BA Blogs - Tim Milford
Tim Milford (27), London. Tim studied History at Manchester University from 2003 - 2006 and got a first. Following that he went to work for Network Rail on their Graduate scheme and has subsequently worked as a Project Manager on a complex multi-disciplinary engineering scheme and is now a Commercial Scheme Sponsor, responsible for attracting investment into the railway. Tim is a fanatical cricket fan and enjoys playing the trumpet and learning German in his spare time.
I studied History at Manchester University and the reason I did so was because I genuinely had no idea what I wanted to do after university. I wanted a degree that would be recognised as valuable by potential employees, would develop some important skills and, perhaps most importantly, I wanted to do a degree that I would enjoy. Given that I was going to spend three years studying this subject I felt that it was important that I do a degree that I would want to turn up to lectures for and wouldn’t mind spending hours in the library reading about.
Fortunately I made an excellent decision; I met many passionate and interesting people on my History course and we spent many hours in stimulating lectures, seminars and private groups studying and discussing History. I vividly remember standing in a queue to take a book out in the library and seeing that the person in front of me had a book that looked so boring that it hurt my eyes.
I can’t quite remember its name now, possibly “Economic Analysis of Business Operations in South East Asia”, or something like that.
Now – I have nothing against Business Studies or Economics, or any other degree; but I remember looking down fondly at my book on The Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 and thinking that I was really glad that I was able to do a subject that I enjoyed and that was really benefitting me.
However, were I to be in my final year of A-Levels now and considering University, I think I would be contemplating making a very different decision. Could I really spend c. £50k on a History Degree?
I mean there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a job at the end of it is there? Surely, next to an Economics graduate or a Business Studies graduate I wouldn’t be able to compete for jobs on graduate schemes? As such, I believe that the person in the queue with the dull-looking book would have been me.
This really concerns me.
It is my firm belief that doing a Humanities degree is not a luxury or a gamble. It is academia in its purest sense and, of course, as any scholar of classical history would know, Aristotle famously said that “knowledge was an end in itself”; something which I firmly believe in. However, it also helps one develop many, many skills that are of critical importance within the workplace.
Having come out the other end, I have found that my degree has never failed to impress potential employees. I have been able to talk about the skills of critical analysis that a History degree emphasises, the need for excellent communication skills (both written and oral), the need to be able to work in a group and on your own and also the ability to deal with some of the most complex questions that have ever been raised.
All of these points are something that employers value very highly.
Nonetheless, I am concerned that with the increase in fees students are going to feel a pressure to take what they may perceive as a ‘safer option’ (ie: taking a degree in Accountancy or Law instead of a Humanities degree) as they are more confident of a pay back for their investment and this is an extremely worrying state of affairs.