What I do think is important for teenagers is having information and making informed choices.

As for the original question, as so many careers which are fairly low level and did not used to need a degree do need one these days I think even an ex poly is better than nothing if that is all you can manage. I was with some people last week for work who were asking about extra courses they could do. Two had a degree so could do the MA they were all considering. The third had never been to university so all the courses he had been looking at in the area concerned would reject him and in his day (he must be my age) probably it was very rare for people from his background to go to university. I doubt he does his day to day work any differently from his peers 30 years on but even now the lack of degree seems to be a slight problem for him.

Spero coming from a working class, second generation immigrant, council estate background myself, I am a bit at you claiming that having working class parents resulted in you having no imagination.

Oh, I'm frightfully bright and have a splendid degree from a posh university but I'm still a dreadful parent and don't earn very much. I fully admit all that. But I have charm. And a winning prose style. And a really good singing voice

Word I only know successful musicians and actors, and they are lovely with their families. I do know (or used to know) a couple of incredibly successful writers who are complete shits though. But they are very much the exception to the rule.

But the whole thing is - there isn't a rule! Your qualities as a parent or spouse are not automatically determined by your career choice.

Sigh. All I am saying is that my parents had quite a narrow view of the world as no one ever expected much from them and my dad was in care for a bit. So I had to work a lot out for myself.

Maybe I was a bit crap but I did the best with what I had.

But even if I am dull and philistine, I don't think this detracts hugely from what I say. I suspect you just don't agree with me so you resort to rudeness. A pity.

One interesting development that may change things is the availability of other educational options. A lot of US unis are currently focused on online resources and I was pleasantly surprised that DDs school suggested the Pupils do a Oxford University Continuing Education Course in their chosen subject to get a taste of degree level study and to supplement their UCAS applications (both Oxford and Birkbeck offer some excellent online / flexible courses, as does the OU) . CVs that are filled with portfolio academic qualifications gained over your lifetime as well as a portfolio career may well become more of a norm.

Well I know mostly writers and of course we're a mixed bag. Some great people, some less so.

I just think the arts generally can suck you in a bit. You can get obssessed. When you're creating you enter a different world. And I think that can be hard to live with.

I have a blanket rule that I don't write when my DC are around. I edit or do my other working stuff, but I don't do the world creation stuff, because when I'm there, I'm not here, if that makes sense.

I can well imagine some writers rarely being present.

Indeed. If I had had access to the Internet as a teenager, so much would have been opened up for me. I think we forget just how much the world has opened up for so many of us in just the last 20 years.

I agree with what word factory says about word creation. I had to draft grounds for appeal last week and found myself getting very irritated with my daughter, I found it very hard to switch my focus onto her as opposed from what I was trying to write.

But I don't think this is a bad thing. She is 8 and has to learn that there are times when I am not immediately available and that there are things I have to do that don't always revolve around her.

I am not sure that children always get a positive benefit from parents who are always completely and utterly focusing on them and their needs. They have to learn independence incrementally.

cop I think any environmnet has pros and cons.

When my DC were young, I brought them up and schooled them out of London. Still la la land as the train goes direct to the City though .

It was lovely in many ways - huge house, rural location, less pressured urban childhood. But there were downsides too! Culturally, it's a bit of a wasteland. Thank God for the train to town!

I do know a lots of people in creative jobs and one hand it is easy to be a great parent, but also harder to get in the zone when there are lots of chld-related interruptions. Most I know just don't have children and work all the time. I don't think they envy anyone who has them, they really do just focus on their work.

Spero I haven't been rude at all! You described yourself as dull and lacking in imagination. I concurred. You (repeatedl) expressed philistine views, in very strong language at times, and I dissented. You on the other hand have been ridiculously rude about arts graduates, not just Eng Lit but all arts subjects.

As someone said upthread its unlikely that kids approaching uni choice will look to MN for advice. That's clearly a good thing in view of some of the posts on this thread.

spero like lots and lots of writers, I used to be a lawyer!!!!

Ithink the skill sets involved are similar.

As a lawyer, you're given lots of random facts (evidence) and some unmovable structures (law) and asked to make a narrative from it.

As a writer you're given lots of random ideas and themes and characters and some (reasonably) inflexible structures (novel form and shape) and asked to make a narrative from it.

Ok Russian, we will have to agree to disagree. I have been dismissive of a discipline, you have chosen to make it more personal about me and my particular personality.

I don't think that displays the emotional intelligence you claim to value so highly, but each to their own. Takes all sorts to make a world, etc, etc.

word the two people I was referring to are serial shaggers. Hence poor spouses and parents. I think it's them, I don't think it's got anything to do with the fact that they are successful writers, I knew one of them when we were both 16, 17 and he was just as bad then. I certainly don't tar all writers with the same brush though. I genuinely don't know a less than lovely musician BUT they all have portfolio careers and I think that helps keep them in the 'real world'.

Word - that is interesting. I wonder how many frustrated writers were pushed into law as a 'safer' or more respected discipline? There certainly seem quite a lot of ex lawyers in entertainment and comedy - bob Mortimer, Clive wotsit.

Spero you were dismissive of many disciplines, not just one, also the people studying them, the people who have studied them, and the people teaching them (several of whom were at the time in the thread). You really were very very rude.

You are also worrying inaccurate for a lawyer - I haven't mentioned the words emotional intelligence once, not in this thread, not in any other on MN ever.

So let's just agree to disagree. We are not going to change each others minds and I imagine this is very dull reading for everyone else.

sperro or law attracts performers, certainly true of my barrister friends, especially the criminal ones.

That sounds like they are criminals which I didn't intend, although....

It is more interesting that people go into different fields.

Zaha Hadid is better as an architect than an unhappy mid ranking accountant.

And of course the art market for example needs those high earning financiers etc to keep it ticking.