It was approximately three months after getting my English degree that I realised I would never need it. I was doing work experience at a magazine when I asked the editor-in-chief where she went to university. “Oh, I didn’t go,” she said. “I just started working instead.” I blinked at her in shock. For my entire life I had been higher-education-pilled; raised on the belief that for the career I wanted, the path had to be school, uni, job.

Don’t get me wrong – uni was fun, but not once has anyone asked about my degree. This isn’t intended to disparage the efforts of anyone who has gone to great lengths to get into university and earn a degree. And of course, there are certain career paths where a degree is genuinely a necessity. But when it comes to the creative industries, more and more people are — understandably — questioning whether university is the right choice for them.

According to a recent UK poll, a third of people no longer believe a degree is worth the time or money. This makes sense. When tuition fees were introduced in 1998, they were £1,000 a year. Now, students pay up to £9,535 a year, not including living costs. It’s incredibly expensive, requires most graduates to get into a huge amount of debt, and then face brutal above-inflation interest rates on student loan repayments. More importantly, despite what we were led to believe, it also doesn’t guarantee you a job after.

For those who have decided university isn’t for them, it can still feel nerve-wracking to forge your own path. It might feel like you’re being left behind or without a safety net. How do you network? Or find apprenticeships or internships? How do you combat loneliness? All great questions. So, we’ve put together a little guide to not going to university with some insights from some people smashing their creative careers, who chose the route less trodden.

‘SHIPS’ ARE CRUCIAL

“If you’re trying to get into the creative industry, apply for internships, traineeships, apprenticeships – you get a foot directly in the door of your industry and it won’t put you in debt like uni does,” says Shola West, 26, a brand and cultural strategist, career influencer and TEDx speaker who has been featured on Forbes Europe’s 30 Under 30 List. Instead of doing A-levels, West did a diploma in fashion retail business, followed by an internship with Select Model Management, and then skipped uni to do an apprenticeship with a tech startup in London. She has now worked with LinkedIn, Channel 4, Sony, and the Department of Education.

“The industry values connections not degrees – people get jobs through knowing people,” she says. “Uni prepares you academically, but in an apprenticeship, you’re learning on the job – about work politics, how to stand up for yourself, how to write an email. You’re forced to mature quickly because you spend your days around older people. By the time friends had graduated, I had already gotten a level of experience, exposure, access and contacts that they just couldn’t compete with.” 

How to find the right opportunity? West applied for her apprenticeship after typing in ‘digital marketing apprenticeships’ into Google. She urges others to do the same, “or go on job boards or LinkedIn, directly approach companies that you admire, or go through providers like Multiverse or AQA.”

GET EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY YOU CAN

London-based musician, writer, producer and sound designer Sølv (real name Eloise Keating) always wanted to be a singer. When she was around 17, she started writing songs, playing guitar and using GarageBand to learn how to produce, later moving onto Logic Pro. But after applying to study music at a university in Brighton, she was rejected due to not knowing music theory. Rather than being disheartened, she decided to go full force into music production, and get experience by ‘doing’. She recommends others do the same. “I just spent a lot of time through trial and error, learning what worked for me,” she says. “While other people were at uni, I was spending all my time in my room on my computer making things.” Sølv has since collaborated with brands such as Dior, Nike, Burberry, Loewe, Mulberry and adidas. 

West echoes the sentiment that experience is key. “If you decide to not go to uni, you need to stand out another way,” she says. “Pack out your CV with extracurricular stuff, retail, part-time jobs, hobbies – it needs to be a full page when you send it. While your peers are studying, that’s your time to gain experience, get your foot in the door, make connections. Where you can, just do stuff, even if it’s your own projects. If you want to get into marketing, make your own TikTok. Support a family member with their business by doing their social media and outreach.”

While your peers are studying, that’s your time to gain experience, get your foot in the door, make connections.

PUSH PAST THE CRINGE AND SELF-PROMOTE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

“Be visible, and be intentional about that visibility,” is one of the best pieces of advice West would give non-uni-goers. After her apprenticeship, West began working at a media agency, and at the same time she started a personal TikTok account making videos about her career and life. It was after her TikTok series, ‘Rate my CV’, blew up – with the hashtag gaining millions of views – that she started being approached for partnerships. Her account now has over 46,000 followers where her aim is to help creatives get jobs.

“If you want to work in fashion, do fashion show critiques and hauls on TikTok. If you want to get into the music industry, start a TikTok page dedicated to talking about the latest artists, new albums, lyrics, marketing tactics. If you don’t have a degree, what companies will be looking for is your soft skills, digital savvy and your passion – TikTok is a great place to demonstrate that,” she says.

Sølv – who now has 167,000 followers on Instagram — says it was when she started sharing her work online that things started to snowball. “Social media has been huge for me because I’ve been a producer for a long time, but since I started to post videos online things have really changed,” she says. “You can shout into the void endlessly, but until people are aware of what you’re doing it’s impossible to really be heard. If you are expressing yourself with real intention and putting it out there consistently, the right people will find you and connect with your work.”

FIND YOUR COMMUNITY

Unfortunately, you will likely get FOMO if most of your friends go to university. Sølv struggled with loneliness and fear of missing out as a non-uni goer. “My production process has been quite isolated,” she says. “I haven’t really worked with other people, it’s always been very [solitary] for me, and that has been pretty hard along the way. If I could do it differently now, I’d probably make more effort to go and meet more like-minded people who understand the way you feel.”

West recommends staying focused on the bigger picture and, if your present reality isn’t as ‘exciting’ as you’d like, reframing it as a period of laying the groundwork for a more fun-filled future. “You will feel lonely at times and you will have to make sacrifices,” West adds. “But remind yourself of your priorities. Ask yourself: ‘Am I at a stage where I just want to have a social life, or do I want to set the foundations in my career?’ I personally didn’t come from wealth – I’m not a nepo baby. So I said to myself: in this season of your life right now, you need to work hard to make money in the future.”

At the same time, it is important to make new friends, West urges. “It will happen naturally [...] you might be around like-minded people on your apprenticeships and there are so many networks for apprentices now. Make sure you look on Eventbrite, and just stay in the loop of the industry. There’s WhatsApp groups you can join.”

There will be seasons when you’re not able to have fun, but when you can, go out and celebrate

REMEMBER THAT YOU’RE YOUNG

Amid all the hustle and grind, make time to enjoy being young. “You have to,” says West. “There will be seasons when you’re not able to have fun, but when you can, go out and celebrate. When I finished my apprenticeship, I was outside!”

Sølv agrees, adding: “One regret I have would be maybe spending too much time concentrating on the practicality of learning and not enough on actually living. Because I think that equally plays a huge part in your sound,” she says. “Now that I’m older and I’ve lived more life, I realise how invaluable that is. The way it affects the music I make, the way I view the world, and the way I translate feeling into sound, that’s priceless. Just as valuable as learning.”

On reflection, Sølv is glad she got rejected from university. “I think teaching yourself is the best way to find your own uniqueness but there’s pros and cons to each path. It’s just finding what’s best for you as an individual and the way you work.” She pauses, adding: “And it does feel pretty great not having student debt.”