When it comes to Gen Z, never has the cliché “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there” felt so apt. I have vivid memories of my own mother, (who just missed the educational opportunities that blossomed in the 60s), unfurling her arms and reassuring my teenage self: “The world is your oyster darling”. Apparently all I had to do was knuckle down and study.
In contrast, my 16-year-old daughter, while staring at potential A-level options with her friends, delivered the killer line “best steer clear of anything that leads to a yak yak degree” – think arts and humanities rather than maths or science.
What I embraced in the early 90s as a series of liberty-inducing choices, today’s school children approach with apprehension, keen to avoid any misstep that might cost them a future fortune. More fool those who lean into subjects for mere pleasure. Their disdain for arts options was best summed up in the consolation offered when I complained about my own stop-start career. “You’ve done alright for someone with a history degree”. I wanted to push back: “I went to Oxford!” but any attempt to leverage my own experience against today’s teenagers felt fatuous.
As it was, my History BA has had to be constantly upgraded with additional qualifications (these days I am the “wrong sort” of doctor), but at least I did not pay for my “yak yak” degree – I even received a small maintenance grant.
