[dbond]

This is the choice I made (UK based) and 5 years later I can say I'm doing fine and have no regrets. But what does concern me is the way college[1] staff reacted to this decision, from warnings in one to one chats down to outright scaremongering that I was throwing my life away even though I had explained that I could not find a course that I felt would be of value or advance my knowledge in what I WANTED to do. This is the same situation my younger sister is currently facing, she would much rather pursue the apprenticeship route to gain practical experience (she is wanting to pursue events management) but her college keeps pushing her back to the university route offering little to no support for her choice and the provided tools for finding apprenticeships or opportunities are next to useless.

Thankfully my family has a history of self-employment so for us convincing family that it is the right path is not difficult, but with colleges acting as very persistent recruiters for universities this will be a very hard decision to make for a lot of people as the advisors parents listen to are saying it is not a viable option.

[1] For those unfamiliar with the UK system college is attended separately before university.