It certainly isn’t for everyone, but I found it an eye opening experience.
University worked for me. I did a course in transport studies. The industrial placement year created an opportunity to get into a role I wouldn’t otherwise have had an opportunity to do. I since graduated, rejoined the organisation after a summer of freedom and have had a career with them ever since.
One benefit I found from university was mixing with people from different backgrounds - cultures, social classes etc. I’m from a working class background, raised in social housing on little more than the bare necessities and one of the first in the family to complete university. Mixing with people from other cultures, I realised that they were at an advantage because of the way their families and prior places of education primed them for the process of career building and later, financial stability. There are reasons why some people walk straight into £35k graduate roles with a lucrative career ahead. Some people are at an advantage because they have the means to access the opportunities they seek. Having a base in London for example gives access to certain opportunities, but it doesn’t come cheap.
Without knowledge of opportunity, people might not necessarily realise how to make the most of the system. From the first year, some people are quietly attending experience days, internships, summer work experience placements and programmes. They’re building their CVs and social networks which put them in a very strong position by the end of the degree. Especially if they’re decisive on the direction they want to go in.
For those who want to go into senior roles, graduate schemes are a springboard for the right people. If the option is available to get on one then taking it may well prove to be a shortcut to doing so. Over the last 10 years I have watched how things work and the people who rise the fastest change roles upwards frequently, amassing a network along the way.
As for university itself, I started in 2011. Freshers was a crazy experience which had to be done. The course was great, met some wonderful people I’m still in touch with and had many unforgettable times. That said, despite living on campus I never really got into it with societies and the like. I commuted from university to London every weekend because I had no financial support beyond the loan and grant so had to work to pay for the accommodation I was in and small comforts.
Unfortunately for ATOC and East Midlands Trains, they spent the best part of three academic years trying to keep on top of the way I used the rules they published to legitimately reduce the cost of that commute. Which ranged from split ticketing, to making the most of routes unexpectedly permitted by the Routeing Guide, to use of distant “half price SVR” promos, to decimating the cost of peak travel by identifying “supreme value for money” off peak tickets, to stockpiling Super Off Peak tickets that were in the ticketing system at 10% of the market rate (with railcard discount applied to bring it down further). The powers that be devoted resource to shut down the validity and availability of every last one of those routes. This game of cat and mouse ended when I found a legal way to reduce the cost of travelling on the MML to a nice round figure of 0.
I wrote a dissertation on the reliability of night buses but in hindsight I wish I wrote about ticketing or the world of rail replacement services.
Those London based jobs I did were all transport related and I believe they helped to build my CV when the time came to find a career in the final year.
The experience I have means I’ve been able to start my own transport business. Although that doesn’t require a degree, I attribute my time at university to creating the opportunities to get the experience to get to this point.