Is a Degree Worth the Paper that It is Written On
Post categories: Features
| 09:29 UK time, Monday, 31 October 2011
In 'Is a Degree worth the Paper It's Written On' sixth year school pupil Robin Drummond is asking what exactly he should expect to get out of university, and whether it will be worth it. Here, Edinburgh University English Student Calum Leslie, who Robin went to for advice on the matter, reflects on what he thinks he's getting out of his degree.
Picture the scene. It's a month since you've left university with a degree in English Literature. You're at work in your new job. Your boss asks you to solve a problem for him. You agree. It's unlikely, no matter how good you are at English (unless perhaps you're an English teacher), that you'll be able to do it by analysing a metaphor, a simile or word choice. But that's what you've spent the last four years of your life doing. Fear hits you: your degree is useless in the 'real world.'
I've had this picture painted to me several times since I started studying English at the University of Edinburgh. I've been asked what I think I'll get out of reading books and poems that will help me get on in life once I've completed my four years. In truth the chances are that I'll not be doing much of that textual analysis stuff in the work I want to go in to; but for me it doesn't mean that what I've been doing at university has no use.
On a practical side of things, there are skills I've learned that don't just apply to an English Literature course. Being able to gather and compare information and arrange it in a way that allows you to form a considered opinion or make an argument out of complex information is crucial to an English degree, but that ability will I hope stand me in good stead for many jobs in the future. You have to write and talk a lot more to people you don't know too, and these well used communication skills will also come in pretty hand in when it comes to interviews and meetings in the world of work.
Spending four years at university also gives you so many great opportunities you wouldn't get access to otherwise. As someone keen to work in journalism when I leave, the experience offered to me by the student newspaper has been invaluable. It's hands on practical work that had no barriers to stop me getting involved, and is pretty much the chance to do the exact same job but in an environment that allows more for people to make mistakes, and learn the ins and outs of writing journalism without the pressures of first time employment. There are not just newspapers, either, but a whole bundle of societies that offer similar tasters of potential careers to try out.
Not only that, but you meet students from all around the world. It might sound cliché, but when you talk to and work with people who've lived in places like Norway, America, Chile, Pakistan, Mexico and China you find you're horizons open up. You start thinking more closely about the world that lies out there and the opportunities it holds. You start to consider whether to go for things you never thought you'd want to do: I'd never thought about teaching in another country until I met people who spent a year out in France last year doing just that, and now it's an option I'm considering when I finish up.
I'm not saying you can't get all of these things elsewhere. You don't have to go to uni to get work experience or to think you might want to spend a year abroad. But you get all these chances in the one place, while learning more about a subject you enjoy. Throw a few mates and the odd round of drinks into the mix, and I'm happy to say there's a bit more to my degree than just learning how to tell the difference between an oxymoron and onomatopoeia.
"Is a Degree Worth the Paper that It is Written On?" broadcasts on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland on 2 and 9 November at 1405.
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