Parents at me to get a degree

lcstress2012

I’m 24 and work as a team leader in a retail store. I progressed from sales assistant two years ago. I love retail and want to progress but my parents are at me to get a degree. I’ve done a level 6 in business management but didn’t like it. I’m just not academic and they think I’ll never be on a decent wage without a degree, but in retail I tell them that you can move up into management easily if your serious. Anyone else who didn’t go to college how did you end up and what job are you in now and what did your parents think? Thanks

LegacyUser

Tough one, I can see where they're coming from and the panic they probably feel with the emphasis on college etc today, but I can also sympathise with how you feel since it's really not something you want and you don't think you'd enjoy it.

Personally, I'd say do whatever it is you want to do. You have your job, stay in it and do well and try to move up. I know team leads and managers in local Penneys and McDonalds who finished their Leaving Cert and worked up from there and now doing just fine. Education and college will always be there, you are still young.

Work to live, you don't necessarily need a degree for **everything**, keep a good work ethic and determination.

Faith

Often, a degree is no guarantee of a good wage. I have a ridiculous amount of letters after my name but I’m currently earning a very average wage. Meanwhile, I know of someone who’s a manager in a large chain department store who’s making about 35% more than I am!

If you enjoy retail, and would like to progress in that field, then I’d say stick to your guns. Continuing professional development is always a good thing, and if you’re offered training through work then I’d definitely take it, but it doesn’t sound like you’re missing out on anything by not having a degree.

kob29

You'll have to persist with the explanation of how your retail career path doesn't require it and how you're not going to spend a huge amount of money (be specific about the cost of the fees for a part time degree) and time on a degree but maybe tell them you're looking into some short management and leadership modules part time, get them off your back.

eeguy

I'm not sure how correct you are in saying you don't need a degree for retail.

The larger, structured companies use your education as a metric when looking to promote to higher positions. You may think "well I have 5 years experience here" but someone with 3 years and a degree may beat you to a role.
Or you may be transferred to another store where your reputation means less and you're on the back foot for promotions and wage hikes.

Also bear in mind that if things go tits up in 5 or 10 years, the only thing you'll have on your CV is retail experience. There's been a few posts here from people who find themselves in that position and struggled for work.

If you're not looking for a degree then are there any training or courses offered through work?

Always keep in mind that if you're looking for a new job in 5 years time, what can you say about the past 5 years of work? What quantifiable achievements will you have that prove youre a better candidate for the job?

evolving_doors

Some managers do value qualifications, some don't. You could get lucky! But why not increase your chances?
For the moment forget about a degree but keep your toe in the water as regards professional development. Even if it's an easy weekend or evening course in something related. You can build up contacts and get good advice from impartial sources rather than hoping your immediate superior is going to mentor you all the way.
There's a few introductory legal courses out there that go with any job. Employment rights, contract issues etc. You don't necessairily have to sit a final exam to learn!

Tournament

Many degrees are worthless and exist only to generate profit for universities. Experience, and (even more importantly) contacts are what you need.

GreeBo

Tournament wrote: »

Many degrees are worthless and exist only to generate profit for universities. Experience, and (even more importantly) contacts are what you need.

That is not my experience at all in 20+ years of working and hiring.

ted1

Tournament wrote: »

Many degrees are worthless and exist only to generate profit for universities. Experience, and (even more importantly) contacts are what you need.

That’s far from true.

Tournament

GreeBo wrote: »

That is not my experience at all in 20+ years of working and hiring.

ted1 wrote: »

That’s far from true.

Doing a useless degree for the sake of it is worthless. If you have a career in mind then by all means study something that will lead you to it.

Doing is a degree just for the sake is silly.

eeguy

Tournament wrote: »

Doing a useless degree for the sake of it is worthless. If you have a career in mind then by all means study something that will lead you to it.

Doing is a degree just for the sake is silly.

Who's doing a degree for the sake of it? We all suggested doing a course (not necessarily a degree) relevant to what he wants to do.

Ursus Horribilis

Whether you like it or not, a degree is now the equivalent of the Leaving Cert when it comes to getting in the door of many workplaces. So from that perspective, they're not as worthless as some people seem to think they are.

In terms of moving up the career ladder, I think you're being naive if you think that you can continue progressing well without qualifications. It's inevitable that a day will come where you'll get passed over in favour of someone who has better qualifications than you. The bar gets higher as you move up the career ladder. Why do you think there are so many working people out there who continue to do part-time courses in their spare time?

