First-class degree? Not interested...

By Robert Peston, Lynda La Plante

Did you walk away with a Geoff Hurst (First), a Desmond (Tutu, 2:2) or, shamefully perhaps, a Douglas (Hurd, Third)? In the eyes of TV presenter and scientist Lord Winston, a first-class degree indicates such a narrow approach to life that he says he would never employ a graduate with one. So does the class of your degree really shape the person you become?

Michael Dobbs, author

Christ Church, Oxford. Got one of the best Thirds (in PPE) of my year. Too much rowing and rugby. There was wine and women, too. I was a sucker for distractions. Thought I could do a little better than that, so went to Tufts and Harvard and got myself a couple of MAs and a PhD while I was washing dishes, tending bar and painting houses. Taught me application, the value of sweat, and how to deal with disappointments. Eventually I got a job on the Boston Globe during the Watergate scandal. Taught me most of what I needed to know about politics.

Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor

I didn’t do any work at Oxford, as the former master of Balliol uncharitably reminded me on air the other day. I got a Second in PPE, which I was embarrassed about, and the shame reawakened my work ethic.

Allison Pearson, columnist and author

Even after all these years, it’s painful to admit I got a 2:2 in English. The Lower Second lacks the dash of the third-class degree, which louche show-offs like W H Auden could boast about. Neither does it signal the polished reliability of an Upper Second. I got into Cambridge from a state school and, from the start, I floundered, devoting myself to a field of endeavour in which I could excel: sex with rowers. Well, it was certainly an education, if not a higher one. What were the consequences for my life of getting a 2:2? Firstly, there was what George Eliot called “the tingle of a remembered shame”. I reckon it took me about 10 years to recover my confidence. A tiny part of me still believes that, one day, I will go back and get my First.

Leo Johnson, environmentalist

For the first (and last) time in my life I did well in an exam and got a First in Classics Part 1 (“Mods”). Then was subjected to a harrowing campaign of violence from an unnamed (older) brother. Younger brother then eclipsed us all... Changed to Philosophy and Psychology, which fried my brain, and got a very distinguished 2:2.

Libby Purves, broadcaster

I don’t think Lord Winston’s point applies quite as much to degrees in the humanities. I read English, and loved it. There was time for acting (I was terrible), the more frivolous debates (I was Oxford Union librarian for one term) and doing stuff for local radio. Plus a disastrous love life. I got a First to general surprise, but not at the expense of life.

Nigel Farage, Ukip leader

I have a degree from the university of life. Working in a 1980s trading room made me a pragmatist and a strong believer in the work and play ethic.

Dame Joan Bakewell, broadcaster

I got a 2:2 from Cambridge in Economics Part 1 and History Part 2. Concentration on study was disrupted by modest roles in several theatre productions: a somewhat turbulent love life. I learnt fast about class, accents, men and clothes, and more slowly about the Bretton Woods Agreement and the rise of trade unionism. On the whole, it turned out a good mix.

Jane Garvey, broadcaster

I got a 2:2 in English from Birmingham University. I didn’t do any work, but I didn’t lead a wild life either. Those three years – 1982 to 1985 – remain a mystery to me. I spent a huge amount of time listening to the radio (Gloria Hunniford was on every lunchtime). I didn’t do any sport; I wasn’t on the student newspaper. I have memories of doing a lot of hand washing of woolly jumpers. I didn’t go into university a lot. A 2:2 was what I deserved. I only wish I could take more pride in it.

Sir Roy Strong, historian

I was a tremendous swot. I got a First in History from the University of London. I worked so hard because I knew if I didn’t get that, I couldn’t get a scholarship to do my postgraduate degree at the Warburg Institute in London. The turning point was at the end of my postgraduate course, when I went for interview and realised that I had spent all my time in a haze of academe. It was all built on fairytales and castles in the air; nothing practical. Saying that, spending so much time in the library got me to where I wanted to be.

Esther Rantzen, broadcaster

Having plunged into student theatre in my very first week as an undergraduate, I was instantly addicted – right up to the day after my last finals paper when I appeared in a Balliol production of The Importance of Being Earnest playing Gwendolen opposite the very glamorous Peter Snow. Since we rehearsed all the way through the weeks that should have been dedicated to revision, I was deeply relieved to discover how often I could illustrate learned points in my English final exams with quotations from Gwendolen. I remember asking for acting leave in my last tutorial just before the exams started. My tutor sighed resignedly and we agreed that she might as well give me permission, since it was too late to do anything else. I decided to buy myself an MA (which you could in those days for £12) because I thought I would get such a terrible degree that I’d better claim a Master’s Degree so that nobody would ask what class my BA was. And nobody has, until now. So I’d better confess, Oscar Wilde did me proud, and I got what Oxford calls “a good Second.” And no, I don’t have any regrets.

Julian Fellowes, writer

I was at Magdalene, Cambridge, and I got a 2:1 in English Literature. Of course, my father expected me to get a First, but university was considerably more frivolous in those days, and we spent a lot of the time racing up to London for parties and climbing over the gates to get back in. Then there were the theatre and film societies, and all the rest of the activities that didn’t have much to do with study. But I don’t feel cheated. The truth is, I wasn’t clever enough to get a First without working very, very hard and so justice was done. As for whether or not it made me a rounded individual to get a Second, that is for others to judge.And, anyway, I chose to go into showbusiness where they couldn’t have cared less if I came with a First from Cambridge or a Blue Peter badge.

Bear Grylls, explorer

I did a part-time degree in Spanish at Birkbeck College, London after I left the Army. I got a 2:2 – just. I can’t say my low degree ever helped me – what did was understanding that hard work, persistence and enthusiasm are king.

Louis de Bernières, author

I got a degree in philosophy at Manchester. It was a 2:2 because I boycotted a compulsory metaphysics course in the last year. I have always been embarrassed by it. I had bum jobs through my twenties, which very fortunately turned out to be good research for fiction. I thank myself daily for doing a philosophy degree. It made me what I am creatively and intellectually. Many of us do degrees when we are too young and silly to do as well as we should have done, so an open mind should be kept about how well we might do in the future. My advice would be to take references from university tutors more seriously than the paper with the results on.

Fay Weldon, author

I got an MA in Economics and Psychology in 1952, when only 5 per cent of women got degrees. Degrees weren’t classified then, but I came third in my Economics class (first and second went on to be Mrs Thatcher’s top economists). I spent my time hopelessly in love and going to parties, and resolved never to speak to a member of staff.

Kate Humble, television presenter

I chose not to go to university. I went to a school that prided itself in preparing its pupils for Oxbridge from the age of 11. I spent seven years taking exams and, by the time it came to filling in our UCCA forms, thought there must be more to learning than this. I went to Africa instead. I still think it stood me in far better stead.

Frederic Raphael, author

The patron saint of academic failures is the great classicist (and poet) A E Housman, who failed his finals at Oxford. As a Cambridge professor, Housman became a pitiless critic, especially of first-class scholars. My failure to get a First in Moral Sciences was a blow to my vanity, but it prompted an Avis-like tendency to try harder. I once, for an abbreviated time, employed a woman with a First in history (and an ex-President of the Cambridge Union). She smelt fragrant but she couldn’t spell. I won my share of scholarships and awards and must console myself that, had I also got a First, I might have become insufferable.

Jonathan Aitken, former politician

I’ve been an undergraduate at Oxford twice. First, aged 19 in 1961, when I read Law at Christ Church and ended up with a Third – what I’d call lazy but competent (there was then a class below that, a Fourth). Then, aged 58, I went to Wycliffe Hall to read Theology and got a First – proof of divine intervention. A combination of winging it and working for it.