So, how useful was your university degree anyway?

While I was trawling through my favourite meme blogs, I happened across this trenchant piece of social commentary on GraphJam. “Where a philosophy degree gets you in real life,” the pie chart demonstrates — 95% of the chart is red, and represents “Nowhere”, 5% of the chart is green, and represents “Also nowhere”.

Is this true? Is a BA really so useless? In your experience, is the joke about the PhD student who gets his doctorate being qualified to say “Do you want fries with that?” a genuine reflection of reality? After all, Clem Sunter got his degree in the fabulously useful subject of medieval history. Or have we reached a point where it’s only possible to get anywhere in life with a degree that absolutely matches your planned career path?

I have mixed feelings about PhD jokes, because I know how easily that could have been me. I have a doctorate, and the only time I’d ever conceivably need to ask about fries or chips is if I were researching a strategy for a fast food brand. So I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. In fact, because doctorates are rare in my line of work, it’s a bit of a USP* for my employer and it’s great for credibility with clients. (My neo-Marxist lecturers at Wits would be horrified.)

It could have been so very different. Thinking that the fact that I came third in the National Science Olympiad and picked up a nice trophy from Annique Theron, the rooibos lady, my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to study microbiology. Instead, I opted for a drama degree, which meant that I spent much of my time at university lying on the floor learning how to resonate. We were taught to “breathe through our bums”. I kid you not. I followed the BA(DA) with a master’s by coursework, focusing on gender and communication studies, followed by a doctorate. Mainly because there was a scholarship on offer and I thought, why the hell not. I never thought as far as getting an actual salaried job.

So the fact that I have ended up where I am is still a surprise to me. I spent six weeks in the hell otherwise known as PR and then got into advertising because I knew the right person. Everything I know, I learned on the job. The specific details of my academic qualifications were neither here nor there, at least not for the purpose of my career development, although I am convinced that my background helps me bring a different perspective to what I do, one that a more conventionally educated strategist (say, one with a BCom Marketing) might offer.

I wonder what would have happened if I had gone and done the BSc. Where would I be now? Bent over a microscope? Happy? Successful? I still feel the occasional twinge of guilt for not going into the sciences, for not holding up the flag for women in a field traditionally dominated by men. As it is, South Africa has far too few science graduates and graduate unemployment has grown despite the skills shortage. In many ways, our education system is entrenching inequality instead of ameliorating it.

That’s one side of the argument. On the other is the notion that we are educating creativity out of our children, and that we’re educating them for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technology that doesn’t yet exist. Ken Robinson argues that people should find their passion, that what the world needs are not good workers, but creative thinkers.

He has a point, and the fact that his book is a New York Times bestseller suggests that his message has resonance. Are employers and recruitment agents paying attention? After all, I did a lot of what Robinson recommends — art and drama in addition to maths, science and English at school, a drama degree — and I think creatively for a living. I value my education for how it has bolstered my ability to think critically and the way in which it has enriched my life and developed me as an individual. But is my example worth emulating? Could it be emulated? My unconventional background would have prevented me from even getting a foot in the door at most advertising agencies — it was sheer luck that I knew somebody who knew somebody who was willing to give me a chance.

Is an education just about preparing a person for a specific job?

Maybe if business was a little more willing to include people whose background doesn’t fit the bill exactly, we might get a little closer to achieving Robinson’s vision. And if we taught our students that it’s not so much what you know, but who you know, many of them might get further in life.