Professional People

[annwfyn]

This poll comes from my having had a series of conversations about the future with a variety of people. I'm being quite career focussed these days - I'm training to be a conservator, which I adore - and as such I'm finding myself pondering other people's experiences and outlook on such matters.

As such, I have put together a poll. This poll covers two areas. Firstly, whether you lot like your jobs or course of study. Secondly, the extent to which your degree or lack of one has actually affected what it is you're doing now. I'm kind of assuming that the majority of my readership are over 21 and likely to have finished their first degree, presuming they've done one. If this isn't the case, slap me about a bit and tell me whether you like your degree or not, and whether you're hoping to go into a field that needs it.

My own opinions and ramblings will undoubtedly appear in the comments section of this entry very soon.

Please do fill in my poll if at all possible! I'm a very curious Sally and there are questions in here which need answers!

[Poll #882299]

Comments

for reference

[isalani.livejournal.com]

I did 2 years of a 4 yr degree in BSC Hons Medical Microbiology.

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

The way it's worded, I'd need to fill it out twice really, I think *wry smile* Boils down to like the MA, dislike the day-to-day job, like the sewing job.

[reindeerflotila.livejournal.com]

Hmm, difficult to answer Sally!

See where I fit:

Attended 3 years of BsC Hons Env.Geology, passed two and a bit, stopped studying. Worked full time in a variety of fields, none of which pertain to university subject. Unable to get graduate entry programme posts by dint of not being a degree graduate, just a HnD equivalent. Not able to get entry level posts anywhere due to being overqualified.

I do not think my social groups, any of them, are bothered by uni or non-uni attendance/education but then I tend to hang out with people who have. I think my older college friends may have a different opinion on this than I do. In the workplace I think it does matter sometimes, especially in light of present HR doom relating to 'experience' and when you can, and cannot apply the request for degree level education. Ahh, Job Evaluation, how I loathe thee.

I don't particularly enjoy what I do, but this may be because I have not found anything I really want to do that I can achieve.

Interesting questions, what is percolating in your brainmeats I wonder?

[borusa.livejournal.com]

I think society - taken as a whole amorphous blob - has a very odd and ambivalent attitude to University. There's a certain point of view which divides students into two groups - obvious wasters (people who do meja studies) and boffins with no commonsense (everyone who does something that was being studied in around 1930). It's a derogatory attitude peculier to the British, I think.

Of course, most people *also* want their children to go to University.

Only slightly relevantly - there was an programme on Radio 4 a few weeks back about University. One of the points that was made was that widening access had not, in fact, meant more places for the disadvantaged, but instead more places for the daughters of reasonably well-off families. Not necessarily a bad thing, but interesting, I thought.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think when I say 'my current social circle' I maybe mean 'me'.

I'm very aware that whether or not someone has a degree, and what kind of degree that was (2.1, 2.2, from an ex-poly, from an old uni) is somehting I am prone to let influence my opinion of someone. It isn't the only thing I'll judge people by - at the end of the day I think Andy and Hugh are two of the cleverest people I know, and neither of them have degrees - but if someone doesn't have a degree I tend to look for reasons why not, whereas someone having a degree I rather accept as the norm, which isn't necessarily reasonable.

On the job front, I'm also quite aware that to a certain extent I think I project my own attitudes towards jobs (ie - it's important to be doing something you find mostly worthwhile in some area of your life, and job is most often it) onto other people and worry about them if I can't quite see what they are doing.

This isn't to say I view all my friends as wasters if they aren't barristers. It's more that I've noticed that if someone is doing an admin job that they don't like much, then I do worry, and wonder if they are trying to get out of it, or what they have in their life which makes up for it. It's not so much sneering as worrying, which I suppose in some ways isn't much better.

In general, I think I'm being deeply influenced at the moment by the fact that I do have a course I really love, that I couldn't have got into without a degree, and am very focussed on this new and exciting feeling of having a future, and as is often the way, am becoming slowly and vilely evangelical about Having Life Goals.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Mostly I've had a bunch of conversations with people about such things and it has gotten me thinking. A bit of it is that I'm very prone to worrying about my friends, and I was told recently that I'm a bit daft for so doing - most people don't like their jobs, but get on fine and that's just life. I, on the other hand, have this Dream (tm) that everyone should be working towards doing something Worthy, which I think comes from my own very financially stable and spoilt upbringing, combined with a lot of familial pressure to be putting that privilege to good use and doing Something Useful. It's probably a very very spoilt attitude to have, and I try and keep it in check, but I am aware that I worry about folks and maybe am just being rather Marie Antoinette about this.

FYI

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Do you feel your current social group are too focussed/judge people too much on what they do for a living?

