What is university for?

The system of many people getting a degree and some a masters but very few then staying on to do research (OK so there’s some in a degree/masters but I doubt you’re contributing that much generally) is a bit odd.

Why did most students choose university? Probably for: 1) The lifestyle; 2) They felt they needed to do get a decent job. Neither of these seem like especially good reasons. (By that I don’t mean they aren’t good for the individuals, I mean it’s an odd system where these are genuine reasons to go university).

One of my main frustrations at university has been that my degree has seemed the most pointless bit. This is partly me not choosing my degree course well but I think a lot of people feel similarly.

OK so getting a degree shows a certain level of intelligence. And organisations can sort of judge just how much intelligence is required to get different degrees. But does this justify the strange system we have where most people spend 3 years desperately avoiding work?

For me the most useful bit about university in terms of developing me for a career has been societies. These have developed my transferable skills (communication, teamwork, leadership etc.) It hasn’t really felt like my degree has improved me that much. I mean my approach to certain problems has improved. But the skill isn’t very transferable really. Perhaps other people have developed ways to solve problems that are transferable and I’m just doing badly. But it seems like university trains you for academia – which is of course what should be the case.

So why do so many companies require a degree nowadays? Is assessing candidates really that difficult? I know that generally when you have a go at a system you are supposed to come up with something better. And to be honest I’m not sure I can. Because to be fair something that is very useful about uni is that it gives you some more time to think about what career you want.

I guess the alternative system I’d advocate would involve graduate recruitment not being an absolute pile of ****. In particular this whole idea about career focus. Don’t get me wrong of course if someone is more certain they want to do a job then that is a good thing and means they should be at an advantage – but it’s such a small part of it. Especially for interns.

I think the system should be that it’s very normal to do a load of internships before you settle on your final career. I think that’s what I’ll do after I graduate if my year in auditing doesn’t go well. I think it makes sense for young people to really try out a variety of careers before choosing one. And as well as being good for them it would probably help the companies that hire them if when they finally feel settled they have a variety of experience behind them.

So that’s why I feel that this uni system is a load of rubbish. In fairness you could say that simply the fact that uni is great fun is a good enough reason for it to continue. But whatever. My point is that I just think it’s very ridiculous how everything seems to be geared to encouraging students to train as academics when very few want to do that (although in fairness some degrees are reasonably applied).

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