I failed my degree - I now earn £77000 4 years later - don't lose hope

Hi All,

This post is going to be part informative, part humble brag, partly me getting something off of my chest that I have NEVER told anyone, but mostly me showing you that there's always hope.

I went to a very mediocre university, I studied computing with business, I passed the first year and got all 50% grades, I passed the second year with grades from 40% to 60%. I failed the final year, I handed in no coursework, I missed all of the exams and I only wrote 320 words of my planned 10,000 word dissertation.

Fast forward 4 years and I'm a manager at a very well known business consultancy firm earning £77,000 per year (excluding bonus which is up to 20%).

How did I do this? Experience and confidence.

When I was in my third, I took a year out to do a placement. The placement was with a very well known management consultancy. At the time, I was predicted to get a 3rd and they required a predicted 2:1. I got my tutor to write me an awesome letter of recommendation and I was very confident in my interviews plus I had done a significant amount of research and preparation before the 4 round interview process.

I was incredibly excited when I got the placement offer. The experience I gained in that one year set me up for life.

When I failed me degree (saw it coming a long way off), I became depressed, I could no longer take the job offer from the management consultancy as they required a 2:1. Luckily for me, I'd picked up some wicked software development skills over the previous few years, I used my experience at the management consultancy plus my software development skills to get myself a 30k job straight after failing my degree.

During the interview, my failed degree was never talked about even though I had is listed on my CV. It was listed as a Diploma of Higher Education (that's what you get when you only pass two years of your degree).

After being at this job for 2 years. I looked for a higher paying job and got a 46k offer at another software company. Again, they did not questions my education. They only cared about my experience.

Rinse and repeat this process until the current day. I applied for a managers job at a very well known consultancy. They accepted me based on my experience. This was also the first time my education was ever questioned. I explained that I did not complete my degree for various reasons (I did not lie). They mainly cared about my experience and what I could bring to the clients I would be working with.

I'm now a manager earning 77k.

It's funny when I look at other people from my Uni who actually got their degree. Most of them are still far more junior than me and earning a lot less than me.

This is the first time I have ever told anyone about failing my degree. Even my girlfriend (recently broken up) and parents don't know.

This is not supposed to be a 100% brag. It's supposed to be showing you that no matter how ****ed you are right now, you can recover if you are smart about it. Don't seek advice from the average person, that person can only give you average advice.

One more thing, I've been in debt (over 4k) twice and both times managed to pay it off (long before earning a good salary) but that's a story for another day.

I have never lied, I have never cheated, I am a smart guy and I'm actually very good at what I do (which is why I get paid well). My experience speaks for itself and my education has been explained to my employer (and countless recruiters). Experience and ability trump everything (well, most things).

Don't lose hope and.... ask me anything...

(please excuse any typos, I typed this on a tablet).

Your experience is irrelevant to people going after jobs that need degrees (see engineering, medicine, nursing, etc).

I hate stories like this. You're basically encouraging students to not work as hard as they can because it will all work out for them anyway. You are a VERY lucky person, you're not 'smart' (like you describe yourself) if you went to a bad uni and still failed all your uni work, you're simply lucky. 99% of people who were in your situation would have ended up with a terrible job.

OP registered to make this thread, posted almost entirely in it and then disappeared 2 weeks later.

A great story but perhaps questionable on the authenticity.

But he succeeded. That's what matters. Please take your pretentious attitude out of the door with you. You may have your degree but he has a job. You can't feed your family a piece of paper. He's a very smart person to use his computer skills in software to get to where he is. It's not a matter of luck.

Hi All,

Words....

(please excuse any typos, I typed this on a tablet).

