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Actually, as those of you who have been to university will know, a good article or essay is incomplete, and entirely unworthy of merit, unless the title contains at least one colon.

So, here is the alternative title:

University: a busted flush?

Without wishing to re-cover old ground too much, I spent this morning thinking about a few things, as I await this afternoon’s phone call which will determine my financial stability over the next few months.

I’m getting a job.

‘See!’ you cry, ‘I knew it! You couldn’t even last six months!’

Not quite, because it isn’t actually a ‘job’ as such, insofar as I will not be an employee. Rather, I am to be working as a contractor: I’ll be officially self-employed (as opposed to simply unemployed). But enough of semantic argument, why did this make me think about university?

Two words: recruitment consultants. Whether they be in Human Resources, contractual ‘agents’ or any other two word phrase that you can think of to describe a person who is essentially a job marketer and diary organiser. These people hold the key to why I feel university is probably a cop-out and possibly in danger of being a massive waste of many people’s time and money. Quite a statement I know! So let me explain before you start to feel defensive about your own degree or lack of one.Job (or contract) hunting appears to be nothing more than a big numbers game. You’ve got to play percentages. You have to trust the Law of Averages. As long as your C.V. has the right things on it (i.e. fair school performance; a 2:1ish degree in anything; some spurious sporting captaincies) you’ll eventually get a job if it passes in front of enough of these Human Resource/recruitment consultant types. So you apply for jobs in a scatter-gun fashion, and eventually you get one.

Whilst I appreciate this is a bit of a caricature, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that this is too far from reality.

What this means, then, is that possessing a university degree is simply a box that needs to be ticked in order to prevent your application going in the bin. Surely this is the wrong way round?

But I’ll change tack for now, because thinking about recruitment consultants for any period of time makes me feel rather angry. I’ll simply ask one final rhetorical question on the matter: what is the point of asking someone to interview an applicant for a role they know nothing about: how can a person who knows nothing about a job discern the best applicant?

So, how did I get onto thoughts about university? Ah, yes, back to that. Basically, I was considering the malaise that everyone seems to experience when they eventually leave university, i.e. the point at which one realises that a decision actually has to be made.

This crunch time could have come at the end of their school life, and surely, for many, it should have done. Why does one not make the plunge and go straight into a career (one which could be obtained with or without a degree)? Firstly, it is for the above reason, most people believe, and not without justification, that without a degree they are unlikely to get a job – even one which really does not require a graduate’s level of knowledge(!) and ability(!) – as, without a degree, their application would be filed in the bin.

The next reason is the conclusion I reached after having a good mental stab at all the Human Resources types who have hindered my getting to where I want to be. That is: it is simply the easiest option to go to university, perhaps it is only the least bad option? I’ll leave that can of worms too, and concentrate on the former half of the sentence: is university an easy option?

Let’s consider this one carefully. I could easily have listed all of what I am about to say as independent reasons for why university might be described as a cop out, however, I am grouping them all under the following heading:

Reasons Why University is an Easy Option

• School is designed to gain you entry to university.

Above everything else, most modern schools have one goal: to funnel as many of us as possible into university so they can say “look at us! 99.99% of our pupils go to university!” This is their primary objective. Arguably, in a lot of schools this is their only objective.

Why does this make university an easy option? Because everyone around you, towards your schooling’s latter stages, is saying ‘have you applied yet?’ or ‘have you sent that form in?’ etc etc etc. It is easier under such circumstances simply to just hand the university application in, without considering an alternative. Indeed, in my school, there was no alternative proffered: if you’re bright, you simply must go to university, or you’ll be doing yourself a disservice.

• All your friends and family and want you to go

For varying reasons, most of which are pretty obvious, all of your friends and family want you to go to university. Perhaps it is because they ‘didn’t have the opportunity‘ or because they want you to ‘get a good job (see above).’ In the case of your friends, it may well be because they are just as unsure as you, and it is easier for them to justify what they are doing if you are too (see if you can grasp my twisted logic there!)?

