Leave uni for full-time job?
- Thread starter black-ops
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Soldato
Difficult one. That's a lovely offer. Assuming you could get a couple years experience from them it would probably count for more than the degree, not to mention you're making money instead of spending it. However it could fall through for whatever reason and uni is an awesome experience 
Many years for work my friend!
Many years for work my friend!
I would not take the job.
By the sounds of it, you've got the skills to fund yourself through your degree. You should get a BSc under your belt and also enjoy the social side of it all - the degree will open more doors for you, which no one can deny. Even if its a route that you don't wish to consider now, a degree in Computer Science will let you into roles in large scale firms, where starting salaries typically exceed what you've been offered. As others have suggested, work experience is very important. However you can achieve both by possibly negotiating part time work (or a placement / internship) with the same employer or even with someone else.
That said if you're as talented as you suggest, there is nothing to say that you wouldn't be successful without a degree. However in my honest opinion, if you're sitting on a 1st now and have just two years left, you may as well finish it.
I am of course a little biased - just graduated in Computer Science.
By the sounds of it, you've got the skills to fund yourself through your degree. You should get a BSc under your belt and also enjoy the social side of it all - the degree will open more doors for you, which no one can deny. Even if its a route that you don't wish to consider now, a degree in Computer Science will let you into roles in large scale firms, where starting salaries typically exceed what you've been offered. As others have suggested, work experience is very important. However you can achieve both by possibly negotiating part time work (or a placement / internship) with the same employer or even with someone else.
That said if you're as talented as you suggest, there is nothing to say that you wouldn't be successful without a degree. However in my honest opinion, if you're sitting on a 1st now and have just two years left, you may as well finish it.
I am of course a little biased - just graduated in Computer Science.
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Soldato
Don't talk crap. I finished 2nd year Engineering at Loughborough on 75.9% average and I worked at Tesco every Sunday. There is always room for evening jobs even if your timetable is full.
Some people have children to look after or people to care for. It is just a matter of managing your time well
.
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Stay at Uni. While I don't agree everyone has to go there, you already are and are already earning money too. £30k in an IT job in your area is good for your relative experience but it not amazing for an IT job. Also in the future having a degree is useful if for no other reason than stopping your CV getting filtered out by agencies.
I'm 42, have around 25 years experience in almost every area of IT and yet I still occasionally get short sighted comments from agencies that I don't qualify for a job they have becaise it demands a minimum of 2 years experience and a degree (I have A levels but in 1987 a degree was deemed far more optional than it is now). It doesn't bother me because I know those agencies are short sighted but if you are already at Uni then is seems sensible to get the bit of paper.
Agencies get thousands of applications and are now quite often staffed by people who have no experience at all in their field. So they use various indicators to filter out candidates. If the client says "needs a degree" then the agent will skip over many CV's if they don't have it. They may well skip over the best candidate because of it.
I'm 42, have around 25 years experience in almost every area of IT and yet I still occasionally get short sighted comments from agencies that I don't qualify for a job they have becaise it demands a minimum of 2 years experience and a degree (I have A levels but in 1987 a degree was deemed far more optional than it is now). It doesn't bother me because I know those agencies are short sighted but if you are already at Uni then is seems sensible to get the bit of paper.
Agencies get thousands of applications and are now quite often staffed by people who have no experience at all in their field. So they use various indicators to filter out candidates. If the client says "needs a degree" then the agent will skip over many CV's if they don't have it. They may well skip over the best candidate because of it.
Don't talk crap. I finished 2nd year Engineering at Loughborough on 75.9% average and I worked at Tesco every Sunday. There is always room for evening jobs even if your timetable is full.
Some people have children to look after or people to care for. It is just a matter of managing your time well
Don't insult and open your eyes. He said during the week, which generally means the working week, not the weekend.
I'd finish your degree. If you're as good as you say you are and that prospective employer thinks you are, jobs won't be hard to come by when you have a piece of paper to back it up.
One of my mates started out in web design 11 years ago instead of going to university and has been stuck in the same job which he now hates, with no prospects outside of it, because he did a part time degree in Computing at some worthless university and nobody else wants to know.
I've only been in the job market for 4.5 years compared to his 11 (I stayed on to do a PhD) and in that short time frame I now earn a lot more than he does.
Stay on at university and enjoy it... You'll never get that time back, particularly if you're doing work "for fun" whist you're at it. Working for real is a completely different kettle of fish.
One of my mates started out in web design 11 years ago instead of going to university and has been stuck in the same job which he now hates, with no prospects outside of it, because he did a part time degree in Computing at some worthless university and nobody else wants to know.
I've only been in the job market for 4.5 years compared to his 11 (I stayed on to do a PhD) and in that short time frame I now earn a lot more than he does.
Stay on at university and enjoy it... You'll never get that time back, particularly if you're doing work "for fun" whist you're at it. Working for real is a completely different kettle of fish.
Soldato
Of course he can work during the week - There are these things called evenings.
He is at Sheffield Hallam, not Sheffield. What he is doing won't be anywhere near as many hours a week as engineering at a higher ranking University.
I think you pulled that out of your ass tbh. How do you know if you have never been.
Soldato
Check the league tables.
Hallam is where you go to compete with other students who got DEU in their Alevels.
I think the point might have been (may be a it too gracious, but hey...) that the Hallam lot have to work harder because of those entry requirements...
Either way, I would just kick back and enjoy university, and take advantage of the huge resources at your disposal whilst there... It will only happen once in your lifetime, whereas work will be there until you retire.
Nobody ever comes out of this life wishing they'd spent more time at the office...
Are you enjoying uni? if you are then stay there and have some fun. Think about it, after you leave uni you're most likely going to spend the next 40 years working in a career so why rush in to it? If your good and keep up some part-time/contract work you'll walk in to another £30k job when you finish your degree.
Associate
Stay in Uni and get a degree. As most other people are saying a degree will be important when applying for jobs in later life. The the fact that you have done so well in your first year, it would be a waste to leave now.
For me, my time at uni was the best time in my life, now after 10 years working, the years are just merging into one endless slog.
There will always be other jobs, especially if you finish with a first.
For me, my time at uni was the best time in my life, now after 10 years working, the years are just merging into one endless slog.
There will always be other jobs, especially if you finish with a first.
And? League tables don't tell you much about the actual content. Their weights are based on entry requirements.... So its self referencing really. A better league table, would be measuring quality of students, and then measuring the same students when leaving and measuring improvement, but they don't do that....
A lot of russell group universities there staff are pressured to be researchers, and low ranked universities there staff are pressured to being teachers, so contact time could be more(I have no idea, but I don't claim to know like you do). So I could flip the argument around if I wanted....
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Associate
Do an OU course at the same time as working? Or ask them if you can work part time?
My father who works in recruitment (admittedly, for a construction company) has always told me experience beat's credentials.
The credentials are there to show you're clever enough to do the job....if you've been doing it for 2 years already (even part time) that proves you can do it.
He did say though that some positions require the piece of paper as a formality.
He has 3 O-Levels, but he's done OK for himself (got a decent enough salary to move to New Zealand
)
I'd say go for part time
My father who works in recruitment (admittedly, for a construction company) has always told me experience beat's credentials.
The credentials are there to show you're clever enough to do the job....if you've been doing it for 2 years already (even part time) that proves you can do it.
He did say though that some positions require the piece of paper as a formality.
He has 3 O-Levels, but he's done OK for himself (got a decent enough salary to move to New Zealand
)I'd say go for part time