What value a degree?

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a constantly updated list of notes on my phone.  Anything I see, anything I read, and anything I hear about that is of interest or requires further research (Googling), I will write in my notes* and refer to at a later date.  This evening on my walk home from work, I decided to have a quick scan through my notes and see if there was anything that I could delete/cross off.  I came across this:

Gradulthood – what does a degree offer?

For info, this was above, ‘E27 light, 59 quid, scandium.com’ and below ‘Email Rob re dinner’.  

I remember writing this one; it was around about the time that a lot of people were questioning the value of a degree.  Any why wouldn’t people question their value? £3,000, soon to be £9,000 for a degree which in no ways guarantees a job, or even gets you close.  The note was to remind me to have a think about the issue and write a post on it - what does a degree offer? Why should people spend what’s soon to be around £40,000 to get a degree?  

Asking these questions, I can’t help but think of the opportunities I didn’t make the most of in Leeds, which goes some way to explaining how valuable I think degrees are.  Let me be clear, I have absolutely no regrets about how I spent my time in Leeds, every decision I made was for a reason that at the time will have made sense to me.  However, with the power of hindsight, could I have done more to make the most of my degree? Should I have done a year abroad? Maybe a year in industry? A friend of mine did a year in industry, returned to university for a year, and has now gone straight back to work full-time for the same company.  Should I have taken more career focused modules? Should I have joined more societies that I could put on my CV?  Should I have spent my summers more wisely? This last one, yes, but I did spend a whole summer working as a lock boy on a canal boat restaurant which was just brilliant.  

Despite arguably not taking advantage of enough opportunities whilst at university, I still don’t think you can put a price on my degree.  Well, saying that, you obviously can - but the social skills, the life skills, the friends, and not forgetting my Geography B.A., I wouldn’t change any of it.  Would I have to think harder were I entering the higher education system with the potential £9,000 fees in place? Most definitely, and I honestly don’t know what I’d do, but my own degree was well worth it.

Gradulthood – what does a degree offer? = Deleted.

*The mobislenotes lite app on Android at the moment if you’re interested – I used to just use my text message drafts