Going back to university... maybe

[Martin]

I've been contemplating going back to university...

After I finished first year of the course (and passing by some luck) a number of push and pull factors led me to decide uni wasnt for me, and with that I left.. technically on a year out at first but then I received a letter through 6 months ago saying they have now considered me to have left since it has been over a year and a half...

It has only hit me in recent weeks, I'm starting to doubt in my own head whether it was the right decision.

Those that I knew on the course are now finishing third year, and either finding jobs or looking at graduate schemes. Part of me thinks, if I stuck it out, I could have been doing the same.

I had planned on going back last year, but then a supervisory/management job came up in my own work which then distracted me from the thought of returning. I applied for the job, and was successful. I've found the past year challenging in that I've learned there is no amount of theory in the world can prepare you for managing people. When I look at the situations I have found myself in, I think back to certain 'peers' on my course, that while being highly educated - are highly unemployable and just would not have the common sense to get by in my job. Thats not intended to tar everyone with the same brush, but it did take me by surprise how many, to quote Ricky Gervais, 'c*nts' are at uni. Maybe now if I did go back, I would know what I'm letting myself in for, that it isn't always a utopia of like-minded people.

Since leaving, I was always determined to buck the trend and show that you can do better with experience from the university of life rather than aimlessly drifting into something like social sciences. Part of me is now thinking, if you can't beat them - join them.

So really I don't know what to do. I'd rather make a decision soon on it rather than pondering over it until this time next year. Just by typing this out has helped clear my head a little!

If anyone is willing to share any words of wisdom I'm all ears!

[Mr Q]

Well, I think it depends on a few different factors. Are you happy doing what you're doing at the moment? Are you currently working in a field in which you'd be happy to keep working, or do you see it as something more short term? If it's the latter, then you need to consider what you're alternatives are, and whether a university degree is something that you think is necessary to pursue those. If on the other hand you're entirely happy with where you are now, and aren't necessarily looking to change your career path, then you might not find going back to uni to be a particularly rewarding experience.

More generally than that, I would urge you to consider why you didn't enjoy uni the first time around. Was it because you weren't ready for it, or you weren't enjoying what you were studying, or was it something else? Uni isn't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are many areas where having experience is far more important than having a degree, and even now I tend to think many employers recognise that (at least to some extent). Yet equally there are plenty of areas where a university education is essential (or close enough to it), and if those are the sorts of fields you would like to work one day, then resuming your studies has to be seriously considered.

It really is a question of priorities: what do you want from life? Going back to uni might not be an easy choice - it will certainly require sacrifices, particularly in terms of reduced capacity to earn income for the duration of your studies. Yet it might not be the right choice either. It's good to ask for advice, but at the end of the day it will all come back to the one question - what do you want to do?

[Netizen]

Sounds to me like you've already convinced yourself you've made the right decision and you're on the right path - and bloody well good for you! It's so much better to be in a position where you have even a bit of certainty about the future, something that so many graduates find themselves without.

I too left uni after a year, due to not making any friends, hating the accommodation and people and becoming depressed. Then I was unemployed for an entire year, somehow finding the confidence to go back and try again. Complete success this time around as I've just finished and expecting to get a 2:1, which I put down to having a better mix of people on the course (less morons) and renting my own place. I think the people you end up spending time around have the largest effect on your uni experience.

Of course now I'm one of those grads who doesn't really know how employable I am, feeling slightly disillusioned about the promise of magically getting paid more than all the lesser people without degrees :roll:

Having said that, I'm glad I didn't miss out on the experience, and more importantly the opportunity to have an extremely easy few years of living.

[Gavin Scott]

I went through a similar quandry, Martin. The circumstances were different but the similarities are stark.

Colleagues in my acting course went on to some great things - Kevin McKidd is now a Holywood golden boy, having cut his teeth on epics such as "Rome" and the movie "Trainspotting". Craig Hill got his own comedy vehicle on the BBC, and I'm constantly seeing other familiar faces popping up on telly showing me that the AA can fix 8 out of 10 breakdowns by the roadside, or that Fenton's Solicitors could get me 100% of an injury claim.

Its a difficult pill to swallow sometimes, being reminded constantly what could have been.

That said, I've mentioned 4 out of 22 on my course, the rest having not made quite such a success of their University time. I went off and pursued things other than acting. I have years of business experience, and a wealth of man-management skills I couldn't possibly have learned anywhere other than being on-the-job. That experience and knowledge has opened all kinds of doors to me, and earned me a certain amount of "respect" in the industry I went into. That takes the edge off feeling that you might have "missed the boat" elsewhere - take it from me.

I can only advise in rather broad brush strokes here.

