It’s almost a social expectation in modern society that after high school (or the American equivalent…) you must go to college or University. In England, to go to University (for world-wide readers this is generally 3-4 years from the age of 18/19) costs money, generally a lot money. But of course you come out at the end with a degree, woohoo!
But is studying necessary? Don’t get me wrong – life is all about learning, but is it essential to take a 4 year chunk out of your life for the benefit of a qualification? The other option is to go straight into work; you will start lower in the food chain but will be earning money instead of spending it, whilst still gaining experience.
Me first
At the time of writing this article I’m 19. I pretty much wasted 2 years at college studying subjects that haven’t seriously contributed to my current career path. Whilst at college I started studying web design in my spare time and balanced a part-time job at a local media company. Shortly after leaving college I left the media company and went traveling for a while, returning home at the end of 2007 to try my hand at freelancing and build up a portfolio.
University was seeming a less enticing proposition now I was earning off my own back. When, after a few months freelancing Manchester based digital agency Flame Digital got in touch looking for a new designer. To cut a long story short – I got the job, am loving it and no longer have any intentions of going to University. I’m think I’m learning far more by working in an environment among other professionals, working on big projects, expanding my skill set every day. I’ve chosen my path, but this isn’t the path for everyone.
Benefits of Studying
Despite my bias, I know that University is great. Most of my friends there are loving it, making plenty of new friends, learning and having fun. From what I can gather, some of the benefits of getting an education:
- Come out with a degree, diploma or some form of universally recognised qualification. Proof of your education, knowledge and probably guaranteed to land you a better role than those without one.
- Meet like-minded people, make new friends and obtain contacts for the future.
- Get away from home – learn some independence and life experience. University is a great excuse to get away from the parents and to start living your own life.
- Provides you with the opportunity to build a portfolio easily.
- More direct support and education. Some people need or desire direction, a helping hand provided by tutors. Reading books and blogs isn’t everyone’s cup of tea!
There’s undoubted benefits to a good education. But how does the other side of the coin fare?
Benefits of going straight to work
Looking at the new media & design industry, straight-to-work generally means getting your foot in the door at an agency at a very low level position, as either an intern, runner or junior and working your way up. It can seem like a more scary and demanding choice originally, but you may reap the rewards in the long term.
- Earning money from day 1.
- Working and interacting with experienced people in your industry.
- Learning by ‘osmosis’. When working in a creative environment you tend to naturally absorb knowledge from the people you work with.
- Get to work on real-life projects, real clients and build up a portfolio of real work.
- 3/4 years ahead of the game. If you work hard, the time you may have spent in University will instead be used to climb your way up the promotional ladder. Chances are you’ll be earning more, have a bigger portfolio and far more ‘real-world’ experience than those fresh out of education.
- Easier to keep up with current trends.
- You get a shiny business card!
All fun stuff.
The downsides?
I wouldn’t claim that either studying or working really demonstrate any major negatives. University costs money – but it’s money you’ll earn back with that handsome degree! It’s an investment. An investment that pays off with good education and a great experience. A downside of going straight to work is that most of your mates disappear to Uni, but everyone has to move on at some point.
What’s right for you
There isn’t really a debate. The choice is down to each individual. Both require a level of independence and a strong head. Both display great rewards and ensure a productive start in life, depending on how much your willing to put in – that is the essential point.
Regardless of which path you choose – you will only benefit from how much you put in. And it’s never too late to try something else, neither option is definite.
A few opinions
It’s the first time I’ve done this, but I decided to turn to Twitter to gather some other opinions from those far more experienced than myself, here’s a taste:
matthewknight:
“Go to Uni, but I’d say it’s as much for the life/social experience as it is for the knowledge. I did theoretical physics.”supersy:
“self-taught FTW. I did a placement last yr at an agency & found that to be more valuable than my course.”will_j:
“I guess Uni is useful for learning how to think and work, any practical skills you learn (in tech) will be old when you leave.”LucPestille:
“Personally uni was a waste – I think for media jobs, it’s about what you can do, not a piece of paper. 16 or 37, don’t care.”MarkJWeston:
“Be very careful! I’m about to grad – my course has done NOTHING for my web/new media skills. Too techy. Easy to teach yourself but a good degree with good content is well worth it – especially with a high grade! My uni has redesigned their content to be more applicable to current times – uni’s can be a bit slow on changing curriculums etc.”paulmsmith:
“Uni 4 me was about life lessons than technical ones. Pretty much self-taught, font tags, tables, etc still being taught at unis”
wiggy5:
“I’m earning more now than anyone I know who went to Uni, also mostly debt free as a result. Experience beats qualifications.”darrenturpin:
“What you demonstrably do is far more important than what you theoretically know. But I don’t regret my 3 years at Uni at all…”
Thanks to everyone for their comments.
The general opinion seems to be that, particularly for new media/design and development jobs, University can’t keep up and a self-taught approach is better. However, no-one seems to regret their time at University and a high value is placed on qualifications.
I will most likely be looking more into this topic in the future as it’s so widely debated and is growing ever more important in an age where there are so many resources online to teach yourself. Will the education system evolve quickly enough to adopt this? How different will media courses be in 5/10 years time? How will online and self-taught education evolve?
Questions for another day. Thanks for reading x
Nath, you’re the type of guy who can easily teach himself something, spot new paths to follow and generally get stuck in without much direction from anyone. Brilliant if that’s what you’re like, but uni helps you get used to that if you’re not so good at it.
You’d nail a degree with that kind of skill and mentality but, only if you picked the correct course with the correct content. Otherwise it becomes boring to study what you’re not interested in (obvious point). In the 3rd year there are many opportunities to base study around your interests but you still have to meet a curriculum at the end of the day. Curriculum being the main problem – I hear a lot of people saying they’re usually not up to scratch and I’ve experienced it being a bit behind!
