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?

It’s not an achievement as such, but a well established marker of social mobility. Graduates earn more not just over their lifetimes, but their children do too. University degrees create generational wealth! That is important.

Presumably the issue OP is just that you didn’t know this, not that everyone else is daft 😂

It's an achievement because your parents/grandparents/aunts/siblings weren't academic and either weren't capable or didn't choose to study. It means you've worked hard, got good grades and will hopefully have a good job at the end of it. I haven't been to uni - my parents didn't go. I was capable but unfortunately a lot happened and I had to drop out of school early. Both my parents are now dead & I know if they were here they would be immensely proud of me if I made it to uni. Still in my 30s they would be proud. They weren't drug addicts but my dad died when I was 5 & we ended up in a domestic violence home so yes, for SOME people getting to uni is a huge achievement. I will be so proud of my own DD if she goes or if she decides not to then I'll be proud of her too. But when you've come from nothing its probably just a reflection that actually, despite all the odds stacked against you, you have done a good job with your own kids & they will have a better life than you. Going to uni when nobody else in your family has if you're from a nice middle class family who have done well for themselves anyway is obviously different.

I was ready to agree with you and then I realised your age and my age.

Im mid 50s (dcs about your age). It was normal for people my generation to go to Uni. Maybe not in your family but around me? Yep. The norm.
Some went straight after A levels. Some, like dh, went to Poly (which was converted into a Uni a couple of years after). Some did it as Open University/night classes (many I know off did it. But then, I’m an engineer so the area might have skewed things.)

My parents generation? No it wasn’t. But they are boomers.

Your generation? Yes part of the course.
At least atm. I’m not sure it will carry on if costs keep rising and wages afterwards are low (variable depending on course etc etc)

One factor not covered in this thread is the number of careers that now require a university qualification. Until the 1980s Nursing was a Diploma level qualification.As soon as Degree qualifications were introduced the proportion of females being educated to degree level increased greatly almost overnight. Also teaching was Diploma until 1970s/80s so again the numbers increased because BEd degrees began to be offered. In more recent years careers such as paramedic and the police service have degree entry . Apart from paramedics who I think were 'invented ' in the 1980s, all those jobs existed but many doing them did not 'go to university'. If yhose roles were excluded,it would be interesting to see how high a percentage of today's university students study the subjects traditionally offered only at university.

Of course a lot of it is a matter of opportunity. It was far easier for me to get to University than any previous generation of my family. My great grandparents were mostly illiterate, my grandparents went to school til they were about 12, my parents til 16 and my siblings and I went to University. I don't think there is anything superior about me. Had I been born at the same time and in the same circumstances as my great grandmother's I expect that I too would have been illiterate and working in a cotton mill when I was still a child. Had they been born when and where I was maybe they would have gine to University too. I doubt they couldn't read because they were incapable learning, they just never had the chance. I had far more opportunities and my parents encouraged me to take them.
That said, I do think it was harder for me than for students from more privileged backgrounds. When I went to medical school in the early 80s the student body was still predominantly white, middle class and male. Most of my friends had University educated, professional parents and many had at least one parent who was a doctor. As a working class woman educated at a non selective state school and with no connection to the profession whatsoever I was definitely in the minority. I was very poorly prepared for interviews. My parents were clueless and so were most of my teachers and I had nobody to ask. I was really humiliated at a couple of interviews. And when I did get my chance I experienced misogyny and class prejudice throughout my career. I think I did overcome more challenges than my male, privately educated 3rd or 4th generation medic colleagues. I'm unapologetically proud of that.

I have to agree with your sentiment. I was the first in my family to go to university (I’m now early 30s) and I certainly didn’t feel any extra pride in it whatsoever, nor did any of my family make it feel like a big deal? That said they were all high achievers in other fields; author and engineering through apprenticeship routes. If anything they thought it was a waste of time! Degrees mean nothing these days, I say that holding a first.

You’re mixing things.

You can be abused and/or neglected. That’s one type of hardship. And yes it can happen in very ‘good’, well educated family. I’m a good example. That didnt stop me from going to Uni though. The hurt and the way it affected me is very dufferent.

Parents (and grandparents parents etc…) who never went to Uni is another set of issues altogether. Because, they will be people, who even thought they want to help, support you etc…, can’t.
They can’t because they can’t help with homework.
They can’t because they dint the system (like the clever child in dc class who wanted to be a pilot. And parents who merely approved GCSE that weren’t focused on science But had music and cooking + sciences as options rather than physics, biology and chemistry)
They can’t because they see Uni as unachievable. Etc etc….
They can’t because reading might not their forte, they’ve been to a library etc….

