University Ruined My Life!

Just wanted to add that i graduated last year with a 2:1 in English and History from a prestigious university and 16 months down the line I'm still temping. It's RUBBISH!!!!

Lokolo wrote: »

That would depend what you apply into.

The job I am going for (and am currently working as a placement student) starts on £27k. I think thats ok for a starting salary for a 22 year old.

*is 22 next week and got offered a job last week that paid £21k in greater London* Different strokes for different folks and all that mind.

However I do think my three months work experience in an office in a large organisation has been considerably more helpful than the degree in my case...

With so many now offering Law, I would not be overly worried by mid table position opf place of study.

As well as that list I would also rate Warwick , Southampton , Kent and particularily the fairly newish Law programme at Aston (as new in 2008 guess no finishers yet, so not included in list) , as their Business School is highly thought of

graduated with a 2:1 in law last year and still doing what I did when I was at uni it's made no difference at all. Not going for a legal career but still expected a law degree to be some help!

I wouldn't say that Uni has ruined my life because I don't have a job (it is about far more than job potential) but I sympathise with the OP's plight. Hey, at least the OP has a job. I know that getting that offer of a TC is extremely hard. I think it is even harder if you don't have any contacts in an industry, come from a poor background and are an ethnic minority. The unis and colleges aren't exactly great at exposing you to the realities of the world either (not that I see this as particularly their fault but someone has to tell you the reality of the situation at some point)

The only way I could afford uni was if I commuted from home. I noticed many people were doing the same thing. Unfortunately this limited the extra curricular activities I could participate in. Those law texts were v expensive too, and naturally commuting meant that it was difficult to get access to texts at the library, so you end up having to buy your own copy or risk not having books to study from.

So even gaining a 2:1 with BBB A-levels and vacation placements and extra-curricular activities isn't enough to make progress in a legal profession any more. Since I lost my paralegal job due to the downturn it has been a monumental struggle to get any kind of job. Maybe having a degree on your CV puts off some prospective employers who feel that you will not stick around? Anyway, the temptation is to dumb down ones CV to get a look in, but even that is not a good solution because you'll be left with gaps in the time line.

So, fresh out of uni, my careers advisor at both University and College had drummed it into my head that there are two ways to continue your career in Law. Training Contract (Solicitor) or BVC (Barrister).

The usual time for applying for TCs is in the second year of uni. Been applying for them myself since second year uni, through the LPC, through employment as paralegal, through unemployment and through another paralegal position, and through to unemployment again with no success yet lol.

The boss's daughter at the golf-club worked in a law-firm and a chat with her about a possible vacancy led to my first legal job!

Yep. It's word of mouth and contacts. That's the trick. They were giving work experience to the children of clients where I used to work.

One thing I couldn't fathom though, was that she worked in the firm as a fee earner, but had no legal qualifications to speak of. I didn't worry about that too much though, I was happy to get my foot in the door. I soon found out that my law degree meant diddly-squat. I was effectively an administrative person, and my achievements at University meant nothing!

I noticed this too. It isn't qualifications so much as experience, a bit of luck and contacts. They don't tell you these kind of things at Uni or law school because they have a cash stream to protect

I eventually moved firms, expecting that opportunities would be rife. I was still in a great amount of debt with my student loan, GD Loan, credit car and overdraft, but I was earning and had the potential to earn a lot of money. Well, that's what I thought.

I think I can sympathise with that. Although I didn't have credit cards I still managed to get into a fair bit of debt. The problem is that grads are just not going to get as many high paid jobs any more recession or not.

What gets me angry are the misleading arguments of those supporting tuition fees based on possible earning power. The so called statistics don't tally with my or friends experiences. Take me for example. The only job I could get after uni was one paying under £14k. As you'll appreciate the automatic payback to student loans doesn't kick in until after £15k is being earned. So you're left in a situation were interest is accruing on the loan (albeit at bank of England base rate) but you can't make contributions while trying to live on that sum even with all the available state help so the debt is increasing.

I had never even heard of ILEX until after my degree. I was told by a guy I used to work with that the ILEX were for those wanting to specialise in one area of law and didn't give the breadth of understanding of the law degree. If it's what people want then they should go for it. Agree that students need a lot more info before deciding on higher education. At my school we were told to all apply for degrees. It was pretty biased looking back on it now, but I had already decided to do a degree from the age of 15 anyway.