In answering 'no', this means I don't think they judge people on what they do anything like enough. "You work in PR for the Labour Party? get a real job."

Re: FYI

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Dear god! I think I'd be very impressed by anyone who works in PR for the Labour Party. It implies they have principles, care about what they do, and have the initiative to get a job in a competitive field.

I mostly just worry about all the really bright people I know who got 2.1s in Modern Languages, or History, or Classics, and then proceeded to get admin assistant jobs which they use to fund a D&D habit.

I respect pretty much anyone who is trying to do something they really like/want to do, however peculiar that career choice (Lib Dem MP, in the case of one schoolfriend of mine) might be.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think I really count you as 'working full time'. In my head you're a student. You just have to do extra dull work to pay the bills. Loads of the people on my course are like that.

...

[reindeerflotila.livejournal.com]

Having Life Goals(tm) is good!

Certainly it occurs, my lack of degree fubar'd my Tokyo plans, though it worked out for the best in the end given the disastrous time my companions had who did go. Plus I moved to London instead!

In addition to my above statment, I should point out I like very much working for the organisation that I do (Alzheimer's Society), but am busy creeping at speed away from my current interim role and towards something more toothsome. My actual dream location is of course the Natural History Museum, but you don't get a 'look-in' at roles there without extensive skills and/or an MA in a relevant topic such as museumship/curatorship/restoration (dependant upon your career focus of course). Le Sigh.

There is NOTHING wrong with being concerned for people and their wellbeing! I do not think you are being Antoinette about it at all.

Re: FYI

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd only be impressed by someone working for the Labour party in the same way as I was impressed by Nick Naylor in Thank you for smoking. The skill he demonstrates in taking the unpalatable and making it seem perfectly reasonable is impressive.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

That is quite interesting.

Honestly, as far as can tell the current structure of university education doesn't really make it accessible to an awful lot of people. In order to make it through without having to work a lot of crazy hours and combine job + degree, or get a LOT of debt, you need financial support from your parents. And that required financial support seems to run into the thousands over the course of a degree quite routinely.

As far as I can tell, university is becoming more middle class than ever!

[castorpollux23.livejournal.com]

Most of the others would come under "I don't know" as to fully get a true answer I'd have to do research and be a little more in touch with things...

I dunno, I find that I'm super over-qualified, and am competing with EU and British citizens for employment... I'm not content with the current situaiton, but I'm making the best I can out of it. I WANT to be a productive member of society and do more than I am now... I am the sort that needs to be occupied all day or insanity starts to set in.

Erm, not sure if that answers your questions.

Re: ...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Have you ever considered going back into part time education? I'm a tad evangelical about this, but I know London is a really good place for getting part time degree stuff together - Birkbeck College, for example, is designed for folk to study while working - and it could open up LOADS of opportunities.

My sister used to work there. That's why I witter about Birkbeck lots. There are probably other places too.

I just worry that my worry is a bit patronising/daft and that most people have more immediate things to worry about than whether they have their perfect job, and I'm quite spoilt in that I've been able to keep prodding and poking and looking around til I (maybe) found it.

[baldurs-voice.livejournal.com]

Well i have spent 10 years getting to the job I am in and I am only now starting out on what I wanted to do and I find that I am working with people that all have degrees and are doing the same job as me but on more money and tend to get the breaks more in work as the management know that they are at a curton level of knollgde were I have to realy push to get anywere

I also remember what it was like when I lost my job and was out of work for 6 months I could not get an interview as I do not have any quilifcations.

One thing I have learnt is that Quilifcations get interview and experiance gets the job it is catch 22 and I have neather but I have found a company that was willing to take a change and well now I have to work hard to show that I am just as good as anyone with a degree

I tend to not think if weather people I know have degrees but I do always ashume that most people I know will have a higher level of education than me.

I have in some way always regretted on going to uni (or making a go of collage instead of quiting) but I have always had problems with learning.

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

Degrees actually mean squat! They were one of many lifestyle choices many of us took in our life and one very few people I know actually work in the field they studied in.

Passion is what actually seperates us there are many people I know who did not go to uni but have apassion in life which excepes that of many graduates. Take a look at some of the people you know, souldesdruction for instance, and aks if he could be more accomplished in his field if he had done a degree?

Re: FYI

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Some day I must introduce you to some of the people I went to school with - I was part of a very politically active, left wing crew back then.

I still haven't dared to admit to most of them that pierot is a bit of a True Blue Tory, after the two I did mention it to looked honestly horrified and started making noises about 'well, obviously, there have to be some of them that are reasonable' and 'you don't really mean that, do you Sally? He doesn't...actually...you know...think the Conservatives are good?'