That’s why social class is one if the best predictor of how well children do at school……

So yes, it will be a real achievement for those people to be the first to go to Uni.

@Kyrgyzstan I'm confused.

I went to Uni in the 90's, I was the first person from my very working class family to go to University. I had no academic, practical or financial support from my family and hadn't even visited a Uni before I turned up in freshers week with no clue what was going on. I manged to get a degree and a 25 year teaching career and am also the first person in my family to have a career rather than just jobs or being out of work. I own my own home, again first in my family to do this and will now be able to prepare and fund my own children through Uni.

Am I allowed to be around of my achievements or not? Or did too many people of my generation go for it to be an achievement?

I would've thought if you get a degree after having children so young that would also be quite an achievement. Any situation where someone has overcome a barrier is an achievement....coming from a disadvantaged home and managing to get a degree, gaining academic qualifications in spite of a teen pregnancy, running a marathon, completing couch to 5K, losing half a stone.....whatever the achievement why shouldn't people be proud and big themselves up.

So you had parents who DID get an education. (Apprenticeship is still training!! And you do get a degree at the end of it)

You weren’t the child of parents who barely scrapped their GCSE and went on to work in low skilled jobs forvtye rest of their life.

Cant you see the huge difference?

@WonderingWanda can I say WELL DONE!!

And yes be proud of yourself.
Not the least for breaking the mould of what one’s life should look like.

You are hanging out with odd people, OP.

Your commentary on what people want to celebrate and feel proud of isn’t needed, OP.

Exactly.

op isn’t recognising her own achievements

I saw a TikTok from a lovely young woman a few weeks ago. Her video was basically:

I grew up in a single parent council house, went to a sink school, worked from 14 and got into Oxford! And this is how I did it (goes on to list loads of poverty busting hard work) you can do it to!

and all I felt like saying was you’re amazing but at 23 you are going to be already far more exhausted than Penelope from chelt ladies college whose parents paid for everything. And that exhaustion will continue your whole life. You were amazing, but you it wasn’t fair.

As I’ve said if someone was abused, had addict/alcoholic parents, was neglected etc then getting a degree is an exceptional achievement. I didn’t experience any of those things personally.

Am I such a heartless empathy deficient beast to point out when only a small percentage of our parents went to uni and nowadays it’s a lot more common and indeed needed for way more jobs than it used to be that it’s not that shockingly amazing to get a degree. I mean obviously it’s still an achievement but no more of an achievement than if you did have a parent that went to university?

YABU and you sound about 12, as well as jealous and rather spiteful. HTH.

Its so special to the people involved - don’t dampen yhe achievement

That’s a modern degree apprenticeship. Back in the day apprenticeships didn’t have degrees at the end of them. They were just vocational training

mmhmm don’t act like “Do you have a job of any description?” Wasn’t you fishing for some ad hominems

Is the reason you didn't go to university actyyour complete lack of reading comprehension?

But whether or not you think it’s a worthy thing, do you accept “first in family” is a formal, common indicator of social mobility and future earning potential, widely used by the university sector, regulator and government?!?

well I’ll address your point but I think it backs up my own if someone’s mother was a nurse and didn’t have to go to uni to become one and her child becomes a nurse but does have to go to uni then that is just times changing. The child wasn’t at a huge disadvantage because they didn’t have parents who went to uni it just wasn’t necessary back then!

As others have said, having no one with experience of university to guide you and support you means you’re at a disadvantage.

keep arguing all you want. The real world continues to measure first in family and celebrate the social mobility it brings

Nope. It was me seeking to establish exactly what I said. I’ll copy/paste as you appear to have missed it: you haven’t been to uni and don’t have a good job, so have little in the way of academic or professional achievements. Perhaps acknowledge that you’re not in a position to sneer at other people for being proud of their own.

Nothing to do with ‘benefit scroungers’. Everything to do with your own personal lack of achievement, by your own stated metrics.

What have I not comprehended? You said only seeing the barriers you’ve experienced is a common reason for lack of empathy and I pointed out I’ve mentioned a hundred times on this thread that having abusive/drug addict parents is a massive barrier despite not experiencing that myself.

Just because we disagree on not having parents who went to uni being a big disadvantage when the majority of people don’t have parents who went to uni doesn’t mean you get to imply I’m some heartless beast