The fact is that you will carry the "regret" you feel for quite some years to come. I'm not sure that it ever goes away, but it does become easier to dismiss - so you won't be endlessly wallowing in it.

If you think you can't do what you want in life without this degree then consider going back. If you can make yourself comfortable using the experience you have to develop a career then stick with what you've been doing.

Its the old "do you live to work or work to live?" question - and that's a conclusion you have to reach on your own.

And nearly 20 years after I first went to drama school - I haven't concluded the answer myself yet!

Good luck, whatever you decide.

[Nini]

Colleagues in my acting course went on to some great things - Its a difficult pill to swallow sometimes, being reminded constantly what could have been.

Ah, but it's good you didn't do it though, where would we have to run off to and talk about supermarkets?

[itsrobert]

My advice, based on a certain amount of experience, would be to follow your gut instinct. Believe me, it is impossible to do something successfully if your heart is not in it. You can't force yourself to get through it - your true feelings will always win.

I went to Uni straight from my A-Levels. I can tell you now that I just wasn't prepared. I apportion a lot of the blame on my Sixth Form for that. Without wanting to be modest, I was one of the more dedicated students during my A-Levels. While others would be sitting around doing nothing, I'd be pro-actively studying in the library. Even that wasn't preparation enough for Uni. They spoon-fed us far too much and Uni hit me like a train.

On top of the lack of preparation, the course I was on was full of idiots and I wasn't very successful at making friends. The tutors were all stuffy and not in the least approachable. In addition, I couldn't drive at that point and had a long and tedious journey on public transport every day. I stuck it out for 5 months and decided enough was enough.

I then made a hasty decision to go to a different Uni and try a teaching course. I managed to get into Year 2 on that course. I found the academic stuff enjoyable and my marks were good, but I was a complete wreck on teaching practice. I didn't have confidence in myself and after a couple of bad experiences with teachers (I managed to find two separate teachers who both stabbed me in the back - being a student teacher is pretty much as low as it gets in a school and you're treated as such) I decided I did not want to spend the next 40 years in the classroom. Apart from anything else, I couldn't tolerate the government's interference in education and all their phoney 'policies'.

I really did think that was it: no prospects. However, I took some time out to reflect upon my situation and realised that the only bright spot during the teaching course was the one module of History I had chosen to take. I knew academics was still the way to go for me so I thought 'third time lucky'. And I was right. I re-started Year 2 studying History and I'm now about to go into the final year and I'm beginning on my dissertation. The tutors are much friendlier, the students are normal (I can't think of one idiot, to be honest) and I'm the happiest I've been in years.

So, I'd say follow your heart. Listening to it is the only way to get through life and I've learnt that the hard way. If you're not truly happy with something, there's only so long you can put up with it. Definitely don't blame yourself for last time, Martin. As I'm sure you can see from my experiences, success at University depends upon a lot of factors; many of them out of your control.

[Martin]

Are you happy doing what you're doing at the moment? Are you currently working in a field in which you'd be happy to keep working, or do you see it as something more short term? If it's the latter, then you need to consider what you're alternatives are, and whether a university degree is something that you think is necessary to pursue those.

I work in the leisure industry, which I pretty much stumbled into while at school. I could see myself continuing to work my way up, however my biggest concern is one of these days I'll realise it isn't for me and struggle to diversify into another career without starting at the bottom again. Thats the main reason I keep coming back round to the idea of getting a degree, graduate programmes seem to open more than one door.

More generally than that, I would urge you to consider why you didn't enjoy uni the first time around. Was it because you weren't ready for it, or you weren't enjoying what you were studying, or was it something else?

I guess I could say all of the above.

I went from school straight into uni and wasn't prepared for working with such a broad range of personalities - both in peers and in teaching staff I guess. I'd like to think the time I've spent working has helped me develop my people skills. As far as choice of degree, I'd say it was a fairly good choice so that wasn't so much an issue - I have more of a personal weakness in disciplining myself to study.

I think another reason I didn't enjoy uni was I didn't immerse myself in it enough. Socially, I'm probably more introvert and extrovert and had my own close friends that I stuck to.

I also had a (better than average for a student) part time job which allowed myself to become distracted with by taking on more responsibility at work. I couldn't afford not to work if I went back to uni, and as much as I enjoy my current job and environment - I think it would serve as too much of a distraction once again.

I think the people you end up spending time around have the largest effect on your uni experience.

I think thats very true actually. If I had closer friends at uni and more support, I probably would have been persuaded to stick it out.

I have years of business experience, and a wealth of man-management skills I couldn't possibly have learned anywhere other than being on-the-job. That experience and knowledge has opened all kinds of doors to me, and earned me a certain amount of "respect" in the industry I went into. That takes the edge off feeling that you might have "missed the boat" elsewhere - take it from me.

