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?

The point is - you don’t move in the same circles as other people who value education. You fundamentally don’t get it, because you’re an outsider looking in. You and your parents never placed importance on education, but that doesn’t mean that society is wrong to value academics more than you.

People in their 20s now, definitely had parents who were supportive of education as a whole as that’s been my lived experience. It was normal at 16 to have parents who value your education, who help you with your homework, who help you choose a level options etc. You don’t seem to have experienced that, and that’s really sad. Parents taking pride of their children’s success and achievements wasn’t unusual even in working class schools. In working class areas, doing well at school was your ticket towards a better lifestyle. It’s likely that people you went to school with, did have parents who supported them with education but you just probably didn’t associate with them and ultimately you got caught up in being a teenage parent so probably don’t know them well enough to say that their parents didn’t go to university or didn’t help them with GCSEs.

It sounds like you had parents who weren't able to support your education very effectively. This seems to have resulted in limited educational achievement and having a baby at 16.

A lot of kids have parents who are incredibly supportive of their education and development, and who don't just see it as the teachers' job. Unfortunately, the children of those parents have significant advantages over the children who have parents like your own.

I understand why you might not want to think of yourself as having been disadvantaged in any way, but it's pretty clear from what you've said that you didn't have the best start in life for whatever reason. You can't change your past, but you can absolutely change the future for your own children. In order to do this, it would be helpful for you to try to understand the enormous difference that having engaged and educated parents can make.

Break the cycle for your own kids, and give them the advantages that you very clearly didn't have.

But your experience is different to that of many on this thread, which you refuse to acknowledge. Granted, I am not British, but 30 years ago, my teenage peers and I still discussed what we wanted to do and which University we wanted to get into. (And none were wealthy and Uni had to be paid for, which few parents could afford, so most people also worked part-time from 15+.)

Why are you obstinately refusing to comment on the many factual posts that explain why being the first in one's family to go to university is indeed an achievement?

But that's not what you have been saying. You said you didn't understand why people highlight that they're the first in their family to go to Uni, as if it conveys that they've had to overcome more than anyone else to get their degree. You've been provided with evidence that they do.

@Kyrgyzstan you claim you are planning to go to university in the near future yet you have refused to engage or listen to any of the data and empirical evidence provided on this thread. In fact you keep repeating the same obtuse responses, only factoring in your narrow lived experience. How do you think that is going to go at uni? I mean this kindly, instead of doubling down and refusing to hear other views, maybe take a break from responding and go do some reading on social mobility in the UK and academic attainment. Opening your mind will serve you well at uni.

🙄

Are you working in the law now @CloudSky ?

I sort of see your logic. It is more common to go to university now than it was in previous generations. There probably are a lot more people going nowadays who are the first in their family to go than previous generations.

The huge flaw in your logic is that you are only comparing the first generation uni students of today with first generation uni students of the “old days” and seeing it as nothing to be proud of nowadays. You might be right that there are less barriers for first generation uni students now that university is more accessible and encouraged for a wider group but you’re missing a really important bit.

But what you’re not doing, and should actually be doing, is comparing first generation university students of today with their fellow students who are not the first in their family to go to university. Being the first in your family to go to university is still a huge achievement when compared to students who have the support, help, guidance and encouragement from family who have already been to university and know what to do.

You accept some people have barriers like having parents who are addicts or abusive but you’re not accounting for the many other barriers that are far less dramatic. Parents who have never valued education or encouraged university, parents who need you to be working and contributing to the household financially, parents who haven’t got the space for you to study, parents who wouldn’t know where to start helping you with your revision or coursework even if they wanted to. You also aren’t acknowledging the many advantages that come with having parents and grandparents that have been to university before you. Parents who know the better universities, the better courses, how to write a personal statement, what to wear and say at interviews, what extra curricular activities you should be doing for a more successful application. And that’s just to get into university. You’ve then got to last the full three years and come out with a good degree.

You haven’t gone through it yourself. You keep comparing it to buying a car on an iPhone. And I don’t think you’re appreciating how complex it is and how important familial support, knowledge and encouragement still is today. And whilst you’re probably right that many more people are going to university as the first in their family, it is still a huge achievement they’re perfectly entitled to be proud of.

100% this!

On numbers alone, I'm sure the OP is right that there are lots of students who are the first in their families to go to university. It stands to reason that they must be, because so many more students are going into HE now. But she is wrong to think that those students aren't at a disadvantage in any way, or that their degrees don't represent a significant achievement.

It's also likely that first generation students will be disproportionately represented in certain types of institution, while the more prestigious unis will be dominated by a disproportionate number of students from backgrounds where at least one parent has studied at degree level. "First in family" students who attend those more prestigious institutions will likely realise that they are in a significant minority and feel that their degree therefore represents a significant achievement, whereas students who attend the local ex-poly alongside many others who come from similar family backgrounds might not see themselves as having had to overcome so many barriers.

You don’t think parents have responsibility for educating their children and it’s just up to teachers!? Dear god! How were your parents uni age the 80’s but ‘old af’ in the 00’s when you were doing your GCSE’s? GCSE’s have been around since 1986. Your time line isn’t adding up. My parents were born in the 40’s and 50’s and were both able to help me and my brother do my GCSE’s in 2001 and 2004. They weren’t ’old af’, they were in their 50’s/60’s. You have a really odd way of talking about older people.

