to consider selling my house to fund a degree?

[7654321j]

More of an 'am I being completely ridiculous?'

I went through school with undiagnosed dyslexia. My grades were all over the place, totally inconsistent and very little correlation to how much effort I'd put in, and ultimately, I dropped out of university in my final year.

There's always been a question over whether I'm autistic too. I have no friends and I haven't since I was a young child. I don't really fit in anywhere.

I've always worked in unskilled jobs but I find everything apart from the actual work difficult. I'm bored and I get frustrated when things are unfair/illogical/half arsed/pointless. I hate having no autonomy. I was managed out of my first workplace for poor social/communication skills.

I feel like even if a degree didn't lead to a more interesting job, I'd possibly benefit from the student support and social side of things but it's a huge amount of money to spend when I might not get anything out of it.

Is it an option worth thinking about or is it just a massive waste of money? When I dropped out, fees were £3k so it was reasonable to think 'I can always go back later' but now they've pretty much trebled, is it worth it?

find everything apart from the actual work difficult. I'm bored and I get frustrated when things are unfair/illogical/half arsed/pointless. I hate having no autonomy. I was managed out of my first workplace for poor social/communication skills.

So then logically the only study worth doing is to address these issues. You don't need university for that.

In an office job the pointlessness and lack of logic is 100x worse. Very little concrete output.

The higher up the ladder you go, the more bullshit you have to deal with and the more diplomatic you have to be. Therefore with greater earning potential usually comes greater reliance on social skills.

You can teach yourself to fit in. You can teach yourself a poker face for the next time someone says something ridiculous. Read books on communication skills and then put those concepts and skills to the test in your workplace. Think of it as a science experiment. Try to find the most effective shortcuts.

Assuming you are committed to developing your social and "soft" skills to the extent that they no longer hold you back (get you sacked or passed over), how about taking in a lodger for extra income? Pick an introvert with no social life who will just stay in their room by the way.

Have you read "now discover your strengths" ? It's a good read for clever people who hate pointlessness. Also do the MBTI.

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OP,

I'm a mature student doing a STEM degree at a Top 20 Uni. Recentlt diagnosed ADHD, ASD and dyscalculia. I've used my gift year because I chose the wrong Uni initially, their student support and disability support were fucking atrocious, and lecture staff never replied to emails. I failed the first year...

My second Uni are are absolutely incredible, my grades are now mostly 1:1s due to lecture staff, course leader, disability support and MH support being so good.

Personally, I'd call Student Finance and see what they say. If you can get some evidence of why you failed, you may get further funding. I'm in the process of it now with my GP, as my course leader has advised me to switch to a degree with an integrated Masters which requires Undergrad funding.

And re friends - I made none at the first Uni. At my new Uni, I have a great bunch of mature students plus a few teenagers from doing labs with them.

The University of London will soon be offering distance degrees with a good range of courses.
Absolutely do not sell your house .

@Ineedabreak19 - brilliant resource - thank you!

Whatever you do, do not sell the house to fund a degree!

UoL already offer distance degrees. Like the OU, fees are over £6k a year. Distance learning is far from the cheap and easy option (is it worth losing the support, facilities and opportunities of a brick university to save £3k a year when I don't have £6k a year to spend anyway?) and there aren't many science courses around.

Nice to hear a positive story, Mombie2016

What was your first degree? And what degree do you want to do now?

IT. I've been looking at biomedical science and similar.

You know what, it sounds like you live somewhere a bit unexciting with not many employment prospects in the area. Uni gives you a chance to do something you love for a few years in a new and more exciting location with new and interesting people if you pick wisely.

My uni days were fantastic, worth every penny I'm still paying off 20 years later. I studied fine art and haven't done anything artistic since but I had a blast. The job market where I live now is nothing like where I grew up, location makes a huge difference.

Life is short. I'm not downplaying the value of having a house, but what good is a house if you hate your job and have unfulfilled potential.

If there is a way to keep your house AND go to uni then do that, but if it's your only option to sell then it's great that having that capital gives you a choice so may as well use it, you never know where it might lead. Or you could let it out and try for a new start somewhere to see if you get the best of both things, but it's a good thing to want to learn and sometimes you can't get away from that need.

OK well biomedical science is a tricky area to get into, and you'd need to be able to pass interviews even after you've done your degree remember. You'd also more likely need a masters or even a PhD in today's market. With the current climate, I'd imagine the competition for jobs is only going to get worse.

However with IT, you can go into careers in that without degrees. Teach yourself IT online, do courses in security or programming. Either of those lead to better jobs, although security would be harder as after a while, you need to be a consultant to progress and if you have poor social skills, you'll get nowhere. But you can still earn a lot in security without doing that and you wouldn't out of place on the social skills front.

Programming takes a LOT of practice, you cannot learn programming in a classroom. It takes thousands of hours to get good in just one language, and there's several main ones you'd need to learn. But you have the mindset to do it to be honest.

I wouldn't sell your house to do biomedical science. You really will get nowhere. You will waste your money.

