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.

OP - your degree is just as valid as a degree in medicine or engineering. A doctor for example could not come in and do your job with the degree of understanding that you do any more than you would know what you were doing as a GP.

My degree is in public health... and yes actually... I consider it just as valid as medicine. It's a degree which fits my work well and which gives me a huge level of understanding regarding health issues which affect the population. I wouldn't expect to be go in and know how to be a doctor or an engineer with it but conversely neither could a doctor or engineer just step in and do my job. They are all valid and useful jobs with degrees to match.... just as yours is.

OP - congratulations on your achievements so far, you have a degree in kids, therefore a degree in the future generation I think that's fanatastic

I am a teacher and I have to say you will come accross this type of attitude a lot if you intent to work with children, the only people who will truly appreciate what you do at work will be your colleagues and maybe some parents. People who dont work with children cant see past the fact that you apparently play all day, may work 9-3 and may have 6 weeks "off" in the summer.

My satisfaction comes from looking at an assembly full of children and knowing that the reason they can all read and write is because i have a degree in kids!

Ignore your friend, you have so far, and will in the future achieve so much to be proud of that it wont matter what so called freinds will say.

obviously I teach my class to spell better than that

ginger's right - I used to really sympathise with the assistants at ds's nursery when they occasionally complained that people always think all they do all day is play with babies. I couldn't work in a nursery, haven't got the patience or the inclination or the skills!

I've had similar comments from my (normally nie) Dh about my degree and constantly aimed comments about how he expects to beat me with his even though his is science so and therefore so much mroe worthy thanmine (in religions).

What he fails to 'get' is that I think I did amazingly: duirng my stuidies I ahd two boys dx'd with asd, and when I did the last weeks (so finals (I got an A) and disertation,I was either heavily pg orrecently delivered with ds4.

I ended up with a 2:1.

I don 't think my degree compares to a medical degree, because they are entirely different, but that isn't about me (there'sloads of PAMs on my MA course and I doinga s well as any of them) but I think I did incredibly well just to finish and I am proud of myself.

So to DH.

Anyone who gets a degree has done well, but someone with a degree in law, medicine, politics, etc, would be (perceived as being) more intelligent than someone who had a degree in say drama or childcare.

I think you're right DP that they would be perceived that way, but it's an incorrect perception as people take the degree that motivates them rather than the one they could do if they tried hard but don'treally fancy IYSWIM?

Not that is to denigrate the achievements of a medical degree or similar in any way, of course- but there are plenty of people out there getting firsts in other subjects who could have done it, had they chosen.

Not me- not medical anyway, my brain doesn't work that way. I could have studied Law though, I would have considered a conversion except for the ££££ cost attached (my assumption I could have completed it is based on the opinion of a former Barrister friend who now teaches Law at a very famous Uni, so not purely ego LOL ).

There's a lot of snobbery attahced to other aspects as well- access courses are assumed to produce less able students despite the fact that the Uni's I have spoken to tell me they have more firsts achieved by former Access students than A levels on a pro rata basis (one Access collegaue of mine went on to do medicine)... University attended is another area for this. I love it when I am told I attended Newport becuase it's all I was offered, as I can sow thwm offers from every place I applied including Bristol LOL.

It'simportant we have well qualified childcare pratitioners; my sis is combining her EY degree with a management job at a nursery and I admire her for it.

DP, you could argue that early years teachers/nursery workers are more flipping useful than lawyers and politicians, though... (no offence to MN lawyers and politicians but YKWIM). See previous comments about generations before us looking down on Eng Lit instead of Classics/Engineering v. physics. No doubt our children's generation will sneer at people who do instead of rigorous degrees like, ahem, media studies!

People know their limitations peachy, and will enter a profession they know they can cope with intellectually. I very much doubt a nursery managers career choice was a toss up between entering into politics or working in a nursery. That's not to say people with degrees in childcre are thick, of course not, but I don't think they're as intelligent as doctors.

A degree is a degree at the end of the day and alot of effort goes into it regardless of what it is in.

I'm envious of you OP, I really ought to do my ECS but I haven't quite got the drive lol, I'll stick with my OU Level 4 for now

edam;

the op thinks her degree is the same as any other degree. It isn't.

