To not understand people who talk about being the first in their family to go to uni like it’s a badge of honour?

[Kyrgyzstan]

Sorry if this sounds dismissive of their achievements but isn’t it less of a rags to riches tale of personal achievement and more of a generational difference? I mean barely any of our parents generation went to university and now it’s pretty much expected if you want a half way decent job.

Obviously if you were raised by heroin addicts and managed to still get good grades and go off to uni that’s different but the children of ordinary parents who just didn’t go to university talking about it like a huge achievement sounds a little strange to me?

Gosh OP, are you ignorant on other topics too, or just this one?

Grade inflation is so rampant and the newer universités so médiocre, it's not the achievement it once was. Most children, however non academic can find a place somewhere.

And that is a very bad thing. They leave burdened with débt arméd with a Desmond from the University of Middle Wallop to work in call centres or supermarkets, when what the country desperately needs is a huge cohort of well trained trades people.

Getting rid of the polytechnics and the mass commercialisation and dumpings down of learning has had terrible consequences.

Also despite your snarky thread YOUR accomplishments against the barrier of being a young mum are something you are, and should be, proud of. Others are proud of the barriers they have overcome.

Your original premise is wrong but it doesn't mean you can't learn from Thai thread. And it doesn't mean people should be unkind to you. I'm a big supporter of education and I wish the means to attend university of you wished had been available when you were 18 without any detriment to you (worth pointing out I know teen mums who went to university because their family always went to univeryso they had parental childcare and financial support so actually your parents not going to university probably did throw up an invisible barrier for you)

I am not mocking anyone I’m merely pointing out not many people went to uni back in the day and now lots do. Someone mentioned people have been going to uni for hundreds of years, yes like 1% of the population. That’s like saying people have been having lavish banquets for hundreds of years when only a small number did

I’m guessing it’s one of many. People like this seem to actively enjoy being loud and wrong about a diverse range of subjects.

It is mocking people to say that being proud of their achievement (being the first in their family to go to university) is comparable to what you clearly consider to be non-achievements such as 'having an iPhone in 2011'. Do you have no self-awareness?

Dumbing down! And apologies also for the accents.

Its a big achievement and a celeb of their families educational aspiration.

I agree OP, majority went to university from my not so great state school in a deprived area. They did degree’s at the old polytechnics which really was not worth anything, my sister included. It was easy to go to university back in the 80’s and 90’s my sister got a full grant, mine was less as I went a few years later, but it was the thing to do at the time even though all the parents were manual factory workers. I managed to get into a red brick university that was excellent at career fairs and recruitment so walked out with a few graduate offers. But agree, I don’t see it exceptional as that’s what everyone around me did at the time!

That was just an example to show things are different to what they once were, as I said in the first in my family to go to college and I didn’t think about it like that till I started this thread. I do t consider that on its own a huge accomplishment because times have changed and not many people went to college let alone uni in my parents day

I think it’s a generational thing and OP is perhaps slightly young to fully get it? (altho I’m only early 30s..!).

It’s definitely true now that loads of people go to uni and it’s really accessible, so going to uni isn’t a particularly big deal on its own. I actually think uni is a waste of time for a lot of people but that’s another thread 😅

But “back in the day” ie. my parents and grandparents generation, fewer people went to uni and so a lot of importance was placed on a degree. I think a lot of that generation still carry it with them.

So yeah it is a big deal for a lot of people to be the first one in their family to go to uni and it shouldn’t be minimised if it’s important to them.

Well if it's never happened before generationally then it's seen as more of an achievement because you've probably had to work a bit harder to move away from the norm that you grew up with.

'My parents and grandparents are Oxbridge professors, and I went to Uni' Sounds pretty inevitable and unsurprising.

'My parents and grandparents never held down steady jobs and left school at 12, and I went to Uni' Sounds a lot more impressive and noteworthy.

Perhaps you'll understand why people feel it is an achievement when (if) you manage to complete a degree yourself.

OP I hope you do get to go to university. It sounds like you too will be the first in your family and you will I imagine find out that it is a big deal. Getting through the structural barriers will be tricky, particularly with a young family, but the evidence shows it makes a difference for salary and your family’s attainment over time.

Do you know the age of everyone who makes this statement of being the first in the family? You seem to assume they’re all your age. But even now 50% of people don’t go to uni.
For many it’s a huge achievement. What a shame you can’t see or understand that.

It’s a badge of honour and it shows that someone has overcome barriers to get there.

It was in our family. My grandparents were miners, a stay at home mother and a nurse (when you trained vocationally). My mum worked part time in a shop and my dad worked at a power station, no schooling beyond 15. My brother went to uni and got a first class honours and a PhD… my Dad was bloody proud of that. His son was the first in our family to go to uni and become a bloody Dr into the bargain. I got a degree but with everything else it was ‘meh we saw that two years ago with your brother!’

This.
Make the journey first.

It’s not a personal attack to say I bet you won’t. It is recognition that there are enormous barriers to you doing so, especially in later life.

Are you just intentionally goading here?

Are you actually British? Cause surely you would be aware that it’s not normal to have had kids at 16. Having sex and getting pregnant at 15/16 is not an achievement, getting a degree is.

If this post is true, you don’t really seem like you’re aware of conventions in society. Maybe you’re just trying to bring educated people down because you’re embarrassed at your own life choices and are trying to make yourself feel better.

It’s quite clear, that you have probably had an unusual path in life, so forgive me but your opinion on education isn’t valid.

If someone makes it to uni after being raised by heroin addicts it’s a fecking miracle - not an achievement

You haven't responded to my post that explained that "back in the day" uni access was limited due to only offering academic subjects. The post 18 education was an array of offerings that would now have degree status and inflate the percentage rate that attend uni. It is still hard to get A*s As at A levels in subjects that are academic, even if you are middle class as at the end of the day, you are going to have to be the one to sit in the exam hall and answer the maths paper or History paper to achieve a high grade, it is down to your level of intelligence and memory. Of course, that is extra hard when the tacit knowledge of getting into uni doesn't exist in a family.

I left school in 1984 and went on to college. Almost all of us from my very mediocre school went on to college or stayed on for sixth form. That might not have been true for all communities but it was true of the working class community I was in. I don't think the experience of your parents was any more valid than mine and its not true to say that hardly anyone went to college then.

It's a massive deal. It's easy if your school or parents encouraged you. Or knew what it was like, what to study, how to apply. How to hold hard the risk of going or being safe and getting a job, any job. How to convince your peers, siblings, parents you are doing the right thing.

So to not see that, or assume the only reason it's a challenge is due to having parents addicted to heroin- presumably then you might be familiar with the care system- seems short sighted to me, and unpleasant.

Do you understand that even if more people are going to university in general than 'back in the day', this still does not negate the fact that there are still people who are the first in their family going to university, and that this is an achievement for them, particularly if they have faced disadvantages (not necessarily heroin addicted parents/abuse/neglect)?

Also, it is a legal requirement to be in education or an apprenticeship now (we are around the same age) so I don't actually think that you being the first in your family to go to college is comparable to a person being first in their family to going to university.