The sounds really similar to my own experience so far actually!

My advice, based on a certain amount of experience, would be to follow your gut instinct. Believe me, it is impossible to do something successfully if your heart is not in it. You can't force yourself to get through it - your true feelings will always win.

My gut instinct at the moment is to go back, however I know from this time last year I seemed to go through phases of either choice!


Thanks all of you for responding and in such depth, it has given me some good advice and things to think about. I'll talk through it with some friends/colleagues and try to make a decision one way or the other!

[cwathen]

I spent a total of 5 years at uni and came out with nothing except the experience of going and what must now be well over £25,000 of student loan.

Like a lot (most?) people who go these days, I was firmly sold on the idea that uni was a natural next step which you should take if you did A Levels and never really considered not going as an option (also that idea that you got to cheat adult life by giving yourself another 3 years to decide what you're going to do with it was quite appealing).

I decided I was probably going to do something computer/electronic related since Computing was my strongest A Level and at so in the heady days of October 2000 I trundled off to an open day with my friends. I got into a nice conversation with a nice lecturer and ended up being sold one of the biggest piles of wank ever devised - BSc (Hons) Internet Technology and Applications at Plymouth Uni. At the time it was all but brand new, having only started running the previous year (so yes, I did enrol onto a course which at the time had no graduates and therefore nobody to speak of its worth). It was also somewhat oversold and made to sound A) easier B) more interesting and C) applicable to a much more diverse range of people than it actually was.

When I started there a year later I quickly realised that the course I was on was nothing like it had been described and had a bizarre programme, combining bits of all sorts of fields in what didn't seem to be a particular coherent way, many of which I had never touched before and had no interest in (even though my background apparantly made be an 'ideal candidate' to do ITA) with two key things sticking out at me; A) despite being sold to me as a 'computing' course, its basis was more general electronics, and B) despite having 'Internet' in the title, only 1 or 2 modules per year had anything to do with it.

Getting through this meant being hit with an almost vertical learning curve which I simply didn't have the dedication or interest to take on (I have an enormous amount of respect for those who did). I therefore ended up failing the first year (its rather telling though that those things I had actually studied before doing the programme I got near as damn it to top marks for).

Rather stupdily, I accepted the offer to repeat the year which I then passed. But then the 'second year' (now my third) got even more bizarre (my two favourite examples from that year was a module which seemed to be more about broadcast TV systems than anything else and a module on networks based around Novell Netware - which was obsolete even back then). I ended up failing that and dropping out of the course.

Along with someone else on here, I moved on teaching - enrolling on BEd Primary (which if all had gone well, I would have just graduated from). It was a breath of fresh air - the general quality of the course (both in material and delivery) was way beyond that I'd experienced on ITA. My teaching practices went well - even on the 2nd year placement where I felt that I wasn't their favourite student teacher (although they certainly weren't my favourite school) I nevertheless came out with a glowing report.

In the end though, I slipped up on the academic work of a single module. A resit didn't fix it, so I ended up being unable to progress from the 2nd year.

Thus ended my not particularly glittering uni career. Do I regret not ending up with a degree? I'm not sure that I do. I may not have a £30K+ career, but I do nevertheless have a reasonable job with prospects (and certainly more money than I ever had as a student) and most people I know from the time I did my first course have ultimately ended up doing something that doesn't use the degree they worked so hard for. I even know a couple of people earning less as a graduate than I do as a 'failure'.

I do sometimes regret not getting to be a teacher (a bit more than usual lately since this was supposed to be the time of graduation and applying for jobs) but then I also wonder whether I would have survived the profession anyway being that I have such radical views as punishing bad behaviour rather than trying to understand it and also not being particularly good at maintaining excessive amounts of information which (despite being in the 21st century) I'm then forced to store as paper records in lever arch files (this skill, I quickly found, is apparently the cornerstone of teaching courses and the teaching profession - you can be the best student, the best teacher, the best school, but if your folder is missing something, you're shit).

[/rant mode]
In summary, if you're happy in what you're doing and feel you have scope in it to go as far as you want to, then I don't see that there's any need to go back to uni (or go in the first place if you've never been). It's not the be all and end all, you can be good and succesful without it. If you go back, do it because you feel that you should, not because other people do.

[tillyoshea]

Just to balance this thread out a bit...

I went straight from A-Levels to uni to study medicine. I can't say it's always been easy - there are idiots on the course, there are those who want nothing more than to see you fail (seemingly more and more as the course progressed), and the university wasn't always as helpful as it could have been. In fact, it often seemed to be the case that many of the university staff felt that students existed purely as a source of frustration to be largely ignored, rather than recognising that their job was supposed to involve supporting students.

