LEAVING CERT: Seven A1s but Brian feels chained to his degree
IN the past, education and job-seeking were not necessarily connected. To work in academia, of course, you would have to pursue education to the highest level possible. However, for competence in most jobs, a university degree is not required, and so there would have been no need to go further than second level.
That is as true today as it ever was; and yet the way that we relate education and job-seeking has. It is now drilled into young people that if they ever hope to have good employment prospects, they absolutely must succeed in academia. The two things are considered to be irrevocably intertwined.
I achieved seven A1s in my Leaving Certificate. I received a scholarship to attend university from the All Ireland Scholarship fund, and I earned a place on a physics course in the University of Edinburgh.
If you were to believe the hype around Leaving Certificate results and academic achievement in general, you might think that I was set up for life. Sadly the idealistic image that teachers and politicians would like us to swallow is nothing short of farcical.
Our system pressures teenagers, who have little to no experience outside the walls of their local classroom, into choosing their lifelong vocations before they even know themselves. As a result I find myself two years into a physics course, finally sure that I want to pursue a career in journalism. If I had been given a little wiggle room of a couple of years to work, travel, and understand myself better, I might well have made a better choice.
Because of the strict rules imposed by grant and scholarship authorities, I am virtually chained to this degree. If I change now, or take a year out, I will almost certainly lose all of my funding. I feel unbearable amounts of pressure to use the gift of a scholarship that I always hoped I would get; and yet, if I do so, I consign myself to two more years of misery.
I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am afraid to throw away my funding and the work I’ve already put in by leaving. I’m also afraid to stay because the prospect of studying this subject any longer is painful and I fear that my degree result will not justify all the suffering.
What went wrong? The systems that are put in place to “help” us come with caveats, that ultimately end up being shackles. Society is putting so much pressure on students to become employable that we cannot make clear decisions.
We’re supposed to work ourselves to the bone for two years to get good results, while simultaneously taking time to reflect on what we want for our lives. It is an impossible task. It affords a very small window to make a decision about your life, and if you miss that window, then tough.
There’s no way that I can get more funding now that I’ve changed my mind about what I want to do. My opportunity has passed.
I am ultimately left disempowered and with very few choices. No matter what I do, I lose out. I feel like I am being punished. Despite all my hard work, I am left out in the cold because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18. It doesn’t seem such a huge crime, does it?
Meanwhile, I cannot even get a simple summer job. I find myself completely unemployable. Again, if you were to believe the line that teachers and politicians feed us, I should be in a perfect position: I have endless voluntary experience, I’ve travelled around the world on charity work, and a more or less flawless academic record.
It all counts for nothing at the end of the day. Our employers have engaged themselves in a vicious cycle of upskilling from which they cannot escape. Due to rising education standards, degree courses are now accessible to anyone.
Employers use education to distinguish between prospective employees, and it is now the norm to be asked for a degree when applying to any job. Everyone feels compelled to pursue education regardless of whether they have any interest in their subject or not; they get a degree simply to have a degree.
It doesn’t even matter what is written on the piece of paper anymore, as long as you have the piece of paper.
This cycle is self-reinforcing; now that we’ve raised the bar, soon it will be the norm to have a master’s, and then a PhD. It seems laughable that you would need to have a PhD to get a receptionist job or something of that ilk, and yet that is what is looming in the future.
Our employment sector has misappropriated education entirely. Universities are now machines, churning out graduates indiscriminately. Education is devalued and has become meaningless; we go to university not to learn but to pass tests to convince employers we are competent.
As a result of all this, I find myself — again — with nowhere to go. I have nothing without a university degree. Despite the fact that I have spent years proving my academic competence, it means nothing unless I continue to do so for another pre- ordained number of years. It is soul-destroying.
I played the game as it was supposed to be played. I worked myself hard for the Leaving Certificate, believing it would set me up for life. At the end of the day, it is only a stepping stone. My results count for nothing on their own.
The education system brainwashes students into believing that Leaving Certificate is the be all and end all.
If you do well in this, then you’re set up for life. If you’re struggling with it, then it’s your fault that you’re stressed, that you’re unemployable, that you’re disadvantaged.
I did everything right but it got me nowhere in the end.
The Department of Education paints a rosy picture of high-achieving students realising their potential. Lower-achieving students are expected to believe that their lack of fulfilment is their fault.
To those students, I say it is not your fault, but the fault of the system. This system has been continually accused of catering only to high-achieving students and selling lower-achieving students short. Let me tell you now that is a generous criticism.
This system is stacked against everybody.
This system sells everybody short.
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