The range of skills, determination and effort required to gain a decent degree (trust me 3rd year is fucking hard!) is a really strong point of getting a degree, but you’re practical skills from 2-3 years work must be better than someone whos done a one year placement. That’s is what matter in this industry!
You will notice though that the likes of Headscape (http://boagworld.com/news/headscape_are_hiring/) state that for a developer they are preferably looking for someone with a 1st or upper 2nd degree. Maybe degree’s are more important in more traditionally technical areas?
Can’t you wait until you’re 21 – see if the government would give you a grant? If you don’t like it, quit, and you wont waste thousands in the 1s year! Ha Ha!
I went to university and got my degree – did it help me become a good web developer, no but then I don’t think it’s always about that.
There’s life experience to be had both by going to university and by going straight to work – there’s no blanket rule to say one is better than the other because it’s different for different people.
Despite the fact that the majority of my degree course being awful I’d still go to uni if I could have my time over because it was such a happy time in my life. However, I probably would have studied something more interesting (to me) like Politics, History or Psychology and as opposed to reading Computer Science.
Since graduating, no web agency has asked about my degree and no interviewer has asked what grade I got – all anyone cared about was the experience I had.
I’ll expand a bit on my 140 character initial response; I think in this industry (and it definitely isn’t the case in others) it’s not essential that you have a degree. What’s more important is what you can actually produce.
This blog is a case in point, I had no idea you were only 19, I’d have guessed from the quality of your work that you’d worked in the industry for some time, whereas some of the stuff that gets sent to me from recruitment agencies from “highly qualified graduates” barely covers what I’ve been looking for, in terms of real-world production (not to say some aren’t excellent).
I’d love to know if any of the big name web designers (I’m thinking Pieters / Snook / Bennett-Chamberlain, those kind of guys) went to uni to study design (or specifically digital design) – I’m sure a lot of them did, but it wouldn’t surprise me one iota if some of sites we all drool over are produced by people who decided to dig in when they were 18/19 and just got on with getting better in a real-world environment.
When employers add “must be degree educated” to a job spec, what they mean is “won’t flake out after 6 months” – some of the most productive people I know have CVs that read better than the fiction section at Waterstones…
(That may all be an incoherent ramble.)
Web developent: Don’t need a degree. In fact my business (and many other US based agencies) frown upon degrees if they’re not attained via an online University. The reason for this being the fact that the web is so dynamic that those in the age and point in their lives to teach it are often teaching outdated tactics. I’ve experienced MANY developers fresh out of college with 10 year old practices (tables, old coding styles, no knowledge of frameworks or dynamics, etc).
As for design: I think CREATIVITY and artistic ability can be a natural talent or self taught, but I still think it’s important to learn the principles of design. It’s one thing to make “cool” or “cutting edge” websites.. it’s another entirely different process to make a client happy.
I agree to the rest as well.. web designing and creativity are not something u learn from univ.. and it is one industry which respects these traits more than a degree.. but this won’t be true for other professions..
Thanks for your comments about education I don’t want to sound to cynical but education can always be the path to freedom. For example when you work two mile underground extracting a mineral for the energy industry all you think about is when you are going to breath fresh air. After some time working in this environment you begin to value the real things in life like companionship, comrades and the willingness to learn new things. I was fortunate to be given the chance for higher eduction and I grabbed it with open hands and never looked back. Many years later I now know this was the right decision because once you get these bits of paper with letters after your name nobody can ever take them away. By eck, you young uns, you dont know ow lucky you ar!
I tried to study about ten years ago but that didn’t work out. When you’re young you don’t take things that serious I guess. Other things were more important. At least in my case.
After two years I left school and started to work. That lasted for five or six years. One moment I somehow wanted to try school again! Went pretty well for 1 year but at that point I also started my own company which went quite good.
That was the moment I really had to choose between work (in my own webdesign and graphics design company) or learn (for something completely different). I chose to go on with my company and till today I havn’t had any regret. In fact, I’m also learning every day too!
Besides my personal story I don’t think webdesign, the creative aspect as well as the technical aspect, can’t be learn easily at school. It’s more a ‘learning while working’ thing I guess.
Good topic!!
As you state in your post “…life is all about learning…”, (not just formal learning) a degree also opens up many doors, without any formal qualifications it might be hard to realize your dreams. In some countries it is perfectly alright to go out finding a job after collage and later return to school, for many people they then have a better understanding, learning capacity and not least motivation and more defined goals.
I think the right question would be “school or work?” if you stop learning then your risking your working. that means stopping to learn is being stagnant. finishing school with degree gives you a wider option whether in employment or in entrepreneurship.
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I bought my daughter a brand new car for her 18th birthday – but sometimes I insist she takes the bus.
“But I can get there just fine with the car!”
but its not just the destination – or even the journey – but the people you meet along the way (on the bus)
ensconced in your little steel and glass bubble, you zoom along in your daily travels, passing thousands of people and never actually meeting (or smelling) one. Our lives are the poorer for that lack of experience.
Its not what ‘college’ teaches you – it’s what ‘going to college’ teaches you – and there is a BIG difference.
Going to college you meet friends, bond, form alliances and networks – sure you do that now too in a way, but its not the same. I’ve referred (and been referred by) tons of friends ‘who knew me in college’
My only wish I suppose, is that I had done my degree in something else, maybe something you have to be taught in – like accounting or some shit like that instead of computers :lol taking to computers as I do like a fish to water, I would now have the benefit of a different discipline to work with and leverage my skills (since most programmers dont really understand account, and of course most accountants cant program for shit!)