It's not unheard of for people to be successful like this. It's a sad thing that hundreds of thousands of young people each year are herded into university being told that is the only way they'll ever be successful. The sad reality is that half will probably succeed and the rest have wasted 3 years time with no real skill development and have lost 3 years of potential earnings. I nearly ended up in that predicament too but the one thing that spared me was funnily enough surgery. I was going to go to university last year but I had surgery. I deferred to this year. Do you want to know what it gave me time to do. It gave me time to think. I recently pulled my unconditional offer to go to university. Why? Because I realised that it was a trap and not worth my time. People need to realise that there are perfectly suitable alternatives. My alternative is a cadetship programme to get into the Merchant Navy. When I finish my sponsorship and get working, I'll start out at anywhere between 25-30K at junior level as a 3rd officer. Within 10 years, I can make captain of a vessel and earn nearly 100K a year. If I want to settle down at that point into a management role, I can very easily do so after that. That's just ONE example. My friend is another example. He was going to go to Nottingham Trent university to study Environmental Sciences but he ended up having a heart attack. He didn't go back to university. He ended up getting an apprenticeship at a pharmacy that he has the possibility of working up to become a manager of the pharmacy at the hospital. University is a farce. The one good thing I can commend it for is drawing the herd away from lucrative supposedly "lowly" alternatives that are below them. Keep the herd studying useless soft degrees whilst the smart ones are snapping on rich opportunities lying right in front of the herd.

Hi All,

This post is going to be part informative, part humble brag, partly me getting something off of my chest that I have NEVER told anyone, but mostly me showing you that there's always hope.

I went to a very mediocre university, I studied computing with business, I passed the first year and got all 50% grades, I passed the second year with grades from 40% to 60%. I failed the final year, I handed in no coursework, I missed all of the exams and I only wrote 320 words of my planned 10,000 word dissertation.

Fast forward 4 years and I'm a manager at a very well known business consultancy firm earning £77,000 per year (excluding bonus which is up to 20%).

How did I do this? Experience and confidence.

When I was in my third, I took a year out to do a placement. The placement was with a very well known management consultancy. At the time, I was predicted to get a 3rd and they required a predicted 2:1. I got my tutor to write me an awesome letter of recommendation and I was very confident in my interviews plus I had done a significant amount of research and preparation before the 4 round interview process.

I was incredibly excited when I got the placement offer. The experience I gained in that one year set me up for life.

When I failed me degree (saw it coming a long way off), I became depressed, I could no longer take the job offer from the management consultancy as they required a 2:1. Luckily for me, I'd picked up some wicked software development skills over the previous few years, I used my experience at the management consultancy plus my software development skills to get myself a 30k job straight after failing my degree.

During the interview, my failed degree was never talked about even though I had is listed on my CV. It was listed as a Diploma of Higher Education (that's what you get when you only pass two years of your degree).

After being at this job for 2 years. I looked for a higher paying job and got a 46k offer at another software company. Again, they did not questions my education. They only cared about my experience.

Rinse and repeat this process until the current day. I applied for a managers job at a very well known consultancy. They accepted me based on my experience. This was also the first time my education was ever questioned. I explained that I did not complete my degree for various reasons (I did not lie). They mainly cared about my experience and what I could bring to the clients I would be working with.

I'm now a manager earning 77k.

It's funny when I look at other people from my Uni who actually got their degree. Most of them are still far more junior than me and earning a lot less than me.

This is the first time I have ever told anyone about failing my degree. Even my girlfriend (recently broken up) and parents don't know.

This is not supposed to be a 100% brag. It's supposed to be showing you that no matter how ****ed you are right now, you can recover if you are smart about it. Don't seek advice from the average person, that person can only give you average advice.

One more thing, I've been in debt (over 4k) twice and both times managed to pay it off (long before earning a good salary) but that's a story for another day.

I have never lied, I have never cheated, I am a smart guy and I'm actually very good at what I do (which is why I get paid well). My experience speaks for itself and my education has been explained to my employer (and countless recruiters). Experience and ability trump everything (well, most things).

Don't lose hope and.... ask me anything...

(please excuse any typos, I typed this on a tablet).

You didn't work hard. You got lucky. End of story.


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