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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think DD is a bit silly to go to uni "for the experience"?

85 replies

Jinxis · 04/09/2017 02:40

DD is going to uni in October. She has picked a degree that offers a lot of trips, etc.

She has no clue what career she wants.

She admits it's for the experience... Going on these trips, learning a new language, meeting new people, living away, etc.

She could have done all this without getting into 60k worth of dept though, couldn't she?

Madness IMO.

AIBU?

OP posts:
Duvetdaysanddays · 04/09/2017 02:44

Meh. Possibly. I studied law at uni and am not a lawyer now but finished with an MA in something else and now do what i love. On a personal level, i learnt about myself through other people and the uni experience. I don't regret my education. Saying that - I was not finishing with 60k debt. Has she thought about doing a gap year with some travel and internships in things she thinks might be for her? Alternative?

Graphista · 04/09/2017 02:48

What's the degree? Travel experience and an additional language all well regarded by certain employers especially overseas. Is she planning to emigrate? I wouldn't blame her!

And uni SHOULD be about more than education and the fact that cost is changing how people view it is very sad in my opinion.

I recently commented on my old unis freshers post on their Facebook page where they asked for alumni advice - yes work hard and do the study BUT make friends, join societies, get involved in the union, meet and mix with people from ALL backgrounds. There's no experience like it.

redphonebox · 04/09/2017 02:55

I agree with you OP, but opinions seem to really differ on this. I have heard a lot of people IRL say uni is mainly about the experience. Most of them aged 50+, the younger people I know seem less convinced.

At least she's honest!

troodiedoo · 04/09/2017 02:58

Everyone that isn't doing a degree with a specific career in mind is going for this reason. It's as good a reason as any, end result is the same. And the experience is valuable.

SkylarFalls · 04/09/2017 02:59

I think it's very sad that student debt is now making people only see value in further education as a means to employment in that exact field!

It's not just okay to learn for fun/the sake of it without knowing yet what job you want to do until retirement, it's good and noble and more people should IMO learn "for fun" without feeling that the only worthwhile degrees are the applied ones like dentistry etc, right now the country could do with a few more writers and thinkers etc (not that I don't appreciate a good dentist..)

besides, a first degree is just that, who knows where it might lead!

And adult life is long enough...

QuagganLife · 04/09/2017 03:00

My degree has been of no real use tbh as I work in a completely different field now, but good to have just in case! but I travelled a lot, sometimes just holidays a few times due to my degree to very unusual places, met lots of friends, people from all sorts of countries and backgrounds, learnt a language, lived independently, did some very silly fun stuff that doesn't really happen when you get into the "real world" for me the experience of all these things totally trumped the actual degree, nothing really similar to it.

LellyMcKelly · 04/09/2017 03:10

Many jobs require you to have a degree regardless of specialism, so even if she ends up in a different field, time spent in higher education will be worth it. Most students work their way through uni so her debt will be less than £60k and the repayment terms are very manageable. I think she's doing exactly the right thing

Jinxis · 04/09/2017 03:11

The degree is actually Zoology.

I've asked her about jobs and she's just said "no idea, maybe I'll find something I'd love to do during the degree"... That made me laugh as surely you're supposed to have an idea before the degree Grin

I'm actually really concerned about the debt Sad

OP posts:
SkylarFalls · 04/09/2017 03:16

I've asked her about jobs and she's just said "no idea, maybe I'll find something I'd love to do during the degree"... That made me laugh as surely you're supposed to have an idea before the degree

Why? it's a first degree, it's broad for a reason, you specialise later after doing a broad base of modules!

There is loads you can do with zoology!

And the debt isn't like other debt, it's more of a tax! I paid £25 to student finance in my last months pay check, it's not like having personal loans or credit cards.

