Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

I want to tell people I have a 1st class even though I don’t?

504 replies

plieddried · 01/12/2021 03:56

It bothers me so much to see my actual degree classification. On my cv I don’t even bother to write my degree classification but I still feel embarrassed. I want to start telling people (and myself) that I graduated with a 1st class honours even if it’s not true. It makes me feel happier to tell myself I got a first class. It also makes me feel more confident and secure in my ability to work. It makes me feel accomplished. Wondering if AIBU?

OP posts:
CandyLeBonBon · 03/12/2021 02:09

That's because it IS odd to think that lying about your achievements is a healthy thing to do! I got a first as a mature student with a load of shit going on in my personal life and whilst I'm proud of it I still don't really mention the grade. If I hadn't got a first, I wouldn't lie about it. That's just a bit weird.

Martianworld · 03/12/2021 02:28

@plieddried
Listen, if you want to say you've got a first, say it. Everyone lies about something. Sometimes I give myself the title of Dr or professor. It's not illegal, I don't use it to be fraudulent, and like it. My friends know it's not true so they just roll their eyes. I'm not treated any differently whatever title I use - I learned a long time ago that people are too busy worrying about their own stuff to be thinking of yours. So no one would care what level degree you got. But if it makes you feel better, go for it.

CiderJolly · 03/12/2021 03:38

@Martianworld that’s really bad advice. Better to be honest and work on learning to be happy with the truth- or do something about it.

I love this quote/prayer-

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

Doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not. I think it’s a healthy attitude if you can think like this.

Martianworld · 03/12/2021 04:03

@CiderJolly
That's one way to go, certainly. And I am having the courage to change things. I'm changing my title to doctor! 😉 And that makes me happy. I don't do it all the time, just when I feel like it. Also, sometimes when I book restaurants, I book under a different name, I won't say what it is but it's from my favourite book and I love the name. I'm not harming anyone so I don't see the problem.

CiderJolly · 03/12/2021 04:10

@Martianworld how does changing your title to Dr make you happy? Is it not a bit embarrassing/awkward for those you are with, who know the truth, when you do this?

Martianworld · 03/12/2021 04:49

@CiderJolly.

how does changing your title to Dr make you happy?
It's a good question. I think it's because it's something different. To me. Obviously strangers don't know my real title and so it has no impact on them. It's like putting on a new dress or shoes. It's still me but I feel different.

I don't change titles with my friends - that would be weird because they know my title. But, no, no one seems that bothered, although some have looked at me questioningly the first time it happens. But they've just accepted that it's something that I like doing.

RainbowMum11 · 03/12/2021 04:51

Who really cares though?
If you are with people who will define you based on not only whether you have a degree or not, but what class it is - you are spending time with the wrong people.
I wouldn't know what class of degree, or otherwise, many of the most intelligent, interesting and clever people I have encountered and worked with over my career so far - it really doesn't matter, the fact that they are good at what they do and know their stuff is what's important.

Hubs456 · 03/12/2021 05:02

This is incredibly peculiar. You need to do you, my friend, and I’m sure you’re very intelligent, but I think it’s reasonably odd to fabricate something so objective like your degree classification.
Would you think it was normal to make up a degree entirely? Eg I tell people sometimes that I actually am a qualified lawyer at the weekend…it makes me feel good about myself, I’m sure I could have been a lawyer, but I didn’t get the grades for it. I tell people cause it makes me feel good about myself.
It’s especially odd because I don’t think I have ever had mine come up in conversation.

Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow · 03/12/2021 05:47

I think you need new friends. Christ, how excruciatingly dull must your evenings be if all your friends talk about is their degree classification?
My dh has a first, and a masters and a phd. The only time it gets mentioned is on his cv.