If you don't want to do a degree that's fine. I agree with the others who have advised you to look into other courses related to your job. The more of that stuff you have on your CV the better.

ted1

Tournament wrote: »

GreeBo wrote: »

That is not my experience at all in 20+ years of working and hiring.

ted1 wrote: »

That’s far from true.

Doing a useless degree for the sake of it is worthless. If you have a career in mind then by all means study something that will lead you to it.

Doing is a degree just for the sake is silly.

What universities profit from people doing degrees ?

lsjmhar

lcstress2012 wrote:

I’m 24 and work as a team leader in a retail store. I progressed from sales assistant two years ago. I love retail and want to progress but my parents are at me to get a degree. I’ve done a level 6 in business management but didn’t like it. I’m just not academic and they think I’ll never be on a decent wage without a degree, but in retail I tell them that you can move up into management easily if your serious. Anyone else who didn’t go to college how did you end up and what job are you in now and what did your parents think? Thanks

Get an Open University degree. Work and study part time. U can work from cert to diploma to degree. That might work!

Eric Cartman

ted1 wrote: »

What universities profit from people doing degrees ?

to be fair , there are some basically useless degrees, a degree in anthropology, gender studies etc... would actually probably hurt you, If I saw that on a CV id think 'piss taker'



OP , keep going and get as high up the ladder as you can, if you manage to get to a management level , try persuade your employer to pay for an MBA in the evening (you can get in with work experience of 8+ years in leu of a degree) and that will stand you far more than just a degree.

its not as essential as people think , I got under 400 points in the leaving, failed maths, have no other qualifications but run a business that generates profits in 6 figures. The guy who makes my coffee every morning has a masters in journalism.

lsjmhar

Do a business management degree in open university. Go at Ur own pace.

ChikiChiki

Work Experience is much more valuable than a degree in todays world. Companies have begun to latch onto this is the last few years, that the best talent doesn't need to have a degree. If you like retail so much keep doing what your doing obviously very well in my opinion and focus your energy on that. A couple of lighter professional development courses that will add educational qualifications to your CV and enhance your chances of promotion in you retail career would be the best way to go.

With all the learning resources available online, the changing of the way we work,and the fact people may have multiple careers across different industries nowadays I think degrees are becoming a thing of the past. I have an Accounting and Finance one myself but would have done just fine without it! Online certificates and learning in my own time at my own pace have been real drivers of my career.

GreeBo

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Work Experience is much more valuable than a degree in todays world. Companies have begun to latch onto this is the last few years, that the best talent doesn't need to have a degree. If you like retail so much keep doing what your doing obviously very well in my opinion and focus your energy on that. A couple of lighter professional development courses that will add educational qualifications to your CV and enhance your chances of promotion in you retail career would be the best way to go.

With all the learning resources available online, the changing of the way we work,and the fact people may have multiple careers across different industries nowadays I think degrees are becoming a thing of the past. I have an Accounting and Finance one myself but would have done just fine without it! Online certificates and learning in my own time at my own pace have been real drivers of my career.

I'm not sure what companies you refer to in your above statement but in my experience, any professional company isnt going to take you on in anything other than a junior role without a degree. Even at that you will need to be lucky and probably know someone due to the large number of applicants who will have said degree or more.

For example, best of luck getting an interview with any of the Big 4 in Ireland without a degree. They won't be impressed by your online cert anymore than they will by my online licence to perform a marriage.

Tom Mann Centuria

You're 24 OP, you are old enough now to politely listen to your parents and politely ignore them if you're happy. See how you get on with career progression without a degree if you want, the option for further education doesn't magically disappear as you get older, so you can always go for it then if you feel you need to.

Best of luck.

C3PO

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Work Experience is much more valuable than a degree in todays world. Companies have begun to latch onto this is the last few years, that the best talent doesn't need to have a degree. If you like retail so much keep doing what your doing obviously very well in my opinion and focus your energy on that. A couple of lighter professional development courses that will add educational qualifications to your CV and enhance your chances of promotion in you retail career would be the best way to go.

With all the learning resources available online, the changing of the way we work,and the fact people may have multiple careers across different industries nowadays I think degrees are becoming a thing of the past. I have an Accounting and Finance one myself but would have done just fine without it! Online certificates and learning in my own time at my own pace have been real drivers of my career.

Just not true!
I work for a company where nobody will now be employed without a minimum 2.2 degree even for basic administrative roles and this is the norm in our industry!

shesty

It's not essential, but it's about giving yourself options.

