After Jed Hallam started a rather heated debate about the value of a PR degree, I began thinking about the choices I’ve made regarding my education. I wandered whether my English degree was really that useful and whether I should have chosen to study something much more specific and vocational.
At times I hated my English degree at Leeds Uni. I decided fairly early on that it was basically a degree in bullshit studies. I can’t count the number of times that we studied poems and crazy assumptions were made about the nature of the text and motivations behind it. I remember once losing the will to live when we read a poem about a snake…
Suddenly students shouted out their ideas… its blatantly about hitler, nazis, marxism, femininity, the romans, plato, descartes, heaven oh and freud freud FREUD sex sex SEX.
What if it was intended to just be about a snake?
So basically, if you could come up with a ridiculously outlandish observation then use long winded language to try and prove it you did well. Pointless.
We also had to read at least 3 novels a week. I ended up speed reading over 100 books in my time at uni, remembering very little about any of them and contributing small chunks to seminars that covered the topics at break neck speed. Pointless.
However, I do feel like I gained something from the degree. Probably not the in depth knowledge of poets of the Romantic Period I was meant to leave with but rather a competent writing style, a greater appreciation of literature and arguably a more pronounced Northern accent - to distance myself from the hoards of Southerners who couldn’t believe I was from the North and yet didn’t look and act like a character from Shameless.
So, although I sometimes look back and wander if it was really worth it I can’t help but feel really proud that I actually got a good English degree and came away much more knowledgable with a pleasing classification. I now feel like this is the perfect time to do postgraduate studies in Public Relations because although I may be further ahead on the career ladder right now if I had jumped straight in with a PR degree, I really wasn’t ready then to make a commitment to a specific area.
I really feel there is no ideal way into a career. Although students who have studied BA Hons Public Relations may have more knowledge in certain areas than I have, my current studies and work experience will hopefully make up for all the lessons they have learnt. At times, although it seemed pointless back then I wouldn’t trade my English degree in for anything.
Tags: Education, Leeds Met, Leeds Uni, MA Public Relations, Me
December 5, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Completely agree Rebecca.
I’ve had a few people saying that you need a PR degree to be successful in PR but then had others who have said it doesn’t matter what degree you do as long as you learn the skills and gain the quality experience needed to be a good PRO.
But as long as you’re motivated enough to do it, I don’t think it matters what degree you have or whether you even have one at all.