Does anyone regret their degree or other qualification?

[Ididnthityouharold]

I regret doing a PGCE. I never completed my NQT (or ECT as it is now)
I completed it 8 years ago so no school will employ me now as a teacher anyway.
Behaviour is horrendous. I somehow passed the PGCE with flying colours whereas a few friends failed or were arof.
Despite this I don't know what I was thinking. I thought I wanted to become a teacher but I really don't anymore.
I now work in a role which doesn't require a degree for around 25k a year based on full time hours. I'm in my early 30s and probably won't pursue higher education again unless it's a degree apprenticeship (though they're not that easy to come by)
I'm sure people think I'm daft but never mind. Does anyone else regret their degree or qualification?
I really enjoy my current role but sometimes I think about how my peers are on much higher incomes than me/better quality of life

No, but I use one (lawyer with a law degree).

I think even if I hadn't gone into law I would (1) have valued my degree, I quite like studying and it gave me some transferrable skills and (2) still think realyl fondly of the experience which was much much more than just the academic side.

That's true, I should at least value the experience, which I do. I just think it was stupid to complete a 9k qualification that I don't use at all anymore. My current job requires an NVQ 3.

I still think fondly of the experience but honestly a degree in Modern Languages is useless. I've ended up in a good, well paid job but it has no relevance to the degree and I think if I'd chose better, I would be in the kind of job I would enjoy more. I just didn't realise at the time. The advice from school was "do something you are good at/enjoy" with little thought to future prospects.

I did a CertHE as a mature student with ideas of becoming a vet, changed my mind after a shedload of work experience & ended up doing a BioMed degree as I could jump from the CertHE into the second year of the degree.
I soon realised I'm appalling at practical lab work so was a bit stuck with what to do afterwards, but most grad schemes don't ask for a specific degree so I stuck with it & used it to apply for the Civil Service Fast Stream, where I'm now training to be a qualified accountant.
Pretty different from my original plan but I'm hoping it'll give me the work-life balance I want in the future.

No. I've done BSc, MSc, PhD, a few postdocs and a few additional qualifications... I enjoyed all of them, they've all been useful and they have opened up so many doors.

One thing I wish I'd known/acknowledged before is for my PhD, the field moves ahead soooo quickly that practically the day you graduate you're already behind the times... and they even tell you this WHILE you're taking the degree. Basically, if you spend a few years in a job not using it, you have to completely retrain after!

A PGCE is only one academic year so I'm not sure what there is to regret? It's not like you spent 7 or 8 years training and then changed your mind. If your peers are on much higher incomes and you want that, then go and put yourself in a position to match them! I think it's maybe your attitude rather than your qualification, and not completing your NQT year, unless something really life changing happened, was just daft - we all just gritted our teeth for the year and got through it for the QTS 😳

I wish I had done something more vocational. I loved doing my degree but its been no use to me whatsoever and now I can't afford to retrain.

There's that small matter of the 9k student debt..?
Also, you're assuming I was able to get a post?
It's like when people say on here 'just do your ECT year', it's really not that easy to just get one despite what people think?
Nothing to do with my 'attitude', odd post.

I regret my degree, only because I definitely could’ve got to where I am now without it. I’m stuck paying back my student loan (still £7k to go) and I graduated over a decade ago now.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the uni experience either, so I do sort of wish I hadn’t bothered. No employer has ever asked to see proof of my degree, or asked me anything about it (marketing).

Yes. I regret doing English literature. I could have read the books I read any time. It helped me in that it only took me a further four years to qualify as a lawyer because I already had a degree bit otherwise a complete waste of time

No, just coming from the voice of experience, as someone who did their PGCE, applied for a job and got it, completed their NQT year and paid the student loans off in full further into their career.

Blaming your apparent dissatisfaction with your life on 30 something weeks of education is far more odd!

I have four degrees, I don't regret any of them.
Undergrad - I did a combined honours undergrad with two placements studying abroad. No regrets at all. I travelled huge amounts of the world, set up a business that meant I could save a deposit for a house, made amazing friends and got a qualification on the way. It was really interesting and I did a broad range of things.
Law conversion Master's - I wanted to be a lawyer and wanted to convert. I had to do the master's conversion to get the funding for it. It was a means to an end in some respects but I hugely enjoyed my dissertation and scored really well. I performed as one of the best in my cohort which helped me to get a TC compared with my fairly average 2:1 for my undergrad.
PGCE - I didn't enjoy it, I didn't want to be a teacher but I was a secondary science PGCE so I got great funding (a lot more than actually being a teacher). It think it totalled equivalent to about a £60,000 salary - this meant I was able to get a mortgage and actually buy a house.
LPC LLM - I needed this to be a lawyer and was funded by my firm after I got a job offer. It was dull and tedious in the main - there were aspects I enjoyed and aspects that I didn't. But, I couldn't do my job without it - and I love my job.

Presumably, if you did a PGCE, you must have a degree before? What was it in? Do you regret it? You could perhaps build on this to aim for a new job?

@Ididnthityouharold

Went through a phase where I realised this wasn’t the right career for me (I was much older than you) so I began to seriously regret the years I’d spent qualifying for this career. But I’ve now reached a point where I no longer regret it. It actually helped me acquire transferable skills that then helped me change careers — I was able to use the skills from my degree in my new role.

You’re not too old to change careers, and the PGCE has helped you acquire skills that you can apply to career paths other than education. I’d invest in a good book that helps you do exercises to uncover your transferable skills. Once you recognise what you have to offer, you can look for jobs that ask for those skills. You’ll probably find something that pays better and offers better career progression opportunities. Plenty of people are doing it.

No.
I have a Sociology degree and a NVQ level
2 in Health and Social Care.
I am very proud of my qualifications.

I got my degree at 36 having previously completed an HND. I think my degree has helped me get a few jobs since then, but practically it is my HND that has been of most use to me in my work. I am proud that I managed to get the degree though.

Yeah I do. I studied BSc accounting & law straight out of school. Which is basically useless as it doesn't qualify you in either subject, you have to do further study to become an accountant or a lawyer. And I discovered soon after doing this degree that desk/office jobs are not for me.

I wish I could retrain in something that interests me, but you can't get funding for a second degree unless it's in very specific things like teaching.

Interesting you say this @Phos because I regret my degree - American Studies - because I did poorly in it because I found it more boring than expected. A lot of politics and stuff. I liked the literature stuff.

My other choice was Modern Foreign Languages where I would have done French and Spanish and then a third language each year.

The reason I regret mine is because I didn't enjoy first year very much (boyfriend stuff and also just not what I was expecting) and should have chosen a different uni. I was expecting pub evenings smoking and shooting the shit and living in a nasty flat - I just didn't gel with anyone and was lonely as hell. Second year was amazing as I studied in Canada and it was exactly how I'd pictured it.

Anyway.

I worked my way up to my current position from an entry level position so my degree hasn't helped. If I did it again I'd still do uni, just a different one and different course.