I am guessing you were finishing up school in 2010/2011, when the jobs market crashed??I can tell you now, I have a degree (and I had good experience then too) and when things went bad, you couldn't get past the HR email address for jobs without a min 2.2/2.1 degree in every industry.If you had no degree tbh, your hope of a job was almost non-existent.

It's about future-proofing yourself and leaving yourself options.And the other thing is, you will are most likely to end up doing a qualification at some point along the line anyway, so to my mind it would be better to do it now, than in ten years time.But aim for something that relates to your career choice but gives you some good options too, in case you should need to change industry.24 is really young to be honest, you have a good 40 years of work ahead of you and you are likely to change career a couple times.So the more you can put on your CV the better.

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C3PO

....... wrote: »

Better to have options imo. If youve already got level 6 then you might be able to use the credit against a degree and get one in just a couple of years or so part time.

That is exactly the way it works! The normal progression is 2 years part time to go from Level 6 to a Level 7 Bachelor Ordinary Level degree and then a further 2 years if you wanted to go to a Level 8 Honours degree. There are many colleges offering these part time courses and some offering online degrees (DIT Sligo for example) where you can study from home.

ChikiChiki

GreeBo wrote: »

I'm not sure what companies you refer to in your above statement but in my experience, any professional company isnt going to take you on in anything other than a junior role without a degree. Even at that you will need to be lucky and probably know someone due to the large number of applicants who will have said degree or more.

For example, best of luck getting an interview with any of the Big 4 in Ireland without a degree. They won't be impressed by your online cert anymore than they will by my online licence to perform a marriage.

Disagree, I think experience and achievements that you back up on your CV trumps a degree. And I have Big 4 on my CV, where some colleagues I worked with were hired on experience and ability to deliver alone without degrees. Fair enough if your a grad, yeah a degree is vital but not an experienced hire. The world is changing fast as we head towards more automation, a lot of degrees are going to be rendered useless fairly quickly, accounting included!

Companies that require you to have a degree are stuck in the past especially for admin roles.

Regardless, thats just my opinion based on my own experiences so good luck OP whatever you do.

evolving_doors

Eric Cartman wrote: »

to be fair , there are some basically useless degrees, a degree in anthropology, gender studies etc... would actually probably hurt you, If I saw that on a CV id think 'piss taker'



OP , keep going and get as high up the ladder as you can, if you manage to get to a management level , try persuade your employer to pay for an MBA in the evening (you can get in with work experience of 8+ years in leu of a degree) and that will stand you far more than just a degree.

its not as essential as people think , I got under 400 points in the leaving, failed maths, have no other qualifications but run a business that generates profits in 6 figures. The guy who makes my coffee every morning has a masters in journalism.

False

https://www.contriber.com/genevieve-bell-guides-technology-innovation-at-intel/

duffman13

OP - slightly different background but i got my degree in Business management around 5 years ago. Working in retail at the moment as a senior manager on what I would deem a very good salary for the industry. A degree particularly in retail can help project you ahead of the competition. It made a relatively big difference to my career but particularly my salary.

The other side of the coin is your 24, I've been in retail about 5 years all in and it becomes sapping and tiring, weekend work and different shifts are painful after a while and tbh I'll be jumping ship in the next 6 months. If i didnt have the degree my next move wouldn't be possible as most employers seem to expect a degree as a minimum. Do it in something you enjoy and is relevant to your future

splinter65

Just say “please leave it. I’m not interested right now in getting a degree. There really is no point in pursuing this with me. I don’t want to fallout with ye, but I’m getting quite stressed with this subject. I know your only saying it for my own good, and I appreciate that but I’ll have to insist that this subject is closed.”

The_Honeybadger

ChikiChiki wrote: »

Disagree, I think experience and achievements that you back up on your CV trumps a degree. And I have Big 4 on my CV, where some colleagues I worked with were hired on experience and ability to deliver alone without degrees. Fair enough if your a grad, yeah a degree is vital but not an experienced hire. The world is changing fast as we head towards more automation, a lot of degrees are going to be rendered useless fairly quickly, accounting included!

Companies that require you to have a degree are stuck in the past especially for admin roles.

Regardless, thats just my opinion based on my own experiences so good luck OP whatever you do.

Education opens doors and roles are becoming more specialised in bigger organisations, I think stories of people grafting their way to the boardroom without a formal education are going to become rarer in the future. It’s true that there are many people out there in senior roles who have no degree but that’s a legacy of a bygone time, it will be much harder for todays generation to work their way in to those types of senior roles, they probably won’t get the opportunity to gain the relevant experience in the first place without an education. There will be the odd exception of course.

