Degree Education? Worth it??

lynzpower

The easiest way to get ahead in politics is to join a political party and get on with the nuts and bolts of campaigning and lobbying, supporting MPs local work etc.

I used to volunteer for the local MP fundraising, admin and dealing with demands of constituents.

A good website is https://www.work4mp.org

xbrenx

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Nobody should be denied education. It's important for its own sake. If he wants to go to university then he should go. If he doesn't he will always regret it and be a different person for it.

The OP isn't questioning whether their son should go to uni, they're questioning the choice of course.

C_Mababejive

There was a tv series on a couple of months ago. The pitch was that one of the dragons den brigade (cant recall who) would interview three or four prospective jobless people and find out why they cant get work and assist them in doing so.

One of the candidates was a bright young lad in a sharp suit who kept going on about how he was a graduate..the obvious implication being that he was entitled to a high paid first job as of right though of course this wasnt spoken.

I'm pretty sure his degree was in politics...

Cue the interview..


Dragons Den man... So you have a degree in politics. What kind of work /career are you seeking??

Graduate boy ..Ermm..humm..err

Dragons Den man OK..name me three types of employment that you would be interested in?

Graduate boy...ermm,,,humm,.errmmm


Now i have never been to Uni but my first thoughts were..what sort of work could you get with a degree in Politics? When DD man asked him to name some..my first thoughts were..journalism...but Graduate boy hadnt thought about it so...


Dragons Den man..... Well if you cant think of what sort of work you could do..its no wonder your unemployed.

Now to me,a degree in Politics might be fine for expanding your mind and understanding of certain subject areas but as a means to an end..i.e to earn a living..well it seems a bit woolly. Had he been seeking a degree in Engineering,Science or Medicine..well i could see that going somewhere.

So in my view..if he wants to earn a living rather that sit around like some deep thinking hypothesiser in a Dickensian opium den,then he needs to consider which degrees would be useful in achieving those goals.

As i say, i dont have a degree but i have never had a days unemployment since leaving school in 1980.

busiscoming2

I am not a great believer in having a degree making a difference to getting a job, especially in today's climate. Both my two older kids went to uni (we didn't fund them) my dd has more or less been in work since graduating three years ago and yes her degree has been necessary for her roles. My ds1 graduated this year with an international politics degree, which he says he did as he enjoyed the subject and wanted to know more. He is still undecided about the career he wants and has had a couple of jobs which he hasn't needed a degree for.

I am of the opinion it is their decision and only in the future will you know if it was worth it. Apart from that I think them living away at uni teaches them important life skills.

singlestep

I loved my time at university. Although I did stay at home for the course itself (due to family circumstances) and worked full-time most of the time, university was huge for me in terms of bringing me out of my shell and experiencing things I'd never have thought of doing otherwise. I joined several societies, and was able to help lead/mentor others in later years. I went to live abroad for a year between year 2 and year 3 and then again after I was finished and I had my first proper interaction with different kinds of people and different social groups.

I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do later on and so did the courses I wanted to do - neither I nor anyone in my family knew better than it was a University Course. Even though I wish I'd tried X instead of Y as one of my three options in first year, this is really only because it would have saved me going back and picking it up years later. I thoroughly enjoyed everything I did for the first few years. The final year was a struggle because of illness and I only got through it because of sheer stubbornness.



What I would say is that you do really have to be committed to the course in order to get the best out of it. Because of my job, my voluntary activities and the societies I was a member of, I did get to know a lot of people who had got in to Law, Medicine and Dentistry. You could tell who had been pushed in to it by parents/school etc because these were the people who mostly didn't make it out of first year and were unable to cope with the workload/particularly dry parts of the course. It was also true of my course and other courses, where people realised that it wasn't what they had expected or they weren't cut out for it. In my course, there was a little leeway for this eventuality but this isn't always the case.



I know that there are different pressures on parents these days and that people have to think seriously about what they can and can’t afford. Admittedly, I didn't have fees to pay but, in a way, this was the position I myself was in back then, when I was having to pay the household bills and save for not only my year out but the years I wouldn’t be around.

Mistral001

I wish my parents had been so concerned about what I did at university as the OP is. The OP is to be congratulated.

Oldernotwiser

Politics degree.

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/options_politics_international_relations_job_options.htm

DomRavioli

I'd suggest the old PPE route (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) as it has a higher graduate job level, but unfortunately, he is now 18 and can make his own decisions! I'm doing Business with Economics and Law at Open Uni, and I love it! Did a BSc (Hons) in microbiology and it was the worst 4 years of my life, now at the grand old age of 26, I'm doing something I love. Why doesn't he combine with another speciality, or have it as a minor programme?

t0rt0ise

xbrenx wrote: »

The OP isn't questioning whether their son should go to uni, they're questioning the choice of course.

Not the way I read it and I just read it again to check but there you go.. different perception of the same post.

zagubov

Annisele wrote: »

I was at school with a girl who wanted to do a politics degree. Her parents told her they'd only give her any money if she chose a degree in a science, engineering, law, or a few other subjects they felt were acceptable. The result was that she did politics anyway, now has a very good job, and hasn't spoken to her parents in nearly 15 years.

My first degree ended up pretty useless to me, and I did a graduate conversion course later on. Sure, it would have cost less money to have done the right subject to begin with - but at 18 I had no idea what that was.

The girls' parents have my sympathy. For years this economy has been like a sinking ship and this girls parents were trying to guide her to a lifeboat. She used a different path and still got saved, so good for her.

She managed to avoid future "if only..."-type regrets about the path she took, so she'll be feeling chuffed about that.

Problem is, ”if only” means comparing a rose-tinted idealised fantasy with common-or-garden reality so of course the grass will seem greener on the road not taken. Part of growing up is realising you need to see through this and realise it’s an illusion.

If she doesn't wise up soon, the danger is, she'll learn what regret really means when her parents have passed away.