It is far easier to simply let this tide of good feeling and support carry you off to Bedford to study media studies – even if you aren’t entirely sure it is for you – than it is to actually face the huge decision of what to do instead.

• The Government wants needs you to go

This is also indicated in the above schools example, but the government make it quite clear that everyone should have the opportunity to go to university: therefore it is a Good Thing. They even offer you money and support to do it. Hah! That’s a laugh, I know! But you are never quite aware of how the student loan won’t stretch to cover many of your expenditure until you actually get to university, by which time it is too late!

• Most of all, it puts off making THAT decision

You know the one I’m referring to by now. I’ve been talking about it the whole time really. And this is the crucial point. University is the easy option because the alternative is far more difficult.

The conveyor belt of primary school > secondary school > 6th form/college > university is seamless. It’s easy. You don’t even have to think at all. You do, however, if you want to get off it.

Those of us who didn’t get off the conveyor belt, for whatever reason, find that at the end of university, there is a new phase added, which goes something like this (though there are a couple of T-junctions if you’re lucky): University > Careers fair > Graduate job, OR, University > Further Study Fair > Masters / PhD etc. Brilliant, no thought required at all then, you don’t even have to make THAT decision, it is largely made for you.

But more and more people, me included, are finding themselves struggling at, or approaching, the end of university. The conveyor belt dumps them unceremoniously after uni, as they are not quite gifted enough, or so inclined, to pick up a graduate job or take the masters/PhD route. So what of them? They stumble aimlessly, like a rabbit in the headlights, stuck in a limbo between wanting to get a career for which they don’t feel overqualified, and not being a high enough achiever to get the career they want.

This phase in life reminds me a lot of The Crystal Maze. You may or may not (probably depending on whether you are from the UK) remember this game-show. Basically, The Crystal Maze involved a team of people taking turns to do ‘puzzles’ in order to get crystals.

My main recollection of the show is of a person going into a room with a table in the middle. On the table there would be a jigsaw/3-d puzzle/one of those steady-hand wire thingies. On the wall there would be a crystal, trapped behind a Perspex door. The person chosen to do this puzzle would walk around the table a few times holding their head while their team-mates looked in through the open windows. ‘I CAN’T SEE WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO’ they would finally shout, after a minute had ticked away.

At this point, all of the helpful team members would suddenly shout at once, in a massive, yet incomprehensible, group instruction, until eventually one could clearly pick out the Estuary English bellowing of the man who works in middle management ‘TRY PUTTING THE JIGSAW PIECES ON THE FLOOR!’ or the impatient wail of the woman from telesales ‘PICK UP THE JISAW PIECES AND MASH THEM INTO THE GLASS COVERING THE CRYSTAL.’ These ridiculous instructions would continue unabated while the poor helpless soul in the room paced about getting more and more red faced. After the three minute time limit the person in the room would finally give up, usually too late, and would be locked in the room*.

It is exactly the same at the end of university.

When you consider the raft of conflicting and often unhelpful advice that is handed out for something simple, like making a 6 piece jigsaw puzzle. Imagine, then, the bedlam created when you walk out of university clutching a degree, surrounded by all of your proud mentors, friends and family and suddenly shout ‘I CAN’T SEE WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO’ (this is usually done metaphorically).

Essentially, you don’t know what to do, and nobody else knows what the fuck is going on. Yet they give you a lot of irrelevant advice about it. This largely consists of what they would do ‘in your shoes.’

And don’t think I’m trying to get at people who don’t know what to do. Why else do you think I’ve essentially taken a sabbatical at the age of 23? I’m not self-effacing enough to say that I’m stupid for not having the first idea what my next decision should be. It’s not that easy.

And that’s my point. It ain’t.

So we put off this decision until the last possible moment (some people manage to avoid it forever) by going away to university. Does that make university a cop out? Very probably, for many people, yes, I’m afraid it does.

*This did not always happen, however, when it did, it was quite funny to see that the person trapped in the room would NEVER work out what he was “supposed to do”

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Other Resources:

Martin’s Rant about university