Steroids for the rat race
If you know what you want to do with your life and you’ve got it all planned past the degree to the career, the wedding, the 2.4 kids, the mortgage, the pension and the anonymous suburban death, then a degree’s bound to help you get it.
If not — and, let’s face it, that’s most of us — then university’s still going to help. Firstly, because it’ll help when you’ve decided. And secondly, because it’s something useful to do in the meantime.
Careers that require qualifications
Certain careers can be followed only by graduates. Doctors have to know enough about medicine. Lawyers have to know the law. Teachers have to well, let’s just say that teachers have to have the right qualifications, too.
You can add to that list dentists, vets, pharmacists, accountants, architects, university professors, most of the civil service and a whole load of others. All jobs that pay well and command respect. And teachers and social workers too.
Anyhow, if you want one of these jobs (and many others besides) or think you might want one someday, a degree’s a must. Or more than one degree in most cases, but you gotta start somewhere. For more information on choosing a course click here.
Other careers
Apart from the jobs that need particular qualifications, there are plenty of professions — the media, IT, scientific research, tourism and heritage, finance, marketing and almost anything based in an office — where getting in without a degree is like convincing nightclub bouncers that your trainers are casual wear. It might be possible, but it’s not worth the hassle of not wearing trainers in the first place.
Most graduates end up in these kinds of jobs, but wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t been to university.
Whatever the job
In the rat race, having a degree is the equivalent of a 25-metre headstart and roller skates.
Not only does it help you land a job in the first place, but, once you’re in a job, sometimes a degree really does help you do it better. You might have a specific grasp of whatever you’re supposed to be doing but, even if you don’t, studying at university will inevitably
equip you with research skills, analytical ability, a bit of initiative — all those things that employers like.
Even if a degree doesn’t help you do your job, most people think it does. Either way, it helps you get promoted and cleans some of the slippery stuff off the greasy pole.
These days, though, being promoted isn’t necessarily the best way to get on. Most people change jobs almost as often as underwear and it holds you back if, every time you want to switch, you’re the applicant without a degree.
Last updated on: 11 November 2008