I think in the OP’s case perhaps you should stand your ground for now as it doesn’t sound like you want to go to college. Work away for now but keep college on the to do list, you can always study part time while you work if you find a course that you are interested in. Some companies will cover certain course fees too if they are related to your work so see if your employer might support you?

jethrothe2nd

I wouldn't advocate getting a degree for the sake of it, but I do think you will quickly reach a natural ceiling in terms of progression and salary without one. It's not impossible to build a career without a degree, I've done it. But that was back in the day when a Leaving Cert was enough to get you in the door. Nowadays a degree is really the most basic requisite.

Work experience and learning on the job is massively valuable, but there will be people coming behind you that have all that and the academic qualifications as well, and they will swiftly overtake you.

I would strongly recommend having a serious think about what you want long term from a career perspective and then start looking at what qualifications will help you get there. Do what you have an interest in, not to tick a box.

At 24 I'd take the long view and get that degree out of the way asap. You may not see it at 24 but that piece of paper, and better ones, will give you an edge at some point (s) in the future. 3/4 years will fly, anyway.

baby and crumble

Obviously if you like retail and are doing well with it, nobody here is going to tell you "go and get an arts or science degree" just to have a degree, that's pointless.

(I do take issue with people who say arts degrees are pointless/for 'piss-takers' as a blanket statement. In my sector a degree in gender studies would be looked on very favourably).

I do agree with others though that eventually, trying to climb the promotions ladder without a formal 3rd level qualification will be difficult. I have a friend who's currently doing the Lidl sponsored degree course, and it seems great. It's tough but it's very practical and focussed; I'd say that would suit you better, given your experience and preferences.

The OU is a well-respected university, not all 'online courses' are seen as pointless from employers, the idea of gaining one from the OU or the likes of TCD/UCD/UCC etc whilst also working not only shows a bit of enthusiasm but also it highlights you can work to deadlines, under pressure, while juggling multiple reponsibilties.

never_mind

OP, I will give you my 2 cents if that is OK though there is some solid advice above and I will undoubtedly repeat some of it.

First of all, it's true: you do not need a degree to have a happy, fulfilled life working in retail. There are countless non-academic pathways to careers and this is one of them. If you truly enjoy retail and see yourself maybe even owning a shop in the future than all the power to you; you have found something you enjoy and not many 24 year olds can say that.

However, and it's a big however, 'settling' for one thing at your age is a bit narrow-minded. I can completely understand where your parents are coming from. Going to college and studying arts isn't just about the academics; it's about exploring your own interests and getting to know different people. Have a level 8 degree opens up doors to other careers and possibilities. You also get to have fun for 3 years and just enjoy yourself and not worry about work or earning money. You are missing out on an incredibly enjoyable experience.

It's up to you, as a 24 year old, but you should really consider things from all angles and talk to friends who have gone to college!

Airyfairy12

I have a degree and my parents did nothing but begrudge and belittle my achievements. Theyre off the mindset that you leave school and walk into a job or do an apprenticeship. They decided before I finished school that I was going to be hairdresser, - the week I finished school my mother got me a job in a hairdressers sweeping floors. I went home everyday and cried as I hated it so much. I could have listened to them and took their negative attitudes on board, but I didnt and now im happier for it.
If college isnt for you, thats fine. dont do it to please someone else. You dont have to explain your choices to anyone.
College will always be there, if you decide in 5, 15 or 20 years that its something you want to try, the option will be there. For now stick to your guns, you know whats best for yourself.

charlietheminxx

Hey OP, I would have been in a similar mindset at your age. I tried university but the course wasn’t right for me, I’m a practical person and like yourself, didn’t consider myself academic, so I got a certificate course and went about working my way up in jobs. 2 years ago, I found myself in a position where I was planning to find a new job and I was met with a lot of barriers. There were jobs I could have done in my sleep that still wanted someone with a degree. That was when I decided to do a degree part time to open up some extra opportunities for myself. I didn’t have to do a full 4 year course as I got into a “top-up” degree programme based on my experience (recognition of prior learning).

It’s very hard to work full time and study part time but it’s what was right for me and I’ll be finished in August at the age of 31. I’m not saying that this would be for everyone but maybe explain to your parents that the option will always be there for you to study as and when you feel it’s right for you and will benefit your career. I know I wouldn’t have been interested enough to commit fully to this until now, you can only do it for yourself.

Good luck!