Education & Career

Is university worth it?

Is university worth it?


Firstly I'll say that I am in the UK so my take is in experience with universities in the UK and if you happen to relate to it also then that's great. Now on to my take.


I've been thinking this for a while: is university worth it? I'm heading into my final year this September, anticipating the dreaded dissertation and working my butt off to get a good grade for my degree when I graduate in July. During the term times it was easy to just be so caught up with my studies that I never stopped and looked back on everything until it was holiday time and a lot of the time I wonder if this is all worth anything. Back in secondary school I was told "the future is now". I didn't believe them until 4 years went by in a blur and it was time to apply to university but I felt I just felt I wasn't ready and I wanted to do it all over again but better. I applied and was rejected so I went through clearing quickly in a 2-second decision to attend a university course. Why? Because that's just what you did, right? After you get your A-levels, that's it you work or you go to university and university was the preferred option because it's supposed to increase your chances of getting a job. Degress are so requested these days, my mother can't even advance in her career because she doesn't have a degree so it just made sense that I needed to get one and have a better chance than she does.


I was told all sorts of things about how university would go. I enjoy the course I am studying but sometimes I'm in class and I sit and think "I'm paying £8,500 a year for this?" and "would I have just been better off taking an internship or something?"


Is university worth it?


DIY Learning


I was told by my tutors that university is about 80% self study and the rest was actual teaching. If this course consists of me going to the library and reading a bunch of books on the topic then what exactly am I paying for? You assume you're going to be actually taught and no doubt I have learned indeed but telling me that majority of it is my own self study isn't exactly reassuring.


Recalling everything


Starting my second year, I looked back at my first year and all my notes and realised I barely could recall a thing. My notes didn't even make sense to me . This may have been my own fault but I discussed it with the rest of my classmates who all said the same thing. "What have we learnt again?" It was a mess and a blur of people we didn't care about in all these old books to argue points in some 6-8 page essay. It didn't help that in the second year there was no reference to the first year, no recap or anything. I discussed with my friends in other universities and they all remarked the same thing.


Tutors can be just unavailable


I'm not sure about anyone else but majority of my lecturers are part time and their main job is in the industry they are teaching. You have to send an email because they're here, there and everywhere. Some were alright in response time, but others took days, maybe even a week or so to reply which was super unhelpful in times of panic. This can be attributed to just the lecturers in my university in particular but hey, this is all from my experience. But as such, I and my classmates got into a habit of only emailing when it was super necessary and otherwise just guessing from each other. Yeah, this doesn't work well for assignment scores at all and it's a little like floating out in the sea with no life line like "help, you know this and I don't!" Plus student-tutor communication is just so important.


You've learnt it now impress us


This is where I understood the self-study thing but I still didn't like it. We attend class every week and go through the assignments and the beginning. But by the time we learn in class what we need for the assignments we look and see we have 2 weeks or less to actually do it. With several assignments in at roughly the same times it just puts in pure panic."Welcome to university," I hear someone say. Yes, but it just gets us to rush and not actually take in what we're learning. By the time we've finished it's on to the next thing and we know how tight the deadline is so it's easy to just forget all of what you just did and just focus on the new stuff. It's less learning what you're studying, the industry of it, etc. and more learning what you need to in order to complete the assignment. Once it's over,that knowledge goes to the back burner. I don't have time for that, the next 4 assignments are due very soon!


Applying it to life


Here is my biggest concern and the leading cause of why I question attending university. I graduate next year. I then have to go into the industry of what I'm studying but I realised I know nothing. Sure, I can write a 3,000 word essay on the history of it or the current trends but can I actually do it? I feel like I can't. I'm taking a pretty practical course. You can't just sit and talk about it, you need to get up and do some of it. After 3 years studying and a racking up that debt how can I be so unprepared? Now, my uni tried to help us with this by making it compulsory that we get 400 hours experience in the industry. Did this help? No. We all were unable to get hired in to what would actually give us the experience and instead we got experience in jobs a lot less helpful. The tutors weren't happy with this but we didn't get any help with the hours and well unexperienced students trying to get a job in the field they're studying a degree in in order to get a job in that field, it just didn't work out. You can imagine that in the module feedback, everyone wrote how unhappy they were. "We haven't learned a thing! You guys didn't even help us!" This could just be our own faults, maybe we didn't try hard enough or look in the right places, maybe we should've just kept broke doing volunteer work, it all still makes us feel like this entire course just isn't helping at all. And if we could've landed the jobs without the degree then why were we studying and paying again?


So is it worth it?


Now most of these points can be answered with maybe it's just my university/course or maybe I and my classmates aren't working hard enough,maybe we should've known what it was going to be like and why would we think it'd be better than this? Probably because we're paying a lot but very true. My answer of is it worth it is yes, it is and no, it's not. For some careers they really do need that university education, students benefit a lot more from it. It just so happens that I'm doing a course where it's not compulsory to have a degree. Also, I have learnt things. I may have felt at times that I was just being left to drown and we need to learn more but compare it to before I even started, I didn't have a clue and now I have some good knowledge of the industry and topic I'm studying. But university is not for everyone. If you aren't sure what you want to do or you're going into a career that doesn't really need it then there are always alternatives to university. It won't benefit everyone. It's really all down to you and your personal choice and path.

Is university worth it?
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