Much has been written about the transition from further education to higher education in the United Kingdom and about the sense of self- actualisation and self-validation experienced particularly by students who have, so to speak, had a life between leaving school and going to college. This particularly true of female 'mature' students who, in manner of the eponymous Rita of Educating Rita, discover themselves and feel that the acquisition of a degree testifies to their worth as a person and not just as a function in someone else's life. This was expressed most vividly by the participant who gave us the quote in the title above. This research sets out to do is to compare and contrast the attitudes towards higher education as manifested by groups of students taking higher education in further education settings with those of students who, having followed the same courses, then went on to take a 'top-up' degree in a higher education setting. The students divide into two groups: a) those undertaking a one year 'top-up' degree in Early Childhood Studies in a university; b) those undertaking an Higher National Diploma in Early Childhood Studies in a college of further education. Group (b) further divides into two parts as one group of participants attend a college in a major urban setting and the other a college in a smaller urban/semi-rural setting. Both the colleges 'feed' students into the university's 'top-up' degree. The data was gathered by means of meta-planning workshops conducted in the participants' institutions and analysed using a phenomological approach to discern emergent themes among the participants' responses. A questionnaire was also administered to provide factual data and this sets part of the backdrop to the work.