XelaM · 03/12/2021 05:59

This is so weird. I have been a solicitor for over a decade (working in law firms for 15+ years) and it NEVER comes up in casual conversation. "Where did you go to uni?" comes up. "What was your degree qualification?" literally never does. I wouldn't know the first thing about my colleagues' grades at uni. Where on Earth do you work that it comes up so often? Sounds extremely immature.

TedMullins · 03/12/2021 07:24

@plieddried

The comments in this thread have made me feel like I’m so odd.
That’s because it is odd to be so hung up on it, and it is odd that you know so many people who bang on about their degree classification. What absolutely crashing bores you must hang about with!

This is a self esteem issue. You’re not worth any less because you didn’t get a first. You’re not less intelligent. Plenty of people manage life fine without straight As and a first. Most people really don’t give a shit whether someone has a degree or not, let alone what mark they got.

whattheactualfudgecakes · 03/12/2021 07:38

Has it given you any less inclination to want to lie about your educational achievements?

Has it made you more self aware of perhaps the underlying reasons of why you felt the need to lie in the first place?

Has it given you a better perspective on just how insignificant this information is to other people? (And that if it doe's somehow mean something significant to them then they are dicks)

Hope so Smile

whattheactualfudgecakes · 03/12/2021 07:40

This is a self esteem issue. You’re not worth any less because you didn’t get a first.

I believe this is essentially what this thread boils down to. Does this resonate with you op?

Platax · 03/12/2021 07:48

I feel like we live in completely different worlds. I know many people, even people years older than me, people in their fifties who still talk about their degree classification. confused

You certainly do. In four decades of adult life I've never come across anyone who talks about their degree qualification, whether in the work context or socially.

DrSbaitso · 03/12/2021 07:52

It makes me feel better because my academic record was good. Flawless even straight A all the way through my schooling, top grades all the time - apart from that degree.*

That's not at all unusual, in fact it's probably more common than getting a first. The jump from A levels to a degree is significant. It's a very different way of thinking, learning and working.

Twattergy · 03/12/2021 08:00

I got straight As in qualifications and then a 2:1. I don't feel hard done by or embarrassed. If I wanted to prove myself academically now I'd undertake a further qualification and work really hard to get the best grade.

FirewomanSam · 03/12/2021 08:12

I feel like we live in completely different worlds. I know many people, even people years older than me, people in their fifties who still talk about their degree classification.

Can you give us an example of how this comes up in conversation? I’m really trying to imagine it.

I can think of a few very specific people or situations where degree classifications have come up in conversation in my life since graduating, but they’re definitely the exception and not the norm.

HeddaGarbled · 03/12/2021 08:20

I remember some educationalists talking about “learning to fail” and being jumped on by all the right-wing media for promoting low aspirations, but I do think that some academically able children who have been successful at everything in their early education can come a cropper the first time they don’t achieve their expectation. They haven’t learned resilience and how to cope with setbacks.

DrSbaitso · 03/12/2021 08:25

@HeddaGarbled

I remember some educationalists talking about “learning to fail” and being jumped on by all the right-wing media for promoting low aspirations, but I do think that some academically able children who have been successful at everything in their early education can come a cropper the first time they don’t achieve their expectation. They haven’t learned resilience and how to cope with setbacks.
Yes.

They're very bright, but for many "straight A*" kids, uni is the first time they aren't in the very top classification and they do often think it's any issue other than that they just didn't achieve it.

OutwiththeOutCrowd · 03/12/2021 08:33

The only conversation I can remember about degree classification was amongst a group of university lecturers in the tearoom. Quite a few 'confessed' to getting 2:1s! They loved their subject and did great research work. Maybe they just didn't perform as well as some others in the exam room - those who may have been more focused on trying to be the best according to that measuring stick.

But isn't it better that way round? To just love your subject, persevere with it and make new discoveries.

FirewomanSam · 03/12/2021 09:07

I do think that some academically able children who have been successful at everything in their early education can come a cropper the first time they don’t achieve their expectation. They haven’t learned resilience and how to cope with setbacks.