I think you might induce brain haemorrhages.

Re: FYI

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Point 'em at my Lj and let them be enlightened.

Re: ...

[reindeerflotila.livejournal.com]

OU/Birkbeck is on my list once I have accomplished my goal of teflon-shuffling into a permie role at work! Can't budget for study costs at this point!

See me begin adding History-based glee onto my existing subjects. You see, Geology stuffs lead VERY nicely into Palaeontology, but I need to tweak it a bit with added History.

So yes, over a very long period of time I may start getting to where I may like to be..

^_^

[adze.livejournal.com]

I'm very aware that whether or not someone has a degree, and what kind of degree that was (2.1, 2.2, from an ex-poly, from an old uni) is somehting I am prone to let influence my opinion of someone.

I've bitten down a comment about this before, either on LJ, or face to face - I can't remember which.

You know the reasons behind my poor degree grade - basically, I didn't want to be doing it anymore, but didn't feel I could switch degrees at that point, and once I realised how badly I was doing, put in a lot of effort not to fail a degree I didn't care about.

But that's not what I didn't comment on. It's the whole ex-poly thing. I went to the University of Hertfordshire, an ex-poly. I was attrated to it because it was one of the best Universities in the country for my degree - Aerospace Engineering. It had long standing connections with De Havilland, which later became British Aerospace, while it was a polytechnic, and a degree from there was apparently quite prestigious in the field.

Even as an ex-poly, the name and reputation of the place counted for a lot. Just being an ex-poly doesn't make it a bad University.

----

Frankly, when I meet a lot of the people I know, and they tell me what degree(s) they've done, I often wonder what the point of it was- what possible use can some of the degrees I know my friends have taken have? It doesn't change my opinion of them, it just makes me wonder.

My apologies if any of this comes across as ranty. I'm still trying to work out whether it should...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think degrees are the be all and end all of life, by any means. I know so many people who have done amazing things with their lives without a degree, and I think passion is far far more important.

I do disagree that degrees mean squat. I think this is entirely because in my case, this has not been true at all. I could not be doing what I am doing without the degree (or a similar degree) to the one I did. It is actively and directly relevent, and I love what I do. For me, it matters and doing the degree I did, and my masters has shaped me to a huge extent.

For a lot of people, that's true. I am aware that I have a lot of rather not-nice academic snobbery in my brain that I need to generally kick into torpor occasionally. I'm from a hideously academic family, however, and for many of the people who raised me, their degree and their academic experiences had almost entirely shaped the person that they were. My grandfather, for example, judges people hugely on their academic experiences/qualifications. That's because he spent his entire working life in academia as a very successful meteorologist. He was a professor at three different and very important universities. That's what he put all his life into. Of course it matters to him how people fit into that world or whether they don't.

I'm not quite like that, but I do think it can be a very formative experience for many people, and can say a great deal about them.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I'm being offensive and snobbish. I know I am.

I'm trying, very hard, to say 'these are my prejudices which I'm exploring, here, on my LJ. They aren't things I'd push on other people. They aren't things I necessarily intellectually think are right, or reasonable. They are just things that lurk in my brain and which I need to chew through every so often'.

The ex-poly thing is pure snobbery on my behalf and comes partly from my having done a traditional academic subject and knowing very little about modern and science based courses which I know have a very different set of criteria for people who are chosing a university course.

I'm an academic snob. It's not a good thing. It's something I'm trying to be honest about here for various reasons.

Maybe I should shut up.

[huggy-pixie.livejournal.com]

As my current social group is mostly role-players, I have not noticed a need for university as a priority or concerns involving job issues. Other non-roleplaying friends have been to university and are working in careers which do focus their attention to a degree but not in an unhealthy way.
As for my own career options I have no idea what to do with a Theology degree once I have it. May try a Masters.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I thought you were going to set up a cult?

*grins*

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

I like my job. Were I working for the right company, I would come in without pay, because I love building tools to help people communicate, but them tools I am building now are basically for corporate use, and so they're less exciting.

Given the choice between someone who went to uni, and someone who dropped out to teach themselves, (with otherwise exactly equivalent skills and experience) I will choose the latter. Partly because that's what I did, but also because I want people who teach themselves, not those who need to be taught.

And I don't think people are judged *enough* by their job. This is the single biggest block of time in your waking life (unless you're a deeply unusual person) - I can't think of any other thing I do for 40 hours a week, aside from go to work. Anyone who is not doing something they at least enjoy, if not outright *love* has made a serious mistake somewhere, and if they're not wasting their life, then they're certainly wasting a lot of their limited time.