[Closed] If you could go back to university and do it all again what would you do and why

if I went back to uni I wouldnt go to study for a career. Already did that and it's a fine life, but next time Id wish I was a proper mathematician.

Science because I was good at it rather than computing because I wanted a job out of it

i wouldn't go to university

I wish I'd worked harder at shagging and philandering, would try to put that right second time round.

Srsly - I ended up staying in academia and am very happy with my chosen field (chemistry). I'm sometimes envious of younger fields, though - organic chemistry is 170 years old and it's very very hard to do the type of genre-defining work you can do in younger disciplines.

There's a converse argument to that which I won't bore anyone with, but means I'm pretty satisfied with working in such a venerable area.

I wouldn't bother. There's no way on earth the wages in my industry would make it worthwhile taking on that kind of debt.

There are surely less expensive ways nowadays to spend a couple of years off your tits

i'd do it 10 years previously instead of waiting until i was in my late 20's

but i'd still do geology

If you could go [b]back[/b] to university and do it all again

Stoner - Member
if I went back to uni I wouldnt go to study for a career. Already did that and it's a fine life, but next time Id wish I was a proper mathematician.

That's exactly what I want my kids to think when their time to make choices comes. It seems to me that if you study for its own sake, the work - whatever the discipline - will come.

Students often ask me what they can do having studied history/philosophy/theology/mathematics, and the answer is both 'nothing' and 'anyting', because all are profoundly enhancing, and none lead to specific careers.

In any case, while I appreciate what I did study as an undergraduate, I think I wouldn't have minded studying law... NOT for a career in it, but because I love it as a human study.

I've never looked at university as part of a career path.

As a serial starter, but not finisher, of degrees I'd be happy just to graduate, rather than continue to build on my random collection of first year papers.

Oh tricky, I'd do the same but make better career choices and not go for the first job I was offered.

Maybe use spell check on my dissertation so I could have got a first instead of a run-of the mill 2.1 😮

Uni was a blast but I wish I'd ridden more and smoked less 'woodbines'.

I didn't go to university and I can't see why I'd change that.

It seems to me that if you study for its own sake, the work - whatever the discipline - will come

I'd have joined the navy as a nurse. Now I'd be doing the things I wanted to do, rather than making do.

When I was 13 I loved maps, from there I decided I wanted to be a cartographer i.e. a chartered surveyor. So I picked my GCSEs and my A Levels to get me to a course that led to Chartered Surveying. Im happy with my choices, although I dont work in maps, I learnt a sufficient blend of knowledge in my field, skills in my field and wider skills to satisfy my needs and desires.

never looked at university as part of a career path.

Agreed.

With hindsight, more variety would have been a good idea. There's more to life than blondes. 😉

Is there actually any point in going to uni & getting a degree? If there is, then in what? It obviously doesnt need to be in what you eventually end up doing (in lots of cases) as my son can testify although if you want to be a scientist it's probably not much use having a degree in knitwear design.
Me, i would've stayed with the local council or joined the RAF or navy.

My biggest regret is choosing to spend thursday, friday and saturday nights in the library rather than in the union or other student clubs. I was stupid enough to think it would always be easy to hook up with attractive, intelligent women in their late teens / early 20s 🙁

I read Archaeology and Anthropology (BA & MA), and loved every minute of it. I knew it was never going to turn into a career, but I'd do it all again.

Now work for the NHS, although I sometimes ponder becoming a university librarian.

@D0NK

D0NK - Member

Thought education for educations sake was frowned upon by a lot of people now... Unfortunately.

I think you are right, but that this is precisely the problem.

This society will never have a caste of creative, free thinkers if its population studies only to become economic units.

I would rather have one my kids study Classics and end up working as a bike mechanic than to have them obsessing over their UCAS application to read 'museum curatorship' or some such nonsense just because they think that by reading *'museum curatorship' will somehow get them a job.

*Not that there would be any problem with 'museum curatorship' for someone who only wanted to be a museum curator (not that there is such a course). Having said that, I would think that someone who read 'museum curatorship' alone would be at a disadvantage when compared to an academically-sound Classicist who happened to move into curatorship. If you know what I mean.

Probably Mech Eng or Computer Science.

I would rather have one my kids study Classics and end up working as a bike mechanic than to have them obsessing over their UCAS application to read 'museum curatorship' or some such nonsense just because they think that by reading *'museum curatorship' will somehow get them a job.

