Blog

My last post I spoke about the reasons I regretted quitting my degree. This one I will speak about the reasons I don’t regret quitting.

During my whole degree I was purely focused on one goal. Getting into Cyber Security by getting a Computer Science degree and then a job afterwards. Since quitting my degree I’ve flirted with other opportunities. WordPress Development, .Net development with C# and even moving away from tech all together. I think if I’d have stayed at my degree, I would have still been focused on getting into Cyber Security, which looking back was too narrow minded of me.

Another reason I don’t regret quitting my degree is if I had stayed with my degree, I don’t think I would be doing the voluntary work I am currently doing. Working in the voluntary sector is hugely rewarding and something I would encourage anyone with the time to do, even if its just an hour a week. I doubt I would have bothered looking at volunteering opportunities if I was still in education.

The final reason I don’t regret quitting my degree is the fact that at the end of the day, I had little choice. I suffer with some health issues and for the last year of my degree they were hell to deal with. I tried to power through, but I just couldn’t do it. Ultimately it was to protect my health I quit, and my health has to come first. For this reason, I don’t regret quitting my degree.

So on balance do I regret quitting my degree, taking these last two posts into account? The answer is no. I regret missing out on some opportunities and miss the relationship with my lecturers but all in all it was the right decision, when all factors were taken into consideration.

Bear with me as this will be a slightly rambling style post.

In March 2022 I left my Computer Science Degree at Lincoln College. It was a decision I agonised over for a long time, but I eventually decided it was the right decision. But did I make the right choice? Over this and my next post I will discuss what I regret about quitting, and what I don’t regret abut quitting.

First off, I was near the end. I was in March of my third year. That might sound stupid to quit that late, but I did have another yet to go. You see I’d split my final year into two part time years, mostly to help juggle my workload along with some health difficulties I had. But still, I’d completed one module that year (Mobile Application Development) and had started another (Cloud Computing) and halfway through my final module that year (Artificial Intelligence). Relatively speaking I was so close to the end. And I quit.

Secondly, I miss the people. My lecturers were great (special shout out to Dan Rogers, Stephen Smith, Stephen Trevor, Jeremy Davis and John Rogers). And the other people on the course were so friendly and helpful (special shout out to Ben here, who I’m still in touch with). I got on well with virtually everyone on the course and miss them all.

The final reason I regret quitting my degree is I personally put a lot of stock in my own academic achievements. Other peoples? Not so much, I accept academics aren’t for everyone. But for my own? I place great value on them. I was always one of the smarter kids in school and put all my worth in my academic achievements. So to not have a degree (especially when I once had dreams of doing a PhD) is something I’ve had a lot of difficulty coming to terms with.

Do I overall regret quitting my degree? Sometimes. But not all the time, and the next blog post will discuss the reasons I DON’T regret quitting my degree.

Hello! As said in my intro page my name is Peter. I’m a former Computer Science student based in Lincolnshire. This blog will be used to document my learning, as well as my personal life. I hope you will enjoy reading it!