Benefits of duke of edinburgh award

Hannah.Cook

Hey guys! Has anyone done the Duke of Edinburgh award? If so, are there any benefits you get after completion?

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Reply 1

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Yes

Experience

Reply 2

BorisChadson

Original post by josh34w2

Hey guys! Has anyone done the Duke of Edinburgh award? If so, are there any benefits you get after completion?

not really, you just get to say you did it.

Reply 3

Bvbfan

Im guessing you are talking about the bronze award which is what I did at my school. I would recommend you do it, as its a lot of fun and ye you probably will learn a few useful skills along the way. I did it 3 years ago and me and my friends still often laugh and talk about funny things that happened. There arent any benefits that you get afterwards though. And truthfully I dont believe it made any difference to my cv. All of your teachers are probably telling you it looks good on your cv, however loads of people complete bronze d of e and it is difficult to fail. I suppose on your personal statement you could say it shows your commitment and work ethic etc but on the whole it probably wont make much difference. However, there is also a silver and gold award. I didnt do the silver although my school did run it. Im not sure how good the silver is but if you managed to complete gold I would give you a different answer as I have only met one person who completed gold and wouldnt be surprised if that is impressive on your cv. I know someone who completed gold and he did some extension thing after gold where he went camping in Belgium for a week. so basically what i am saying is the further you take it the better it is.

Reply 4

Zarek

If you get to Gold you get to meet the Duke of Edinburgh!

Reply 5

ran-dumb

Everything in it is just so tedious. I didn't even finish bronze even though we were meant to. I guess the teacher was easy on me. I don't think it makes a difference unless you get to silver or gold, and that takes quite a bit of work, so unless you like the kinda thing you have to do in it, I wouldn't really bother

Reply 6

Hannah.Cook

Original post by Bvbfan

Im guessing you are talking about the bronze award which is what I did at my school. I would recommend you do it, as its a lot of fun and ye you probably will learn a few useful skills along the way. I did it 3 years ago and me and my friends still often laugh and talk about funny things that happened. There arent any benefits that you get afterwards though. And truthfully I dont believe it made any difference to my cv. All of your teachers are probably telling you it looks good on your cv, however loads of people complete bronze d of e and it is difficult to fail. I suppose on your personal statement you could say it shows your commitment and work ethic etc but on the whole it probably wont make much difference. However, there is also a silver and gold award. I didnt do the silver although my school did run it. Im not sure how gooWed the silver is but if you managed to complete gold I would give you a different answer as I have only met one person who completed gold and wouldnt be surprised if that is impressive on your cv. I know someone who completed gold and he did some extension thing after gold where he went camping in Belgium for a week. so basically what i am saying is the further you take it the better it is.

Well, I can go directly for the silver or gold award too right? Why would I do bronze in that case?

Reply 7

Hannah.Cook

Original post by Zarek

If you get to Gold you get to meet the Duke of Edinburgh!

Is this true? It would be great if it is.

Reply 8

Zarek

Original post by josh34w2

Is this true? It would be great if it is.

Really? He certainly used to do it, with his advancing years it may be a nominated deputy. You might even get Charles!!

Reply 9

N2O2

All depends on how you play your experience after getting it.

It won't mean much if you just leave it on an application, however, if you use it to talk about how you were a leader etc. it can be very useful.

Reply 10

flaurie

Volunteer Team

Original post by josh34w2

Well, I can go directly for the silver or gold award too right? Why would I do bronze in that case?

Think there are age restrictions for each level (e.g. something like 16+ for gold)

Reply 11

username4942066

Original post by josh34w2

Well, I can go directly for the silver or gold award too right? Why would I do bronze in that case?

Hi
I don’t think you can go directly to silver/ gold. I think the whole picture is to work your way up. Also the minimum age increases for each level. Best to double check though!

Reply 12

N2O2

Original post by Buddingdentist08

Hi
I don’t think you can go directly to silver/ gold. I think the whole picture is to work your way up. Also the minimum age increases for each level. Best to double check though!

You can start right on Gold level, it just takes longer

https://www.dofe.org/do/timescales/

Reply 13

harrysbar

Original post by BorisChadson

not really, you just get to say you did it.

But you could also do that without doing it and save yourself all that hiking and so on

Reply 14

Muttley79

Original post by josh34w2

Hey guys! Has anyone done the Duke of Edinburgh award? If so, are there any benefits you get after completion?

I wouldn't bother - it's just a tick box exercise compared to when it started.

It's better to organise your own volunteering etc.

Reply 15

username4942066

Original post by Muttley79

I wouldn't bother - it's just a tick box exercise compared to when it started.

It's better to organise your own volunteering etc.

That’s a good point but some might prefer a more structured, disciplined approach. It just depends on the person!

Reply 16

username4441998

I have my (bronze) expedition next week since Covid stopped me doing it last year (I'm in yr 11) 😭

Reply 17

Muttley79

Original post by Buddingdentist08

That’s a good point but some might prefer a more structured, disciplined approach. It just depends on the person!

If its organised by others then it's not as valuable is it? It shows no skills at all ...

Reply 18

GreenCub

I think doing DofE is definitely a valuable experience and often the answer to "is it worth doing?" will be yes. But this isn't the kind of thing that you should just do to try and improve your chances of getting into a good university or getting a good job because it would have little to no effect.

Reply 19

AzureCeleste

Original post by Muttley79

If its organised by others then it's not as valuable is it? It shows no skills at all ...

It's not organised by others?
You organise it all by yourself, I don't know where you've got this idea from
Literally everything is. The only thing which isn't entirely organised by yourself (at least via my school) was the expedition where they give you the location but you still had to design the whole route and plan it. Just the area it was in was predetermined