Blogs: Richard's job log: 3

Richard currently works in a Birmingham law firm, after a contemporary history degree. He’s thinking about a paralegal career, but also has media ambitions.

Degrees are tricky. You’ve no doubt figured this out yourself or alternatively, you’re in the process of finding out. Either way, I’m sure we are all probably in agreement. Degrees are tricky.

The application process to get into university can be long and tiresome, the exams stressful and, for some, the outcome disappointing. If you are lucky enough to get into university then you are in for at least three years of hard work and studying with a view to a shiny new qualification at the end (hopefully), a quite insane level of debt (very probably) and your very own graduate position (if you’re very lucky).

As it stands the only problem I can see with all this is as follows - unless you are specialising and studying medicine for example, the degree that you’re studying for or have just studied for is rather unlikely to land you that dream job. When I applied for university the second time round (I dropped out the first time) some kind of grasp of what I wanted to do with my life would have been useful, as it happens I had no idea what the long term plan was. I was going to university, I was going to enjoy it and I would worry about the rest of it once I had that bit of paper. Everything was fine. In my mind it didn’t matter about the job prospects or that it wasn’t a specialised degree, the important thing was that I was getting one.

I know a lot of fellow graduates that regret their choice of university course (NB it is never their university experience, always the course) and in many ways I am the same. I loved my contemporary history degree but in all honesty it was never going to get me a relevant career, at least not without following it up with a Masters course. Looking back I only really have myself to blame as I allowed myself to be talked out of a course that could potentially have led somewhere. I ended up taking what at the time looked like the safer option. I regret that pretty much every day.

Following my graduation ceremony I was unemployed for roughly three months before I ended up working for a property management company doing the exact same job I did before I went to university. That was pretty demoralising. While friends that didn’t go on to further and higher education were buying houses and setting themselves up for life I was getting a degree, a mountain of debt and absolutely nowhere.

So here we are a few years down the line and I am still trying to begin my career properly. A Masters degree would be nice but it would now be rather difficult to pull off, so it’s a matter of trying to maximise what I do have - which is a decent degree from a good university and that’s got to be worth something. Right?