BoomBoomsCousin · 04/09/2017 03:31

I think there's a significant risk when you go to uni without loving the subject you're going to study, that you'll drift a bit or struggle and not do as well as you might if you got a job for a few years and went later. But there's also a significant risk if you get a job that in a few years you still don't know what you'd love and you still drift or struggle, but without a degree.

In hindsight, I probably would have been better off taking a few years out. I suspect I would have done much better in my degree. But at the same time - I did love my time at uni.

SkylarFalls · 04/09/2017 03:33

The OP hasn't said that the girl isn't keen on the subject , just that she's not keen on a particular end point career right now

Graphista · 04/09/2017 03:59

Zoology is a perfectly good (as pp have said) first degree. Many graduate positions simply require 'a good degree' as in a result of 2:1 or above to prove you are capable of learning at a certain level, retain and apply info, self discipline and behave responsibly. My friends daughters degree is in criminology and she now works in a bank, my uni cohort (English) have gone into a great variety of careers some completely unrelated.

toffee1000 · 04/09/2017 04:32

I would wager that most 18 year olds don't have a clue what they want to do. They may have a vague idea, but people who know exactly what they want to do are rare. There are very few degrees that lead directly to a job. Even once you've completed a five-year medicine degree that's not the end of your learning or exams. Same with law. And as most people have said, most employers/grad schemes don't specify a certain degree, they just want a specific classification. Your DD may well end up wanting to do a masters.

OuaisMaisBon · 04/09/2017 05:37

Unless you go for a degree which directly leads to a profession or a career (medicine, law, education, social work, engineering, etc), you're highly unlikely to know what you want to do till you've completed your degree course - and even then, it's not certain! I did a language degree many moons ago, but had no idea what I wanted to do with it, all I knew was that I didn't want to teach. It took me years after graduation to find a job I actually enjoyed, in a field I just fell into whilst temping. (Then I had to leave it when I moved countries on marriage, but that's another story!) On the other hand, my husband lived beside an airport since birth and naturally became an aeronautical engineer and has been working at his hobby ever since graduation! Our daughter is going into her final year at university later this month. She took a gap year (travelling worldwide) after school and has just finished a year's work experience doing internships in mainland Europe, Asia, and England. She still has no idea what she wants to do specifically as she is not studying subjects which lead to a career in anything in particular, except perhaps politics, and she is an inveterate traveller at heart. Since it took me 10 years after leaving university to find my "dream" job, that I hadn't even known existed when I was a student, I am far more understanding of my daughter's current dilemma than is my husband, who thinks she should just "get a job", no matter what, immediately on leaving university.
All this to say, I agree with Graphista and toffee1000 (if I've got the right person, from looking at other threads, I think my daughter is at the same university you just graduated from, toffee). Good luck to your daughter, OP!

SouthWestmom · 04/09/2017 05:57

My dd is also going for the experience/ because everyone else is/ because she doesn't want a job etc.

As she only gets the minimum loan I really resent having to fund this. I think the fee and loan system is awful - I have to fund the choices of another adult.

So op I agree. I also went to uni, had a good RG degree and it was useless without decent careers advice and a support system afterwards.

contrary13 · 04/09/2017 06:10

I was a few years older than the majority of the people on my degree course, and even 20 years ago, most of the 18 and 19 year olds were only there because their parents had insisted they go to university. Consequently, most of them chose to do "soft" degree courses just to get their parents off their backs. I don't think many 18 year olds do have any idea of what they want to do with the rest of their lives, to be honest. How could they? In one way, why should they? The average 18 year old has no real concept of their ever being even just 10 years older - the sheer hard slog of being an adult. They should be at university to study and work hard, yes; of course - but it's more about the experience, and... I think... a last chance to be young and daft before you have no other option but to grow up and enter the world as a socially responsible individual, get a proper job, perhaps marry and have children.

