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Is University Really Worth it? - Part 2

Georgia Dunstan-Brown

Has anyone ever got it figured out? We all wear some sort of mask for the world that promotes success and happiness, but when we’re home alone we take these masks off and become the real us; a person that doesn’t know what they’re doing.

This behaviour is common for students preparing to leave high school. It’s possible that everyone has had the question “So what do you want to do once you leave school?” or another variation “What do you want to be?” These kinds of questions are definitely not the right questions to ask someone who hasn’t even finished with puberty yet. Our minds are too emotional to think logically as we deal with whatever teenagehood brings. But somehow each individual has a scripted answer in their head, it’s just whether or not they believe it for themselves.

The choice of whether to do further study out of high school is one that everyone goes through. The choice of digging a hole with dept piling on top of you or whether to teach something your self and hope for the best.

Welcome back to the second part in our series on whether university is worth it or not. We talk to Kuvio team members and find out how they transitioned from high school, to study, to Kuvio.

Layla, one of our developers, had an interesting journey to her chosen career as a developer. Out of high school, she knew she wasn’t done with her education journey, it was just a matter of choosing what university to go to.

“I took an AP Art History course that I loved in my junior year and from then I was pretty set on studying art, so naturally, the goal became working in a museum setting.”

After finishing her studies, Layla landed an internship at a nonprofit-run historical site that turned into a job before she had much chance to think about it deeply.

“I enjoyed the work, but after a lot of careful consideration I began to realise the field wasn’t necessarily for me long-term.

I was originally going to pursue graduate school, which is rather unexpected for any upward movement in museums, but as I started application processes, it occured to me that I wasn’t as passionate about furthering my studies in that direction, and for a while I began to reevaluate what I did want to pursue before ending up in development.”

It took Layla a long time to realise that even though she loved art and museums, it didn’t mean that she would always love to work in it.

How Layla ended up in development, was by taking the long road. She had been technically coding most of her life and have always loved the work that comes with building even the smallest websites for personal fulfillment. So she decided to pursue programming in a professional capacity and joined the Grace Hopper program, which is a bootcamp with deferred tuition for women and was fortunate to be accepted and has never turned back!

Even though Layla’s degree wasn’t her long-term plan, she still feels university is an incredibly valuable experience and that anyone can gain from having the opportunity to discover and grow new interests.

Jess, one of Kuvio’s marketing associates also talks about her study journey. In high school, she worked hard to get good grades, because she wanted to get into good schools and receive scholarships due to tuition being expensive. But knowing what job she wanted to end up came with a few different choices.

“As I grew older, various career paths interested me. First, I wanted to be a lawyer, then a real-estate agent (which I still think would be cool because I love touring houses and watching shows like House Hunters), then I considered being an english teacher, but when I was a junior in high school, I discovered marketing.”

Jess’ interest in marketing came from an english class assignment, where she was given the task to choose a Superbowl commercial and analyse the rhetorical appeals used to convince viewers to purchase that company’s product. She loved the work on this assignment and ultimately it helped her to decide on a university major.

Jess believes that there are pros and cons to university. She’s loved her time there as she has made good friends and memories. However, she finds university too expensive and that it shouldn’t be as mandatory as it is made to be.

“I believe working provides more education than studying material that I will inevitably forget. My school, just like many others require students to take general education classes like history and science. I believe these classes are unnecessary, for I took them just to pass them and they were not relevant to my major whatsoever.

College, however, is good for networking opportunities, having prior knowledge of the field you are going into, helping you land a job and adapting to being independent.”

If Jess had more time, she wishes she could have been self-taught.

“During the school year I am too busy between school, work, dance, and trying to maintain a social life, that I never take the time to learn about what I’m interested in. Also, if I had known back when I was a freshman, I would’ve double majored in psychology and marketing; but I realized my love for psychology too late, so instead I am minoring in it to pair with my marketing major.”

Tell us about your university experience on our socials @kuviocreative and whether or not you found it beneficial to be in a system or whether you would prefer to have been self-taught.

Join us next week for the last part in our blog series on if university is really worth it or not.

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