Some aspects of the course were frustratingly idiotic - similarly to cwathen's comment, you could be the best medical student to grace the earth, but if you hadn't written the right thing on the right bit of paper, then you'd fail. It often seemed that things were intentionally designed to trip you up for no good reason.

The challenge of moving around and working with people who are often unpleasant made some parts of the course less than enjoyable, but there were great times too. There would be months on end where it felt like I was being lectured by people who just had no teaching skill and whose lectures were unintelligible, but that could be outweighed by a single fantastic lecture, and the enthusiasm that some people brought to teaching.

Similarly, it was relatively common to be treated like utter crap by some of the patient's I'd attempted to treat, but a single heartfelt 'thank you' from a nice patient could outweigh the shit and motivate me for days or weeks on end. Some surgeons think you're the scum of the earth, and would teach through utter humiliation - but then a couple of be absolutely wonderful.

Some parts of the course have shown me parts of myself that I'm not sure I like, yet that (sometimes deeply unpleasant) process has made me develop as an individual and as a professional. I've made some pretty big personal sacrifices to pursue this course, and whether they were really worth it - I'm still not sure.

In the end, the good times far outweighed the bad - but it took a huge amount of enthusiasm and dedication to the course to ever hope to get through the bad times - enthusiasm and dedication that was very rarely recognised by any member of staff. If I'd had serious long-term doubts about whether the course was for me, I don't think I could've followed it through for five years.

I've just passed my final exams in the last week. I'm now graduating, with many great friendships I'll keep for years, some wonderful memories I'll keep forever, and a degree that virtually guarantees me a job for the rest of my life... not to mention the fun of having 'Dr' before my name!

I think you have to decide for yourself whether the benefits of going to uni outweigh the moments of utter shit that you will inevitably go through while you're there. Much of your time at university will be fantastic, but there will always be very testing moments in whatever you do, and it's up to you to decide whether the outcome is worth enough to you as an individual to push through them, potentially compromising your happiness for a while.

There are many options away from university, and all will have equally difficult moments... I think the decision as to what's right for you is a very personal one, and as Mr Q says, in the end, after all the advice in the world, the question comes back to: What do you really want to do?

[all new Phil]

I dropped out of uni after 2 years and I think my feelings about it echo what has been said already. I did really enjoy it, and part of me wishes I'd stuck it out, but at the same time I found it incredibly frustrating. Stupid things like losing marks in a piece of coursework for *daring* to use bullet points in the introduction really pissed me off. The third year was supposed to be where we went on a placement, but after not finding one that even vaguely interested me, I instead went back to the company I worked for when I was at college and accepted a job as a manager. I've never looked back from that to be honest, I'm doing a job I genuinely love, that has really good prospects, and has allowed me to buy a nice car and now consider buying a house. I really don't think that I would be in the same position had I continued with the degree - it was essentially a management degree and I don't think it would have got me any further than I have off my own merit already.

In short, I really don't believe that degrees are as valued as they are made out to be. The experience of working a 40 hour week is a hell of a lot more impressive to a potential employer than the experience of doing 10 hours of lectures a week.

Saying that, though... I'm considering doing an Open University degree in something completely random, just to broaden my horizons. Have you considered this option yourself Martin?

[Neil Jones]

I have had thoughts about actually going to University myself as I'm, well I wouldn't say unhappy but I wouldn't say I was happy either, in my current job as a computer technician. Like most, it has good points and bad points and I get to see and meet a bunch of really nice customers who like to learn and do new things with their computers (and meet a bunch of morons who I can't help wondering how they ended up with a PC in the first place).

I have seen the Government Ads on "Turn Your Talent To Teaching - teach.gov.uk". It has made me think seriously about it. I do realise its not just a case of leaving work on Friday at 5:30 and going to a school at 8am the following Monday - there is serious training and commitment involved and the best part of at least two or three years at Uni with suitable big outstanding loan dragging on after it. Then there's no guarantee of a job at the end of it all anyway.

One thing that stops me is the entire argument over whether the qualifications are worth the paper they're printed on. I mean you only have to write your name on the GCSE paper these days to pass it. For A-Level cobble together half a page of spiel where appropriate and write down the key details and it'll often just scrape you a pass at E-Grade. With the ideology that the Government wants 50% of under 30's to go through University by 2010, I dare say a degree would be just another set of words on a CV that a lot of people have.

I didn't go to University first time round though after A-Levels and I do sometimes wonder whether I did the right thing or not. Of course, now I'll never know but I'll always wonder. Now I toy with the idea of whether I want to go after all into something new or something along the lines of what I do now. The thing is I dunno what I want to do, and as the Baz Lurrmann song said, "Don't worry if you don't know what you want to do with your life - the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the more interesting 40 year olds I know still don't."