OT: IT Professional in this group

No, I would give the advice to get an apprenticeship straight out of school at 16 and then go on to become an electrician, plumber or whatever. Work for someone for a few years while you live with your folks if possible, refining your skills and saving your money and then start your own business.

I wish I'd have done that instead of listening to my parents and going to uni...

Speak for youself

I knew a young payne once, he was twisted too, :)

Really ?

Didn't you find Uni to be one of the best times of your life ? I had LOTS AND LOTS of fun there - I was very sad to leave after the three years :(

Round where I live, a trade is likely to give you as good as, if not much better earning potential than a degree.

There are too many degree qualified telephone sanitizers, hairdressers and management consultants and not enough plumbers, joiners, plasterers and slaters about in my opinion. (c:

Going back to the original subject, I know people with IT jobs and Computing degrees that nearly earn as much as the trolley boy at my local supermarket.

Douglas

Me too, but it was 10 years ago, job prospects in IT were better than today and I didn't come out sadled with £20K of debt.

GADDAMMIT!!!! If you're able to get into uni, do it. If you went on holiday for 3-4 years, you would find £20,000 quite a bargain. It's well worth it, obviously a lot more worth it back in the day when you didn't have the debt thing.

Anyway, you can become a workie straight from school, you might be earning decent wonga, but there's a depth, an understanding, that is lacking in people who haven't "done" uni, the same goes for those who lived with their parents while going to uni.

There's more to life than wonga, although it's sometimes hard to believe it, when it seems that all your wonga is accounted for, just to provide you with basic living and transport.

I was referring to actually being at University, not what you do afterwards.

It's REALLY REALLY good fun !

If I had my time again, there's no earning-potential that would make me NOT go to University...

All of which is a small price to pay. If I were 18 again right now, I'd go to Uni again, no matter what the debts/prospects were - it was great !

But you have to find something you're at least vaguely interested in or it's a big pain in the arse.

Agreed - but clearly there's no shortage of courses. Shouldn't be a problem finding something you like ?

I thought that, and my course was quite a tough one to get on to, so I felt lucky to be there. But even from the beginning, I had doubts as to whether it was really for me, but I stuck at it, as I knew I was lucky to be there, and tried to make it work. I ended up leaving my course half way through the 2nd year, having decided I'd wasted enough time on something I really didn't want to do. Plus I had a million and one plans brewing in the back of my mind (none of which I've actually got around to doing yet, but it won't be long.....), so it's not like I had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life.

I had a good time at uni in some respects, but a lot of the time I was depressed that I was wasting my time there, and didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have done - but I still made quite a few good friends there, most of whom I'm still in touch with now, and that's the important thing.

Peter

-- "The humble bic biro draws 13 beards, 9 devil moustaches and 49 penises on newspapers in its lifetime."