After leaving school I made a very personal choice to follow on to an apprenticeship. I was the only one in my class that didn’t go to university; I left at 16 and didn’t continue on to higher education. From an early age I enjoyed the mechanical side of things, working with my hands, taking things apart and putting them back together again. For me I had made up my mind by the age of 15, I wanted to be a mechanic and I didn’t need to go to university to achieve that. I felt it was best to get out in to the world of work; there’s no right or wrong decision with this. You don’t have to go to university or college, but you can do it later on in life if you want.
I have absolutely no regrets about not going straight to university. Some of the basic skills I learned as a mechanic and the training I received during my apprenticeship are still applicable today. There are people, there’s process and there’s equipment; you look at it and make it work differently, so the mindset of a mechanic/apprentice and how you approach your job, to me is the same today as it was back then, I just apply it in a different way.
The actual debate of how important a degree is still goes on today. You can always do a degree later in life; it doesn’t need to be school then university. When studying later, you can tailor your degree to your role. It all comes down to a personal choice of what you want to do. I don’t think it’s hindered me personally but I could see why others could think it would. As an employer what I look for is attitude, as you can’t train attitude. I look for the person that is energetic and enthusiastic rather than the person with the better qualification as I can train the ability. I tend to think the company will identify talent in most cases, if you approach your job with the right attitude and display a degree of competency in your job.
Having an idea of what you want to do is really important. So the best thing is to try and get some work experience, get a mentor or coach this can help to shape your thinking about what you want to do long term. Talk to someone who does the job you want, you can’t really beat work experience especially before you go to university.
I think there has been a realisation in the last few years that apprenticeships are important. There has been a lot of political movement around investing in apprenticeships. I definitely think it was easier to get onto an apprenticeship when I started out and that’s only 20 years ago using the YTS. There needs to be something put in place to make it easier and more accessible to younger people and I think that it’s harder these days to get into.
For me it’s important to have at least a broad idea of what you would like to do before you make a big investment in any education. University is a big investment in time and a big investment in cost. It may or may not be relevant to what you want. If you don’t know whether you will apply, you better ask yourself should I really be doing this? It’s a big commitment and is totally worth it if you are going to use it otherwise it’s not really worth doing.
Some people do university degrees and do very well out of that but others come out unemployed and find it hard. You need both experience and learning. In some respects if everyone goes to university it devalues university as a whole because everyone has done it. As a company we need both elements of the workforce. I can’t just pull everyone from university or pull everyone from apprenticeships, I need both. It’s not worrying too much about academic qualifications, it’s about having a can do attitude. The ability to think for yourself and do things outside of the day job, making yourself marketable and promotable and showing that you can do more than you currently do today.