The main variation between degrees is not whar they involve per se but what employers think of them. A person with a degree in french from Oxford is likely to have more career options esp if getting a 1st or 2.1 tan someone doing a french and markerting course at a new university unless emmployers know that it is an amazing high quality course.

For the career you want, your degree is perfect and well done for completing it with kids.

nooka,

I see what you're saying. I didn't express myself very well. What I meant to get across was that OP sounded as if she'd chosen her degree for a specific reason (ie., it had the content she needed), and now she's using it to do something else (the PGCE). I know you can do a PGCE after lots of degrees, but she clearly feels that this is a good pathway in, and I'd tend to understand that. Therefore, the degree has done what she needed; it's as good an option as anyone else's.

The example I gave was meant to be something that was posing as a specialist degree, but was actually watered down. I was thinking of it because there are quite a lot of courses that pretend you're going to learn a language that'll be helpful in business, but actually don't get you far enough on for it to be useful. For example, someone I know did Management and German, and then was pretty upset that EON told her in interview that they'd prefer to take someone who had the A Level as apparently her language skills weren't up to that level. But I digress ..

The point is, until you look closely at the course, you can't really tell much about the content, so it's rude of the OP's 'friend' to judge it on the basis of the title.

Don't knock media studies degrees without doing your research- higher than average employment outcomes

LeQueen I meant a degree is still something to be proud of, no need for the attitude.

If you want to work with children a degree in early childhood studies is obviously extremely useful. Even if you decide on a complete career change, you are still a graduate and have proven that you can study at a high academic level for a sustained period of time.

Ignore your friend.

OPs degree is relevant to her chosen profession, she has also studied for it whilst having children.
Well deserving of respect imo.

It's not like she just decided to go to Uni/ex-poly/FE college on a whim when she 18 because she didn't know what she wanted to do and wanted a bit of student life.

May not be PPE from Oxbridge, but no less deserving of respect.

Funnily enough, some of the brightest, highest earning and most successful people I know scarped 2:2s after three years of drunken debauchery

Have we met then, Mrs M?

ok haven't read the whole thread but: (1) OP, congrats on all your hard work, you are being super if youu manage to do independent logical thought while in the early stages of pregnancy while having 2 small kids, one of whom is in nand out of hospital. Good on you (and have a holiday when you finish your degree!)

(2) Not all degrees are equal at all, but that's possibly not what you meant when you said "my degree is as good as anyone else's". If your optimality criterion is hard work, independent, evidence-based and rigourous thought - frankly, to get most things done properly and on time, I'd rather work with someone with a first in childhood studies from Provincial Redbrick Uni than someone with a third in medicine from St Pretentious College Oxbridge. And I say that as a senior member of St Pretentious College, and a university lecturer at Oxbridge.

(3) Yes the kids at Russell Group universities are probably more academically enfranchised and capable. Stratification has its uses. But my post in AIBU about smoking yesterday demonstrates my point that stellar academic achievement doesn't make people behave with reason, restraint, efficient measure and integrity.

My friend who read English at a RG Uni had to submit essays for consideration: the fact he had an Access pathway (so no 3 good A's) etc was irlevant as it as based on this and interview- the competition was huge, IIRC over a 1000 applicantsfor the course that year.

DP many people limit themselves, others have vocations- I chose Newport over Bristol (RG Uni) becuase it offered the closest match to what Ia ctually needed for the particular, somewhat vocational pathway I wished to take. I am sure I am not alone in that.

And yes OP you did it with babies- that makes it massively harder than for the 18 yr old brigade. Well done.

The other thing of course- the fact that you chose a former Poly (or even HE college) for your first degree can matter less and lessa as you step forwards: my MA is at the same Uni (only 2 run it, and this one is 5 minutes walk frommy front door, i'd be a fool to choose toehrwise) but if I sihed to take it further afterwards that would mean shifting to a RG Uni. Degrees are only foundations if you choose: what you study / where can be refined later on PHd (unlikely for me becuase of finances but theoretically possible) from cardiff is worth a first from pretty much anywhere IMO.