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.

Thanks to everyone else for your responses. I am proud of my achievements and I think I am setting a good example to my DCs too, so all in all its a win win situation. Lowenergy, well done! It's tough going isn't it? I start EYPS in January to run alongside my degree

no wondering wondering, not you

what a load of old tosh your friend and some people on this thread speak

i'd never be able to do a degree in ecs so well done and especially well done given all the inbetweens from start to end

competitive degreeing....it's all relative and as long as the degree is matched to the person and their relative skills and aptitude why does it matter?

entry requirements are beside the point.. as being able to perform like a trained monkey in exams doesn't always sit well with a degree that has a practical element. Also not everyone had the sort of foundation education or hothousing necessary to gain the skills required to attend a RG university...even if they had wanted to and if the course they desired was offered there

well done op but let your "friend" know how she made you feel

I guess there is no practical element to Engineering or Medicine

Congratulations on getting your degree.

However, yabu.

I would be more impressed with RockinSocks degree than yours.

But I can be a snob sometimes.

Your friend is ludicrous. My degree is in a very narrow field of chemistry which is useless for most things but very useful if you want to work in that area. Presumably a 'degree in kids' is no different and argueably more useful than well regarded degrees such as philosophy, history etc.

I totally disagree that all degrees are equal in the amount of work that goes in to them. I had 15-18 hours of labs a week plus lectures/tutorials etc. It was usually 30ish hours per week alltogether. DH on the other hand had about 6 hours a week of lectures and basically spent 3 years playing snooker.

A Chemistry degree is useful for a wide range of careers - obviously anything mildly related to chemistry and chemicals, but also anything that considers any decent degree. A degree in a Science demonstrates that you have a lot of transferrable skills that employers value.

Let's say you were interested in a job in marketing or advertising, areas that do not specify a particular degree, you are far more likely to secure a job with a Chemistry background vs ECS.

I do think that there are degrees of degrees iyswim. I have a 2:1 in Marketing and I can categorically say I'd never be able to even pass one in Chemistry or Maths.

AMerryScot - not sure I agree with you there as a)marketing or advertising are not, in my books, the ultimate job and b) my siser, who has a degree in ECS is now a lawyer so quite clearly the top law school in the UK didn't dismiss her degree in ECS as you are doing.

Your degree is totally pertinent to your career choice so your friend is wrong.

However, there are degrees that demand significantly intense and demanding workload e.g medicine, more so than many degrees.

But I am of the prehistoric era where A grades at A level were rare beasts and had a father whose expectations were red-brick and would countenance nothing with the word 'studies' in it, so by comparison I'm almost enlightened

congrats on your pg, and your 'friend' is talking utter crap, you are doing a degree that will get you into employment, it's a worthwhile degree unlike some others I've seen. Well done on all the hard work you have achieved so far. Wish I had your stamina!!!!

But Law is an undergraduate degree in this country, display.

she didn't do a degree in law, she already had a degree in ECS and then went on to do the GDL for which you need a UK degree to meet the entry criteria

starting and completeing a degree in adulthood can often show more transferable skills to an employer than completing a choice that might or might not have been appropriate to you as a teenager
ime

Engineering is for people who can't make the grade as physicists or mathmo's

The entry requirements for individual degrees often isn't linked to the hardness of a degree. Ofen it is because of popularity. The more popular the course, the higher the entry requirements are - because they can pick and chose that way.

Just because you need 3 As or AAB or whatever to get onto a law degree does not mean it is more diffcult than another degree. It is simply a more popular course.

Some degrees do require more committment and more effort than others - but they are not always the ones the university snobs think they are.

TBH your friend, OPm is a rude person who you need to ignore. You have worked hard for your qualification and she should be proud of her friend in doing well. She shouldn't be pulling you done.

hmmm...difficult one.
the best thing about your degree that it is very useful and you could walk into a job tomorrow. it is not a subject i would have ever wanted to study personally (nor would my parents have wanted me to do so) but if you are interested in that kind of thing then fair play to you.
there are more difficult degrees, you must know that. but why does that matter anyway?

at least you are doing a degree that is useful unlike some people I was at uni with who did utterly useless degrees where they were unlikely to find a job at the end of it (or that was probably their point, just to muck around for 4 years!!).

BBB or DDM

Some degrees at some institutions are without question more challenging than others in terms of time and academic abilities required, I'm thinking of the usual suspects - law and medicine as well as others. The workloads at Oxbridge are definitely higher than at other institutions, even ones which are still very good.

But this is irrelevant, really. Your degree does take work, you're obviously committed and you have a plan for when you finish. So it does matter whether or not you finish. Your friend was very rude.

I do think there are mickey mouse degrees; I don't think ECS is one of them.

I do think that childcare in Britain would be of a higher quality if some nursery staff had degrees as they do in some Scandinavian countries. Although I don't think a degree should be essential for all childcare workers, as some are skilled in other ways.

I had finished a degree in Biological Science in May (dd was born in august- oops! ) I get the same reactions SS, so YANBU! I know what it feels like. Regardless of subject area many same skills are either used or aquired anyway. Presenting, researching, deadline meeting, group work, time constrained assignments etc etc.
Has she actually done a degree? I find most people that say things like that, or, "qualifications dont get you nowhere", or "but what about commen sense?" (because clearly you can get a degree with none ) have actually not done one!!

Why worry about what your friend thinks? Your degree is appropriate to you and relevant to your career choice.

I have a PhD in Linguistics and a postgraduate Diploma in Translation (from a foreign uni, not sure what it would correspond to in the uk). Totally appropriate for me and my career choice, but would mean little in the context of childcare or engineering or indeed most other fields. I wouldn't know where to start with what you are doing.

Let's just remember that the VAST majority of people with law degrees end up as conveyancers in provincial practices. And that what lawyers basically do is look things up in books and apply rules. Hardly rocket science

It's nonsense. Even employers, except those needing people with very specific vocational degrees (such as medicine) care little about subjects. People are mistaken about the 'value' and 'usefulness' of degree subjects: their use is in teaching people how to think, how to work, and how to apply knowledge to problem solving. A degree in Hotel Management from Poppleton Poly can do this just as well as PPE from Oxford. Whether they do is another matter, but the subject, in and of itself, is an irrelevance. And all the nonsense about how many hours are required is also rubbish. Hours spent texting in front of a lecturer or pushing buttons in a lab mean nothing; what matters is whether you spend the hours you need to reading, thinking, learning, observing and writing up. Whatever subject you do, and however many contact hours you have.

I'd say a far better indicator of graduate ability is the class of degree you receive.

I think the problem is that "early years| care is not seen as important.

It is predominantly a female profession (A bit like nursing)

When I did my degree we did biochemistry lectures with the biologists and chemists,psychology with the psychologists,sociology with the sociologists,and pharmacy with the pharmacologists.Additionally we did clinical placements.

I don't know enough about the EYC to know if they are mixed in such things with their ug peers (I am sure they must do psychology Piaget and all that),but you can bet anything they also have to undertake practical placements as well as all the theoretical stuff,which to my mind makes the course more full on than someone undertaking a more traditional degree.

I am not saying that I could do medicine,I couldn't.I think med training is in a whole other class of its own,but I do think the EYcourse must be very demanding in its own right.

from 0-5 is a critical period in any child's life,yet the people who care for this agegroup are often underpaid and undervalued,(just ask any SAHM!)

I think it sounds likea very valuable and important degree.