India Doyle: Are Degrees Necessary?

Once upon a time the Guardian published an article called, What to do if you get a 2:2? It went something along the lines of “DON’T PANIC” and is one […]


Once upon a time the Guardian published an article called, What to do if you get a 2:2?

It went something along the lines of “DON’T PANIC” and is one of the most read articles on the student section of the site. This indicates that the idea of receiving a degree oddly reminiscent of a Taylor Swift song is not only undesirable but faintly apocalyptic.

I can see that the thought of slogging it out, however half-arsedly, for four years does render the thought of receiving a 3rd or a 2:2 slightly undesirable. Employers will clearly think so too. If you show up with a little stamp on your CV that indicates you have spent four years in the pub, on the floor, in your bed, loitering in the discount section of tesco and taking long, meaningful walks on the beach, they might understandably think you are a worthless waste of space.

Not so!

Well, I mean it doesn’t have to be so. Perhaps it is fourth year nihilism, but I am increasingly unconvinced that a degree is of any use at all. Not that I think the university experience is pointless – for those of us lucky to have it, I think it is fundamental to our development – but those numbers that we graduate with are absurd.

Human beings like to be measured. Having that number, or combination of numbers, testifies to our value and achievements. It assigns us a stock price, renders us a commodity. Those with a 1st have a higher value than those with a 2:1 and so on and so forth.

Luckily for me, I don’t want to be a banker or anything, which puts numbers first. I suppose this is why I think degrees can be negated as a commodity.

For me, it’s what you do outside of academia that makes a university experience worth having. Let’s face it, when you have 4 contact hours a week and only have to do 4 essays a semester its almost inexcusable not to find something else to do.

Academics only measure your ability to ascribe to a certain kind of system. Writing essays is not about the individual, it is about understanding what tutors and examiners are looking for and replicating it. Of course, you are allowed freedom within this system, but fundamentally your voice is irrelevant.

Basically, a degree is great but life experience is greater. I think sometimes it’s easy to forget that at University you are combining the two. There’s no point in letting numbers assign us a value because we are all more than that.

To turn then to the life guru that is Taylor Swift for some final affirmative words:

Yeah,
We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time,
It’s miserable and magical, oh, yeah,
Tonight’s the night when we forget about the deadlines,
It’s time

Oh sod it, here’s the song: