Should I leave uni with a non-Hons degree or DoHE?

I'm a student coming close to finishing my final year, but because of a combination of: 1) the pandemic, 2) a strong disinterest in my course and 3) general laziness, the quality of my work this year has been so far very poor.
At best, if I carry on the way I have been, I will achieve an ordinary, non-Hons degree.

So I was hoping somebody would be able to give me some advice on my situation!

I have two options, I can either push on and leave with an ordinary degree, or I can deliberately fail this final year in which case I'll leave with a Diploma of Higher Education covering years 1 & 2. As far as I'm aware, a non-Hons degree still counts as a full degree so I would not be able to redo the final year after officially leaving university. On the other hand, people with a DoHE can transfer credits to a university like the OU to complete their final year and leave with a full, Hons degree. So I would still have the option to top-up later on if I feel I need to.

To give you some more context, after graduating, I'm intending to start an entry-level apprenticeship and I have no intention to progress onto any managerial roles later on in life which may require a degree.
Also, my course is no longer running at my university due to lack of funding, so I would not be able to repeat my final year this September even if I wanted to.

Thank you!

That's quite a unique situation. If you have done extensive research on where you want your career to go, and you don't require the degree, then go for it. University is a great option that opens many doors, but it's not your only option. And as you mentioned, the OU is always an option if you want to complete it.

Have a strong portfolio for whatever job you want with personal projects and you should be fine. It's hard to say as I don't think you mentioned which industry you are entering, but experience and actually knowing the work holds a lot more value than a degree, in some cases. And coming from the finance world, there are a lot of managers who didn't go to University but worked their way up.

Nowadays, not having a degree will definitely limit your options, but if you've done your research and you're eligible to apply for the apprenticeship then you shouldn't force yourself to complete a degree you've lost interest in. Many people go to University not knowing what they really want to do, and there's no shame in identifying that and doing something about it. Good luck!!

Thank you for responding!

I'm looking at working in Horticulture and I have no previous professional experience, so I would almost certainly be able to get onto a Level 2 Apprenticeship, and I don't think having a degree will even come up in an interview, let alone the classification.

Whether I leave university with a non-Hons degree or a DoHE, I already have a plan to turn my situation around. I'm planning on doing lots of volunteering in the Summer, I'll hopefully be starting my Level 2 apprenticeship in September, and once I've completed that, I'll find a job and work towards a Level 3 as well. As you say, experience can sometimes hold more weight than qualifications, and based on my own research in this area, having a Level 2 along with a good amount of practical experience is generally speaking all you need to get a job in horticulture. I also found that degrees are only relevant to horticulture if you're intending to work in production horticulture (which involves a lot of machinery) and other science-based roles, or to work as a manager at a particularly prestigious garden.

So I certainly have a plan, but there's still this feeling of unease about it all. I don't think it'd matter too much either way, but at least if I were to leave with a DoHE I may still have the option to obtain Hons in the future.