Does having a Ordinary degree and not (Hons) matter? (BSc Applied Criminology with Psychology)?

[pdm10]

Dear members,

I will be honest and get straight to the point. I have no intentions of doing a MA/Msc or apply for a graduate scheme.

My life ambition was to just graduate from university and attend a graduation ceremony (Which will be Canterbury Cathedral)

What are your views and opinions? Even if i wanted to do a Masters degree, job experience would take priority (except maybe for a PGCE which I don't want to do anyway).

Canterbury Christ Church University.

[Buenchico]

Well, it makes perfect sense to me!

Unless you've a particular need to obtain 'honours' (which you clearly haven't) there's no reason to bother about them. For those who follow a conventional university course it's normal practice to work towards an 'honours' degree, with a 'pass' degree (i.e. without honours) only being awarded to those candidates who are just above the 'fail' level.

However, some institutions offer separate 'honours' and 'non honours' courses (or they allow candidates to convert a 'pass' degree to an 'honours' degree by, say, a year's further study). Under those circumstances a 'pass' degree is not an indication of 'near failure'. (The candidate might well have scored 100% in every one of their final examinations).

If it's just the graduation ceremony that you want to aim for, there's no reason for you to bother about 'honours'. You'll enjoy the day just as much when you finally get there!

Chris
(BEd, Hons - but only 3rd class, so it doesn't mean much!)

[saxy_jag]

I got an upper second eleven years ago, as did the majority of my year group. These days I just say, "I have a degree," and no-one asks or is really bothered about what class of honours I got. When I apply for jobs, although I always put the classification on my CV, I never get asked about it. People just ask more general questions about what I studied and how I used the experience of uni.

I guess, as Buenchico says, if you're going into certain professions or if you want to go on to further study, it would matter, but you've already said you're not worried about that.

I know my Bro-in-Law got a first at Oxford (brainy s*d!) in the late 60s, and that did help when he left teaching and became a civil servant. He's now pretty high up in the service, something which is probably due in no small part to the old school tie network, but I'm not sure that honours classification ever came into it.