I have mentioned a couple of times on here that I chose to commence a university degree last month, having sworn, after quitting uni the first time round in Feb 2008, that I would never, ever return to higher education. My prior experience of uni was pretty hellish - I basically sleepwalked into doing a modern languages degree because it was what was expected of me by my school and by my family, and the whole subject was treated as though there actually was no other option but to go to uni. I wasn't at all sure that uni was for me in the first place, but to say so was deemed heresy at my academic-driven school, and I began to believe that perhaps everyone was right when they insisted that if you don't get a degree, you're destined to be a failure earning a crappy wage stacking shelves/flipping burgers all your life.
My initial apprehension aside, I found the reality of uni to be pretty dire. Many students seemed to be there mainly to get drunk and piss around all the time, as if they'd finally been let off the reins now they were living away from home. The stuff we studied on my languages course was predictable and, to me, meaningless & futile: mediaeval history, crappy philosophy, and bullshit literature, which all seemed to be designed not to expand minds (my dad always told me this was what uni was all about), but to promote homogeneity of thought. AAAARGH!!! At the time I was also getting into conspiracy in a big way which confirmed my suspicions that university was all about brainwashing, and I was feeling increasingly claustrophobic & ill because of the whole experience, so in the end I was like "fuck this" and quit halfway through the second term. Whew!
Within a month of quitting, I proved everyone wrong and actually managed to get a non-crap job, WITHOUT A DEGREE. It was an administrative thing, not exactly what I'd most love to be doing in an ideal world, but in the absence of any better ideas, I was quite content doing that job and earning a reasonable wage for it. Had I not found my new university course which is ideally suited to me (more on that next time), I could easily have stayed within that organisation and worked my way up. Hence my advice to young people debating whether or not to do the uni thing...
- Uni is great if you're REALLY passionate about your chosen subject and if you're CONFIDENT it will lead you directly into a fulfilling career, e.g. If you've got your heart set on being a doctor or something.
- So many people have degrees nowadays that they are no longer that special; if you have an average degree from an average university, you will not stand out from the crowd in the job market, which is surely why most people go to uni in the first place - they think it's a one-way ticket to a fantastic career. Because bachelor's degrees are so commonplace, lots of people do masters/additional degrees just to get ahead, which involves more time & more debt. Do you really want to get sucked into studying for half your life? Think long-term.
- THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES. At my former workplace, I met young people who hadn't even done A levels - they'd left school at 16 to do apprenticeships, and had slowly worked their way up to pretty good positions. They've been making money the whole time while uni students have been racking up debt. AND they're gaining valuable work experience which might be as impressive to a potential employer as your average honours degree, depending on the type of experience gained. Based on what I've seen, young people who work are more mature and responsible than their peers who are full-time students and have never had jobs - uni students live a pretty sheltered existence generally. Uni is nothing like the world of work.
- If you don't have a clue what job you want to do in future, don't go to uni just for the sake of it. The perfect career is not likely to magically pop into your head. If you don't feel drawn to any particular vocation and if deep down you aren't bothered about being rich and would rather live a simple life, you'd be better off doing a straightforward job - not necessarily mindless but not stressful either - and earning what you need to survive, and being happy. I've seen people who've done the rat race thing and earned tons, they've basically sacrificed their time and wellbeing and human relationships JUST to earn money so that one day they might be able to enjoy a luxurious retirement, IF they live that long. Isn't there more to life than this?!?!?! It reminds me of the song lyrics by Metric expressing the futility of the rat race:
Buy this car to drive to work
Drive to work to pay for this car
Anyway in my next post I will cover my reasons for going back to uni, despite all I've said above. In the meantime here are some links to explore.
___________________________________________
http://in2worlds.net/supplement-to-working-for-the-puppet-people
http://www.henrymakow.com/000561.html
My initial apprehension aside, I found the reality of uni to be pretty dire. Many students seemed to be there mainly to get drunk and piss around all the time, as if they'd finally been let off the reins now they were living away from home. The stuff we studied on my languages course was predictable and, to me, meaningless & futile: mediaeval history, crappy philosophy, and bullshit literature, which all seemed to be designed not to expand minds (my dad always told me this was what uni was all about), but to promote homogeneity of thought. AAAARGH!!! At the time I was also getting into conspiracy in a big way which confirmed my suspicions that university was all about brainwashing, and I was feeling increasingly claustrophobic & ill because of the whole experience, so in the end I was like "fuck this" and quit halfway through the second term. Whew!
Within a month of quitting, I proved everyone wrong and actually managed to get a non-crap job, WITHOUT A DEGREE. It was an administrative thing, not exactly what I'd most love to be doing in an ideal world, but in the absence of any better ideas, I was quite content doing that job and earning a reasonable wage for it. Had I not found my new university course which is ideally suited to me (more on that next time), I could easily have stayed within that organisation and worked my way up. Hence my advice to young people debating whether or not to do the uni thing...
- Uni is great if you're REALLY passionate about your chosen subject and if you're CONFIDENT it will lead you directly into a fulfilling career, e.g. If you've got your heart set on being a doctor or something.
- So many people have degrees nowadays that they are no longer that special; if you have an average degree from an average university, you will not stand out from the crowd in the job market, which is surely why most people go to uni in the first place - they think it's a one-way ticket to a fantastic career. Because bachelor's degrees are so commonplace, lots of people do masters/additional degrees just to get ahead, which involves more time & more debt. Do you really want to get sucked into studying for half your life? Think long-term.
- THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES. At my former workplace, I met young people who hadn't even done A levels - they'd left school at 16 to do apprenticeships, and had slowly worked their way up to pretty good positions. They've been making money the whole time while uni students have been racking up debt. AND they're gaining valuable work experience which might be as impressive to a potential employer as your average honours degree, depending on the type of experience gained. Based on what I've seen, young people who work are more mature and responsible than their peers who are full-time students and have never had jobs - uni students live a pretty sheltered existence generally. Uni is nothing like the world of work.
- If you don't have a clue what job you want to do in future, don't go to uni just for the sake of it. The perfect career is not likely to magically pop into your head. If you don't feel drawn to any particular vocation and if deep down you aren't bothered about being rich and would rather live a simple life, you'd be better off doing a straightforward job - not necessarily mindless but not stressful either - and earning what you need to survive, and being happy. I've seen people who've done the rat race thing and earned tons, they've basically sacrificed their time and wellbeing and human relationships JUST to earn money so that one day they might be able to enjoy a luxurious retirement, IF they live that long. Isn't there more to life than this?!?!?! It reminds me of the song lyrics by Metric expressing the futility of the rat race:
Buy this car to drive to work
Drive to work to pay for this car
Anyway in my next post I will cover my reasons for going back to uni, despite all I've said above. In the meantime here are some links to explore.
___________________________________________
http://in2worlds.net/supplement-to-working-for-the-puppet-people
http://www.henrymakow.com/000561.html
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