No – Your dream won’t last forever – a degree is something you can always fall back on.
So I Want To Sing To The Stars winner Mary-Jess Leaverland has decided to leave university for now in order to pursue a record deal.
It sounds like the stuff chick flicks are made of doesn’t it? Girl wows exotic nation; follows her dream; lives happily (and wealthily) ever after.
However, the harsh truth is that competition is abundant and opportunities are rare, so dreams like hers usually remain dreams forever.
As a mature student, I’ve lived in the real world for several years and, apologies for being the voice of reason, but the fact is that eventually we all have to accept the battlefield of adulthood.
Dreams are pretty, but we can only put off real life for so long.Once we leave university we have to let our heads have at least an equal standing with our hearts.
Only a very privileged few ever become that glittering girl in the spotlight, and they normally come from an already spot-lit background.
Of course there can be exceptions, such as Emma Watson, whose decision to continue with the Harry Potter films instead of going to university right away has meant she is now the highest paid actress in Hollywood.
However, in Leaverland’s case one needs to be cruelly realistic – no matter that she won in front of an audience of millions, we have never heard of this show in the West. She’s still at square one here, and to make it big she will need to break our market.
She is obviously intelligent and by studying Chinese and Music she would have had a good degree that would have given her a comfortable and exciting future for the rest of her life.
Is the off-chance that she is what the music industry is looking for right now really worth risking a prosperous future for? She could easily have pursued a musical career after she had graduated.
No ‘dream chance’ could convince me to leave university, particularly as easy access to our Higher Education system may not exist in a few years.
Every day I am surrounded by people who don’t take their course seriously, despite the fact that new government proposals will mean that in the 2010/11 academic year 300,000 home students will be turned away, and many people are likely to be simply priced out of university.
Don’t assume that your degree is an everyday thing you will always be able to undertake, because it’s unlikely to be the case.
You are very lucky – your degree in itself is a fantastic opportunity which will bring you many opportunities in the future.
When you get out into the real world you’re going to be amazed how important it is to have that simple piece of paper.
Emma Crowe
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