Apply for jobs even in different areas of the country for it jobs. Look for security analyst jobs. You could move there, rent your house out and rent somewhere near your new job. Then if you don't like it, you still have your house and can move home. If you do like it, sell your house and buy one there.

Moving isn't an option but yeah, fairly deprived part of the country, not a whole lot going on in any way. University is likely to be the best chance I ever have to meet people. Wasted it the first time because I was way too immature to be there.

While it's possible to get into IT without a degree (and accounting and graphic design, I fell for that line and studied both of those things too), in reality, it's a lot harder said than done. Businesses are not desperate to hire socially inept people with no formal qualifications when socially capable, traditionally qualified people exist.

Well they do, because I've worked with a lot of them. Lots of companies hire people without degrees for security. You can learn on the job in a soc. You're never going to learn that in a classroom. Learning networking, show you've done online courses like networking+ and security+ on your cv and you'll probably be fine.

If you're just going to keep making excuses, fine, ignore the advice of everyone here. Sell your house, go do biomedical science and the 99% likelihood is, you'll fail. Because you won't get the level of degree and knowledge they are looking for, and you're socially inept. If you aren't willing to move either, why bother with the new degree? I doubt there are any jobs there for it if there aren't even any it ones you could do.

Gosh! Loads of comments which I haven't had time to read [sorry] BUT gut instinct in NO!!!!!!!!
Can you rent it out or something?

Would agree with Truthpact. IT does employ a wide range of people with and without degrees and is fairly tolerant of neurodiversity, for want of a better word.

I see some PPs have mentioned apprenticeships. IT have those as well, a colleague is getting on very well with hers and will be very employable when it's completed.

To be fair, I never said that I wanted to work in IT anyway. I haven't for a long time. But my experiences are very different to yours.

I've studied so many different things that I was advised would give me opportunities and nobody would care that I struggle socially because CCNA/AAT/Adobe Suite/MOS/Java/web design/etc/etc/etc, and I've been knocked back time and time again. The amount of times I've heard 'and you could go self-employed!' as though clients just fall out of thin air and no interpersonal skills are required to get (and keep) them.

It's not that I don't appreciate the advice. I just think people vastly underestimate how easy it is to get into a decent job, never mind a career, from a background of unskilled jobs, a patchy education history and very weak social skills.

I've worked solidly in crap, unskilled jobs since I got a paper round at 13, always supported myself, pretty much always been a student around work, paid for numerous courses out of my own pocket. It's got me nowhere job wise and I have no life outside of work. Maybe it's a question of wanting to spend my money on something that I think I'll enjoy for once more than anything.

no absolutely not. do not sellyour house

phone admissions, speak to the finance departments.

phone student finance, ask them what you would be entitledto

Open uni - fab way to study too,

do not sell your house for anything - big big mistake!!

no absolutely not. do not sellyour house

phone admissions, speak to the finance departments.

phone student finance, ask them what you would be entitledto

Open uni - fab way to study too,

do not sell your house for anything - big big mistake!!

In general biomed jobs are underpaid (I switched from healthcare to IT) - but granted salary is not everything. Some biomed jobs like lab technician do not necessarily require a degree - maybe you can retake a levels at night school? Also - be aware that biomed jobs may require a certain amount of social interaction too. Look at jobs boards - no point in doing a degree and then finding not v employable after.

Personally I would start researching what types of jobs people are recruiting for at the moment and what locations are good for this. Remember, you can always rent out current place and move somewhere to try out a new job (though don’t know if it affects mortgage terms). Think carefully and have a plan B. Good luck!

The thing is though it doesn't sound like you've looked at the more interesting sides of it. And if your plan is to get a biomedical degree, what job are you going to do with it? What's your end goal with that? Doing a degree and socialising is one thing, but if you lose your house just to try and make friends, you're on a road to failure.

What do you want to do in life? What interests you? You need to look at what you find interesting and see if it's achievable.

If you want to sell your house and spend money on something you enjoy that's one thing; a degree in biomedical science is probably not a ticket to a "student" social life (once you are past your late teens/early twenties) nor of itself a ticket to a career unless your vocation is to do biomedical science. If the latter I would look into things like work shadowing first, perhaps that's my bias though as I don't think a career in biomedsci would be terribly exciting.

Perhaps it's about thinking about the actual problem you are trying to solve and seeing what the most useful way to do that is; selling your house to fund a degree in order to reward yourself for slogging your guts out in entry-level jobs is...one way to do it but potentially an expensive, time-consuming disappointment.

I know that basically every job asks for good communication skills. It's difficult to weed out the ones that just say it but it's not that important vs where it's genuinely very important.

I've never had any realistic ambitions. What I'm like and what I'd like to be like are two very different things. I wanted to be a paramedic or radio producer for a long time. My better grades at university were always programming assignments but it was also the part that I enjoyed least.

I don't know specifically what I'd want to do with it and I have no expectations of a degree leading to anything amazing but it'd definitely give me more options and experiences than I have now. Even if that's only being able to apply for jobs that require any old degree.

You're mad if you think this is a good idea.

Plus - houses are not worth what they were 3 months ago - so you'll get less return on your sale.