Absolutely, and this often also applies to high-achieving graduates coming into the workplace for the first time and finding they can’t cope with feedback that’s any less than perfect. I was one of them, many years ago. The first time my manager gave me some constructive feedback I had a mini breakdown thinking I must be completely shit and that I had totally fucked up. Of course, now I can see it was just very normal, helpful feedback but at the time it felt like a knife to the heart! And I remember a more senior manager asking me, gently, ‘did you do very well at school and university? Were you always top of the class? Ah yes, we see this a lot…’

Years later I was the manager and I had a very brilliant intern with a First and a distinction in her MA, and when I gave her a friendly reminder that she had forgotten to do something I’d asked (wasn’t a big deal at all) she practically started self-flagellating in front of me and seriously looked like she was about to cry. It was like looking in a very old mirror!

KeyboardWorriers · 03/12/2021 09:11

@HeddaGarbled yes I totally agree.
I was like that, I didn't learn to drive until I was 30 because I had a few lessons and wasn't the best driver so I gave up Blush

It's why I ensure my very academically able son also does lots of sports. I know that learning to get back out for the next match after a bad football score will be a good life lesson

DrSbaitso · 03/12/2021 09:30

@FirewomanSam

I do think that some academically able children who have been successful at everything in their early education can come a cropper the first time they don’t achieve their expectation. They haven’t learned resilience and how to cope with setbacks.

Absolutely, and this often also applies to high-achieving graduates coming into the workplace for the first time and finding they can’t cope with feedback that’s any less than perfect. I was one of them, many years ago. The first time my manager gave me some constructive feedback I had a mini breakdown thinking I must be completely shit and that I had totally fucked up. Of course, now I can see it was just very normal, helpful feedback but at the time it felt like a knife to the heart! And I remember a more senior manager asking me, gently, ‘did you do very well at school and university? Were you always top of the class? Ah yes, we see this a lot…’

Years later I was the manager and I had a very brilliant intern with a First and a distinction in her MA, and when I gave her a friendly reminder that she had forgotten to do something I’d asked (wasn’t a big deal at all) she practically started self-flagellating in front of me and seriously looked like she was about to cry. It was like looking in a very old mirror!

Oh this sounds familiar!
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 03/12/2021 09:31

@HeddaGarbled, I could have written your post. Over on the current Oxbridge thread, it's something that often comes to mind reading about the young people who've not been offered interviews. It's very sad for them but possibly a good life lesson (and a way of building resilience) that those who are successful and get in won't learn for years to come (so will potentially hit them harder when they do fail for the first time).

KaycePollard · 03/12/2021 10:32

Absolutely, and this often also applies to high-achieving graduates coming into the workplace for the first time and finding they can’t cope with feedback that’s any less than perfect.

Very familiar to me, teaching undergrads in a competitive degree in a research-led university.

It is frustrating, as the panic is also intertwined with a certain level of arrogance - as if my 30 years' of knowledge & experience is of no value to them.

But I try to remember that a) there are some things it takes you a lifetime - or at least 5 years after formal education, to learn and b) this is a generation of kids who have been assessed, judged, evaluated to within an inch of their lives since they were 5 or 6, with the first SATS.

And the acknowledgement of the stress of that constant assessment on children, is not to release & remove some of the assessment, but to make sure the assessment is always positive.

Sometimes, we need to be told we've got it a bit wrong.

The main thing I find is not so much in my students' responses to formal assessment, but when I suggest to them that they need to learn ore professional courtesy: for example, that sending emails without subject lines, no formal greeting, and expecting an immediate response to a problem which is often of their own making, is not the way to get me to do them a favour! And so on. I"m sure we all have our stories about this.

The other consequence of this over-stress on assessment is the catastrophising - give a student less than 60% (bottom of an upper Second) and some students will tell me that they've failed and they are a failure.

But again, learning that there are gradations between black and white is a life long lesson.