to think my degree is as good as anyone elses?

[SecretSlattern]

I started off in 2004 doing a NVQ 3 in Early Years Care and Education, 3 months after having DD. I qualified 9 months later, with 2 level 3 qualifications and worked for a bit in day nurseries, pre-schools and after school clubs before studying a Foundation Degree in Early Years Childcare and Education.

At the start of the second year of my FD, I discovered I was pg with DS but continued on anyway and had him 2 weeks before the end of the course. I graduated from Uni in 2008, six weeks after having DS.

I finally went back to finish the last year of my BA (hons) in Early Childhood Studies. I now have 2 DCs, one of which is constantly in and out of hospital, and have now discovered I am pg with DC3. The timing is pretty shit, but there you go. DC3 is due in May, the same month that I am due to finish my degree (although will still have to write my dissertation, which I have done before so am confident I can do it again).

However, when telling a friend of mine what I was up to (hadn't spoken in a while), she sniffed, pulled a face and basically said it wouldn't matter if I didn't finish my degree because it isn't a proper degree anyway. "What can you do with a degree in kids?" was the question I was asked.

I actually intend to go on in the future and do a PGCE in primary, specialising in early years. AIBU to think that just because my degree is "in kids" it doesn't make it any less of a degree? I still go to uni, still have to do a mahoosive amount of work, same as any other undergrad.

But, Awassailinglookingforanswers, personally I think your degree is worth much more than that from someone who has simply "played the system". Both my parents did their degrees with the OU and I think it is probably the toughest way to get a degree. To be honest, it is the people like you, who actually want to learn who keep me motivated in my job.

you see - I've just proved my thickness...........I can't even cross out properly

I am astonished by some of the comments on this thread. I could not give a mark in the seventies unless the student showed evidence of reading beyond the reading list. I can understand that someone could pass English without reading the text but through reading and referencing theory about that text. But how can you 72% without evidence of reading beyond the course list?

ahh well you see I should have gone to Edinburgh University to do my mickey mouse degree (got an unconditional offer I'll have you know ) , but got married and up the duff 5000 miles away instead, so, having vowed I would get a degree later decided I'd better get my arse into gear and what better way to do it but on tax payers money when I'm still young enough to be able to (hopefully) do something with it

I don't know what you mean MillyR. All English undergraduates read - that's a given isn't it? I can't imagine that many don't read beyond the reading list. It's just that when it comes to phenomenally dull set texts - who needs them?

Slack is actually a real-life nickname, though in some areas of my life I most certainly am quite slack.

Sorry if I'm being overly defensive, and I'm sure your ex-poly comment was tongue in cheek, but I feel like I'm being attacked for working hard at university.

I probably could have done less work, but no way did I want to be put on the spot by my tutor and look like a twat because I'd not read the bloody book.

Also, there'll likely never be another time in my life when I have the luxury of being able to read so much, so I didn't want to waste the time. And I discovered so many excellent novels and plays during my degree which I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise, which I think has enormous value.

If memory serves, Quattro, you're a lawyer. Surely yo must have had some period in your life when you worked hard?

If not, I'll have to go back through those top-rate tax threads.

I presume the remark about 72% was aimed at me??

Yes, ALFA, please explain!

Gosh! All you clever ladies!

But who's showing off to who?

(relects. coughs)

Should that be 'whom'?

(retires to pedants corner, with much twirling of moustache, in search of lost apostrophe.)

well if you bothered to read my post properly you'll see that I said I didn't pick up a book in the 5 weeks before the exam before of major stuff going on at home. There was only one block I hadn't studied at all, prior to that (those 5 weeks should have been my revision time and last block time)

I had to answer 3 questions. Only one of those was on the last block.

Yes ex-poly remark was entirely (and unfortunately) tongue-in-cheek. Sorry about that.

Nothing wrong with your memory Did a law conversion after English degree. That was a complete and utter shock to the system. Like being dowsed in ice-cold water. For the first time in my life I had to learn and regurgitate masses and masses of facts - in what was hopefully a relevant way. In retrospect it was really very good for me, after all those years of self-indulgence doing an English degree. And rather unfortunately, I've had to work ridiculously hard ever since ...

not to mention the fact that if you read my posts you'll see that I'm not doing English

ALFA, maybe I am just too tired to understand what it is that posters are trying to say. I thought you were saying that you did not work hard for your degree so far, and were talking about not reading as evidence of that.

