Why I DON'T regret going to Uni

8 years ago I graduated from Manchester Met Uni with a degree I’d taken because I saw it as the only route into the shiny corporate world?I craved.

Leaving school at 17 without the sufficient A levels to get into a Uni resulted in me studying in my spare time after I had left Manchester for Gateshead to learn Jewish teachings full time.

My old school allowed me to sit a final exam in which I achieved a D. I now had the sufficient UCAS points to apply for a basic Uni course in Manchester which I got busy applying for on the local library PC.

The problem was that I had no clue how the application process worked and in error, ended up selecting a Manchester Met Uni course which was based at their Cheshire campus in Crewe (50 miles away from where I would be living) as my irreversible first choice!

This resulted in me travelling for hours via car and train to attend the daily lectures as there was no Jewish living setup in the small railway town I had clicked on instead of their Manchester campus.?

Fast-forward 3 years and I had attained a 2:1 and secured a graduate IT sales role at a big US corporation just like I had dreamed.?

The degree hadn’t given me much applicable knowledge for sales and it was a case of needing a piece of paper to get me through the interview door. But the experience had given me something else vital for my success in sales.

Before Uni, I had little exposure to communicating with people outside the warm bubble of my Jewish community despite living in Manchester, Gateshead and Jerusalem as a Yeshiva student.

Uni gave me that much needed introduction to people of every background, religion and and culture. The friendships and shared experiences truly shaped me into the communicator and relationship-maker I needed to become for a booming career in B2B sales.

And here I am 8 years later, thriving in the same industry, still hungry and excited at the thought of travelling to tall buildings around the country to close deals.?

I realize that my story doesn’t make me Will Smith from ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ but it’s cool to look back at my naive teenage self and see how clumsy attempts to become my specific image of a ‘businessman’ were successful because I truly wanted it.?

If you really want something, just start the ball rolling… however clueless you are at this moment in time.?

There’s no single path to your success