In the last few weeks, the Times has reported that there is a direct relationship between university degrees life spans. Peter McCarron, who conducted the research, suggested that a student's economic position in his later life was highly influenced by subject choices and also, the richer they became, the healthier they were. Does university life dominate an individual's life? This indeed raises several issues for discussion. It might be said that no matter how much data we could collect about the course of individuals' lives, the information would not enable us to form a formula predicting everyone's future. These critics would also argue that is it possible to judge a person's success according to his or her studies alone? There is, however, other academic research indicating that people are quite influenced during their university period.

The first reason why university period is a key determinant of long lives...