Is experience of life more important than a degree in a successful career?
Last year I wrote a piece for Trevelyan College’s 50th Anniversary and won the essay prize. Having just finished a Masters degree, I revisited the essay and figured it was a good time to publish it again.
“In your time at Durham, get an education not a degree”, declared the then Vice-Chancellor, Sir Kenneth Calman, at our matriculation in Durham Cathedral. This set the tone for our time at Durham: that both our formal education and informal life experiences mattered.
Our degrees offered the luxury of choice when defining our future careers and contributed significantly to our life experiences. Few current students will have “successful careers” in the traditional sense — they are unlikely to stay in the same role or even field for the duration of their working lives, unlikely to earn more than their parents in real terms, yet more likely to engage with social issues such as climate change, mass migrations or digital evolution.
To truly evaluate the importance of life experience versus a degree, a first step is to look at the end goal and elusive aspiration of a “successful career”. What is a successful career in the 21st century? If we judge the value of a career in monetary terms, then a degree has been advantageous. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2015, graduates can, on average, expect to earn £9,500 more a year than non-graduates. Added to the fiscal remuneration received by having obtained a degree, historically graduates also have enjoyed lower unemployment rates than non-graduates and as such, have been more protected from the recent shocks to the economy.
It is important to note that this trend may not continue. The young graduate population (under 30) earns less on average than those above 30 when compared to non-graduates. Combine this with the new tuition fee levels and a degree may become prohibitively expensive and reduce further the monetary incentive to obtain a degree.
But to judge success in a career by the amount of money earned over a lifetime is to ignore the myriad interpretations of success available to a modern global citizen. Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut, talks about leading a “net positive” life. And, “if you can’t be net positive, at least be net zero”. One of the few people to witness the magnitude of our whole planet from space, recommends contributing more than you consume and doing more for those less fortunate. If we value a career in terms of happiness, creativity and positive impact on others and the planet, to pick but a few other metrics, then does a degree aid success? For this, we must look at the value of a degree, the institution of the university and the choices it brings graduates.
A degree is still a luxury that many do not have access to. Despite the hype from New Labour’s widening access to higher education policy, experts doubt that half the UK’s population goes on to higher education, as is commonly believed. Instead, the estimates range from around 27 to 40%. This compares to 8% in the 1970’s and, whilst this shows an increase in tertiary learning, most of the UK’s population will never go to university and are reliant on life experience to get a job.
Interestingly, even those who are able to access the tertiary education system, do not necessarily end up in careers that stem directly from their chosen subjects. A quick trawl of former Trevelyanites reveals physicists working in finance, sociologists in I.T. and mathematicians who have become lawyers. It is worth acknowledging the crucial pre-requisites of a degree for careers in, for example, medicine or engineering. In Britain, at least, to access graduate jobs you need to have crossed the hurdle of the degree but the subject matter seems somewhat irrelevant.
Asking peers about the usefulness of their degree, most highlighted the life experiences rather than the specific knowledge gained from the academic programmes. Durham alumni often remark on the “Durham difference”, the willingness of even the stubbornest couch potato to represent their college in sport, the occasional karaoke star to participate in musicals and the most apathetic hermit to engage in college politics.
Surely this is what university should be; a community and a place to share ideas and gain life skills and experiences, rather than an in-depth knowledge of a narrow subject. More topically, are the subjects taught at university a foundation for future learning, or out-dated and archaic?
The notion of a single-track or ‘lifetime’ career is eroding and the average number of jobs held over a lifetime is now estimated at between 10–14 compared to only 4–5, a generation ago. For today’s Freshers, the careers available to them when they graduate may not even exist yet. The digital world is rapidly evolving and a standard syllabus written in September may be obsolete by the time of the summer exams.
Universities need to be relevant and applicable to set up future graduates for success. The agility of a university to adapt to new technologies and trends will distinguish the leaders. Otherwise the institutions become irrelevant and life experiences outside of these institutions will become preferential to future employers.
If we continue with the idea that a university is a free ideas space, an experimental lab, and a community of diverse people that enriches the life experiences of those who pass through the halls, then the value of the institution becomes more apparent.
We are the sum of our life experiences and a degree from such an institution adds richness to our lives. A degree demonstrates the ability to critically analyse, put forward arguments and deliver quality work. Universities are a proving ground, offering spaces to make mistakes and develop values and morals. Students can build strong networks of interesting people from different cultures and nationalities. To use a popular phrase, university teaches you “to adult”.
The intellectual tools sharpened over the course of a degree can be put to work in future situations. The ability to actively learn from experiences and the skill of learning how to learn can be invaluable throughout your life. And this is where I believe universities can excel. I believe there is a role for university throughout all stages of life. It should be easier to rotate in and out of business and academia and embrace the life experiences of mature students to continue on the journey of learning and sharing. A degree contributes to life experience, but this does not mean that life experience cannot contribute to a later degree.
So then, to answer the question of what is more important: life experience or a degree? Appreciating what a privilege it is to get an education at all, a university degree contributes to the tapestry of life experiences. It enhances our understanding of the world, broadens our horizons and allows us to explore options we wouldn’t have had otherwise. A degree gives you confidence. Aspiration. And most crucially, choice.
Being a graduate allows you choose the manner of your “successful career”. To be rich. To be happy. To be respected by your peers. To contribute to being a net positive. A degree facilitates flexibility in the workplace and opens doors to opportunities.
Did the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiment assist me with mending a generator in remote Mozambique? No. Did Dirac’s Equations teach me how to address foreign dignitaries? No. Did my degree help me get my first job? Yes. It gave me the freedom to acknowledge and accept the opportunities as they arose. My university education opened up numerous possibilities and is an integral part of the experiences that make me unique.
At the end of my university time at Durham, the then Chancellor, Bill Bryson, gave important life lessons to the graduating class. Firstly, he reminded us first to take a moment to remember that we are alive. Nothing quite like us has ever existed before or ever will again. And this makes us special. The second lesson: but not that special. “Don’t ever make the embarrassing unworthy mistake of thinking yourself more vital or significant or innately worthy than anyone else. You’re not”. The third lesson asked the freshly-minted graduates to be good. “To be more than good. Be compassionate, be kind. And particularly be kind to people who are worse off than you, which you will find is most people”. And finally, Bill asked the graduating students to be happy. “Really happy. More or less all the time. You have a million things to be happy about. You’ve been impeccably educated. You are bright and young and have wonderful prospects”.
Well said, Bill. This is the true meaning of success. Firstly, your life experiences contribute to your uniqueness as a human. Second and thirdly, if we achieve success to the detriment of others then it’s not success at all. We are extraordinarily privileged to have the choice of having had a degree from an institution such as Durham. The life experiences that shape and mould our futures are augmented by university and lead to the next chapters of our lives. Finally, whatever “career” or succession of opportunities arise, be happy in them. And if you can have a “successful career”, and be a “net positive” along the way, then well done. You’ve earned it.