I apologise if I have misunderstood that.

I never suggested you were doing English!

I couldn't do an English degree either. I am hopeless at the English lit side of stuff.

As I said further up the thread, I'm now doing a PGCE which, while not academically challenging, is much much harder work in terms of juggling balls, jumping through hoops and other gymnastic metaphors.

Presumably you wouldn't be best pleased if someone said 'what, Quattro, you actually READ all those (erm) books about law? Any lawyer worth their salt would be able to breeze through their exams without doing that'.

For some people, learning and regurgitating facts is probably easier than forming arguments based around literature. Definitely not for me, but I don't think one can say something is objectively easier just because one finds it so.

A boy in my year 11 English class didn't know what a noun was and never read anything apart from car magazines. He's currently most of the way through a degree in medicine.

It matters when you're a new graduate like 3 of my children because if you've A levels, a good degree etc it's easier to jump through good employers' hoops and ultimately to earn more money. Your average oxford 2/1er is on the whole likely to earn more than the lesser degrees elsewhere etc which every body knows but once you get into your 40s as I am you see how other things have mattered too, a broad range of factors. However that does not remove the fact that for many jobs the better qualifications do help to ease the path. We all know the millionaire who left school at 15 but they are rarer than rich people who did well at university and beyond.

At the end of the day we can be judged in capitalist terms on what we earn - the market judges as I said above. (and of course how we treat others and factors like that but in terms of the worth of this capitalist society it's what you earn which tends to "prove" your worth - thus the very very clever poor child with no chances might well own the biggest company doing X in the UK through brains and graft but the trouble is most of those don't win through and if their schools are not even allowed to be so politically incorrect as to say an employer will be more likely to hire you as a graduate on £60k a year as one of my daughter's friends started on although it's rare if you went to X than if you go to Y then their chances are fewer)

I think I agree with Xenia's whole post.

Oo er.

I graduated from Oxford 15 years ago, and in my final year was invited to endless presentations and cocktail parties by firms who wanted to hire me and my friends. People like l'oreal, Unilever, power companies, law firms. For some I went just for the free dinner, and one or two I thought I might apply to. In the end I was offered lots of jobs before I'd even finished my degree, including a traineeship on about 30k from 2 big city law firms, either of which offered to sponsor me through law school for 2 years first, paying all the fees etc (I did not read law).

It took me a while to realise this sort of thing doesn't happen at every university. Of course it's obvious to me now that firms save time and money by focusing on groups of students who have already been 'selected'. So I tell my kids and nephews/nieces to do what they can to get to Oxbridge, as apart from the fact that it's great fun and a great education, it also gives you lots of choices that you would have to fight for elsewhere. It doesn't mean you're cleverer than other people, but it does mean that you don't need to prove anymore that you're not stupid.

I would like to give you a big virtual pat on the back

I finished my postgrad in personnel management when i was pregnant with DS. I sat my finals six weeks before he was born and finished my dissertation with him sitting on my knee and typing with one hand.

It was a huge acheivment for me personally, particularly with the demands of a newborn and i was more proud of this than graduating from my degree (which everyone made more of a fuss over tbh).

So well done you and don't worry about anyone else's opinion.

And good luck with the rest of your career.

I used to work in an organisation where a lot of people had PhDs, including some of my staff. They were jolly nice and v. good at their jobs - and AFAIK didn't mind reporting to a boss with a 2:1 BA from an ex-poly.

Postgraduate qualifications are important to work in some professions, this is where we come back around to: "a specific degree is good for specific a job" in which case, it doesn't massively matter what uni you go to.

There are other good jobs than lawyer and medic yaknow.......

Hmm, all of this about never picking up a book - I reckon I should get credit purely for picking the damn things up, never mind reading them! (She says as she lugs another 2kg illuminated manuscript across the reading room. Ouch!)