*Not that there would be any problem with 'museum curatorship' for someone who only wanted to be a museum curator (not that there is such a course). Having said that, I would think that someone who read 'museum curatorship' alone would be at a disadvantage when compared to an academically-sound Classicist who happened to move into curatorship. If you know what I mean.

I've really enjoyed reading that. 😆

[i]I wish I'd worked harder at shagging and philandering, would try to put that right second time round.[/i]
This, and this alone. Trying to cling onto a failing relationship during the best 5 years of your life for 'rat up a drainpipe' action = FAIL. 18 months of 60 well and truly wasted.

Shag more and work harder so I could have become a bonus earning city trader - so by now I would have retired 10 years ago.

museum curator (not that there is such a course)

i know some one with a masters in that.

I presume a masters in that would regularly enable you to ask 'would you like fries with that?'

I would (try to) go to medical school. I would love to have been a doctor, but it was never really discussed whilst I was at school and there didn't seem to be anybody that I knew going into medicine.

Otherwise I think I may avoid central London and head for somewhere with more outdoor stuff to do.

i wouldnt bother. i would get an apprenticeship in something useful instead, either toolmaker, or a building trade.

Probably medicine. But then again I haven't totally ruled a conversion course out for when I finish the current course.

@Binners

Unlikely. I watch the academic classifieds all the time, and there is substantial demand for museum curators - for both art and history museums.

I'd do something easier with more girls on the course, I had to search for them in bars instead which involved drinking and general merriment which is detrimental to your grades.

I'm happy enough where I ended up but I really did waste a lot of time at uni. Time again I'd do some work.

Joining Glasgow OTC was one of the best decisions of my life though. It was like a rugby club with guns and girls......and we got paid.

Philosophy, like I wanted to do originally but was persuaded out of.

Something easier than Mech Eng.

I'm not an engineer now so why bother with [s]all the 9am lectures[/s] feeling guilty about missing all the 9am lectures and [s]rock hard maths exams[/s] being stressed about failing all of the rock hard maths exams. 😳

No way would I consider not going though. Uni is much more than a path to a career and even though my job has nothing to do with my degree I still use knowledge I acquired at uni every day.

Dentistry, obvious reasons.

Saying that i do enjoy my job.....

I just dont get that well paid!!

PPE

Studying straight Economics was too mathematical/theoretical and less effective if one ignores the political and philosophical contexts within which all economic decisions are made in reality.

Otherwise, it was a brilliant experience. Would I pay £9k today to do the same? Good question, probably yes but I would expect more 1-o-1 time and effective tutoring for the fees.

Something easier than Elec Eng 🙂 - exactly the same result jfletch.

Going to encourage my children to do something they are 100% interested in studying. I think most employers look for a grade rather than a subject these days. I'd love to hae done something like astrophysics, but my humble upbringing hammered the 'get a job' mentality in so hard I didn't even think for 5 minutes.

I'd drink less and not start smoking. I'd also have not chosen to do Biochemistry at a place that three of my friends were going to, but go for a course that had more potential in the outside world.

I sometimes think that doing Industrial Chemistry at Hull would have been a better choice in the long run.

Thinking about it, I probably should have done Comp Sci, but showed no aptitude for it back then.

Or joined the Army straight after...

Prob Medecine.

I'd probably do an engineering subject so i could be smug about how hard my degree was.

(Actually, that's not fair - architects are the worst for swearing they work harder than anyone else at uni)

I got a reasonable result 2:1 and Im doing alright. So I dont think I'd work harder. I'd have probably to work twice as hard to get a first.

Id probably say spend slightly less time drinking/counterstrike and more time cycling/playing footy.

id probably have become some kind of mechanic having not gone to uni

something to keep me out of the office.

ive landed on my feet with a good job that varies office time and workshop time and field work off the back of a mechanical engineering degree but it was a chode and i very nearly failed my final set of exams - lucky the one i did fail i got a subsidised pass as i failed it so horrendously and passed all my others with high grades + got a high grade in my honours project and my course works for the course so the one i failed they took me in and had a chat and decided id just choked on the day !

I don’t think I would like to go back. I had a good laugh there don’t get me wrong. Perhaps to good. I went to basically avoid getting a job. I did a subject that required quite a lot of commitment and I found it quite difficult. I ended up getting chucked out, not for anything cool just for doing no work and failing. Im not really cut out for academic life!

I was pretty limited in choices when I went to Polytechnic, there were only 2 degree courses in photography in the country where I could get a grant and no local BTech options close enough to home.

I'd liked to have done a more practical course but I ended up in a job I loved for 7 years from it and that led to the job I've been doing for the last 16 years.