At least your daughter's being honest with you, OP. Although Zoology isn't an easy ride, unless they've changed the course drastically in the last 25 years. An old school friend chose to do it for her degree, thinking it was a "soft" option (I seem to remember her thinking that she'd simply be visiting a load of zoos to watch the animals and comment verbally on their behaviour - whereas she spent more time being lectured by Zoologists on animal psychology, physiology, and in cramped hides). She admitted a while later that it had been "a bloody hard slog" and that she should have studied English instead.

Out of my little group of friends at university, I'm the only one who still works in the field we studied (archaeology) - but I suspect that's because I was three years older than they were, had already worked in the field full-time for those three "missing" years, and was a parent who needed the degree to be able to be taken seriously and work in a higher position in the field, to provide for my family. We have a lot of NHS workers, for instance, a few accountants, one lawyer, some bankers (nepotism, I think, if I remember rightly), and two teachers - one senior school English teacher and one primary school level, so a little of every subject bar archaeology! All with a "soft" degree (it really wasn't) in practical archaeology.

Surely you'd prefer that your child go to university, to get a degree, which will enable them to get the better paid jobs later on, because they actually want to... rather than just because their parents want them to do so? My daughter's just about to start her 3rd year, and is at university because she wanted to get the degree in order to be able to work in the industry she's dreamed of being gainfully employed in for most of her life - but even now, 20 years after I first experienced this, most of her peers at university are very open about doing a "soft" degree because their parents want them there, "for the experience", than because they actually know what they want to do for the rest of their employable lives. But a degree will elevate them in an employer's eyes, at interview stage, unfortunately. That's not changed much over the years, either, even though it ought to have.

KC225 · 04/09/2017 06:12

Likelihood your daughter will be working in some form or the other until she is well I ti get 70's. Given that and the eye watering cost of rents and house prices, I would say there years of experience is a not a lot ask for. She will come our of it with a qualificatipn and she is open minded about career inspiration. I think you have a brave and optimistic young lady. Well done OP

KC225 · 04/09/2017 06:13

So badly typed. Broken screen on mobile and just woken up apologies

HollyBollyBooBoo · 04/09/2017 06:14

One of the best Programme Managers in my department has a degree in Zoology- she earns a truck load and is v successful!

Uni is about the experience, let her do it!

AdalindSchade · 04/09/2017 06:17

people never used to think like you before the horrendous cost of tuition. I guess you're right in a way for that reason but you're also tragically wrong I think. Knowing exactly what career you want at 18 is highly unusual. The 3 years of university will shape her in uncounted ways and she will come out the other side a young adult rather than a teenager. Your expectations are unrealistic I think.

SuperBeagle · 04/09/2017 06:19

I know loads of people who did this, and we've had fees at uni since the 70s in Australia. Never occurred to be that it was "wrong". It's for them to deal with in the future.

Most of them ended up graduating and none of them are layabouts now, so I'd say that even if they did go "for the experience", it ended up working out for them in the end.

SleepFreeZone · 04/09/2017 06:21

I used to work for a guy who attained his degree in Zoology and then used that degree to get a high flying job in the financial sector in London. He was on six figures with a huge house and has recently relocated to Asia with his wife where life seems to be one long holiday.

SuperBeagle · 04/09/2017 06:22

Also, very few people I know completed the degree they started in. Most transferred at some point.

Even if you're "certain" you know what you want to do at 18, the chances are that with some experience in that degree/life, you'll end up changing your mind or finding something else you're more interested in.

I did a double degree: Law/Science, and I work in a managerial position at a ski resort now. I was adamant before my degree that I would end up in the legal profession. I couldn't think of anything worse now.

blueskyred · 04/09/2017 06:24

yabu and i hope you dont give off those doubtful vibes to her.
yes uni is an experience and the job market is very competitive that a lot of professional jobs expect a 2:1 uni degree AS A GIVEN. times are a changing!
Blame politicians for student fees.

BitchQueen90 · 04/09/2017 06:38

I guess it depends on whether she plans to work hard or not and enjoy the subject. I don't think going to uni is the be all and end all like some people do really, I didn't go myself.

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