Nope. As it happens I did use my degree to get on a grad scheme. A scheme that ironically I could have got onto sooner and without a degree had I taken a different path! So yeah, fairly useless really.

I’m now a chartered accountant. Now THAT was fucking hard work. My Degree was a piece of piss in comparison 😂

Aw diddums. A child from a deprived town, shit school, with non formally educated parents (oh, my mum had one O level of that counts??), who were both retired well before I even got to 16, who had no clue about the world of work and couldn’t provide me any real help with getting a job or higher education…. didn’t struggle with school or think twice about doing a degree in their spare time.

Guess you best pretend my story doesn’t exist 🤣

Everyone is different, being from an on paper “poor background” doesn’t mean you will face hurdles in getting a degree. The main advantage middle class folk have in CONTACTS! They have an advantage of getting into work, “who you know” etc. Degrees are there for the taking whether you like it or not.

@Kyrgyzstan I mean barely any of our parents generation went to university.

Rather depends how old you are. There are people here from twenties to seventies, at least. If you're at the lower end of that, the chances that your parents went to university are a lot higher than if you're at the upper end.

...and now it’s pretty much expected if you want a half way decent job

I think that that's less and less true. As the cost of uni goes up, more and more young people are thinking 'what will I get out of this really?'. Also, the expected career pattern has changed. Someone going into the workplace today can expect to have ten or eleven jobs over the course of their working life. For my generation, it was three or four. For my parents - probably one or two. You got a job with a company and you stuck with it. My son - early thirties - works on the principle that if you've been in the same job, unpromoted, for more than four years something's gone wrong.

What that means is that, in practice, experience is more highly-valued than qualifications. As an employer, I don't think I ever asked a candidate in their early twenties about their university career. And we were offering careers that would lead to six figure salaries by mid-thirties.

I mean if you want to be doctor or an architect or a teacher, you need to pass exams. But for a lot of jobs, showing you can do it is more important than a certificate saying you can do it.

So I think it's less expected now that if you want a half way decent job, you need to have gone to university. Depends on the job.

My step son was the first on his dad's side to go to uni. Neither of his parents went to uni as they were young when he was born.
Without my side of the family there would have been no-one to guide him through a lot of the stuff that comes so easily to families who have been to uni. He wouldn't have known how to write a personal statement, to try and pick up extra curriculars that look good on a personal statement, which unis are better respected etc etc. He has people who can help proof read etc and have an understanding of academic standards.
My husband had no idea that the third year of a degree is so crucial so it was me suggesting we increase financial contributions so he could work less.
These aren't things everyone knows, and people dont know that they need to so cant realistically try and find out.
So yes I think first generation to go to uni can be a big achievement because there are often invisible barriers

My dad was the first person in his entire family to go to uni, back in the 1950s.

From a working class steel worker family it was a very big deal.

The day I graduated, my parents and I had lunch in a cafe near Glasgow Uni and then took the train home to Fife.

The next day was a Saturday and I was told that we were going to the local working men's club (for miners and retired miners).

I was constantly greeted by men I didn't know giving us a thumbs up and saying things like "Number one, eh? Number one!"

My parents were in their 40s when they had me, for a woman that’s on the older side of things regarding child bearing. They were born in the 60s and had me in the 00s I did my GCSEs in the 10s. When they were in school I think GCSEs were called o levels and were optional with most people leaving school to go straight into work

My experience is within the Scottish system, but I can assure you that having parents who have been to uni or who can afford to pay for tutors makes a huge difference.

The middle class kids get much more help than the working class kids because they get a significant amount of help (sometimes tantamount to cheating*, I'm afraid) at home.

*Coursework disadvantages working class children, in my view, particularly when exam banding is adjusted each year.

You should read ‘Hope in the unseen’ by Ron Suskind to help you expand your thinking a little bit.
it’s a massive achievement for working class or low income kids to transcend generational poverty and social barriers.

I had a regular childhood I don’t think it’s my parents fault I had a baby at 16 that’s on me, at the time they were very upset about it. I don’t think it’s typical for parents to help their kids with their GCSEs as I said my kids are primary age and I’m one of the only parents that makes them do their homework and we are years away from GCSEs. Which by that time most people I speak to agree homework/studies is the child’s responsibility.

I read a recent statistic that a million children in this country don’t have a bed and sleep on the floor so I don’t think merely not having parents who went to uni is a big deal

Well, I guess you'll find out when you get there, OP.

Ithink anything that makes people feel a bit special is a good thing op. Very tough family down the road from us and they’ve moved their kids into a better school and one now is going to uni. The others are taking part in sports and quizzes and it’s a different family now. They post it all on dm and I make sure to tell them they’re doing fab because I knew them twenty years ago when all their aspirations were low. Their mum is now retraining to be in the health sector. I think it is something to be applauded - college isn’t easy

I don’t think it’s typical for parents to help their kids with their GCSEs as I said my kids are primary age and I’m one of the only parents that makes them do their homework and we are years away from GCSEs. Which by that time most people I speak to agree homework/studies is the child’s responsibility.

But it is typical behaviour in some groups which is the point we are making. Children who have parents who are actively involved in their education are at an advantage compared to children who have parents who take a more passive approach.

That doesn't automatically mean that that children in the second group are neglected. It just means the first group have a bigger advantage.

The fact that you tell your primary age children to do their homework has no relevance to whether people assist their teenagers with GCSEs!