CV Once

How to write the education section of your CV

Graduates should give education room and detail; experienced applicants can shrink it to one line per qualification. Here is what goes in at each stage.

The education section answers a yes-or-no question for most jobs (do you have the required qualification?) and a more detailed one for graduates (what can you already do?). How much you write depends on which question the reader is asking.

The basic entry

Each qualification needs:

  1. Qualification name, written out in the form your target country recognises: “BSc (Hons) Mechanical Engineering”, “Bachelor of Arts in Economics”, “MSc Data Science”.
  2. Institution and location.
  3. Dates: start and end year, or just the graduation year. Month and year is fine but less important here than for jobs.
  4. Result, if it helps you: degree classification, GPA, or grade.

Before: Uni of Manchester, 2019-22, Econ

After: BA (Hons) Economics, First Class, University of Manchester, 2019 to 2022

Write the full name of the institution; abbreviations that are obvious in your home town may not be obvious to an international recruiter.

How much detail at each stage

Career stage Where it goes What to include
Student or graduate (0 to 2 years) Near the top, often before experience Degree, grade, relevant modules, final-year project or dissertation, prizes, relevant societies
Early career (2 to 5 years) After experience Degree, grade if strong, one line on a relevant project if it still matters
Experienced (5+ years) After experience and skills Degree and institution; drop grades unless asked; drop school qualifications
Academic Near the top Full detail, including thesis title and supervisor

See the section order guide for where education fits in the overall layout.

Graduates: make the degree do the work

If your degree is your strongest evidence, treat it like a job and give it bullets.

MEng Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, 2020 to 2024 Upper second-class honours (2:1)

  • Final-year project: modelled flood risk for a 1.2 km river stretch using HEC-RAS; results used by the department in a follow-up study.
  • Relevant modules: Structural Analysis (78%), Geotechnics (72%), Hydraulics (75%).
  • Led a five-person team in a bridge design competition; design placed third of 24 entries.

Pick modules that match the job ad, not every module you took. Three or four is plenty. Include module marks only when they are good.

Before: Modules included: Introduction to Engineering, Maths 1, Maths 2, Design Studio, Professional Skills, Structures, Materials, Geotechnics, Hydraulics, Transport…

After: Relevant modules: Hydraulics (75%), Geotechnics (72%), Structural Analysis (78%).

Grades: when to show them

  • UK: degree classification (First, 2:1, 2:2, Third) is commonly listed by graduates. Many graduate schemes ask for a 2:1 or above, so stating it helps you pass screening. Experienced applicants usually drop it.
  • US: GPA is often listed by recent graduates if it is 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale, and dropped after the first job or two. Some employers ask for it explicitly. Always state the scale (“GPA 3.6/4.0”).
  • Elsewhere: give the grade in the local system, and add a short equivalence if the reader may not know it (“1.7, German scale, where 1.0 is the top grade”).

If your grade does not help you, it is acceptable to leave it off unless the employer asks for it. Never round it up.

School qualifications

Include school results (A-levels, Leaving Certificate, Abitur, high school diploma, Class XII) only if:

  • you are a school leaver or a recent graduate, or
  • the job ad asks for them (some UK graduate schemes still do), or
  • you have no degree and they are your highest qualification.

Once you have a degree and some work experience, they can go. US résumés almost never list high school for college graduates.

Unfinished and in-progress qualifications

Be accurate; misrepresenting a qualification is one of the easiest things for an employer to check.

  • In progress: “MSc Data Science, University of Edinburgh, expected June 2026”.
  • Part-time alongside work: “BSc Business Management (part-time), Open University, 2023 to present”.
  • Left without completing: list what you completed rather than the degree title. “Studied BSc Computer Science, University of Glasgow, 2018 to 2020 (two years completed)”. If you were awarded an interim qualification, name it.

Foreign qualifications

Recruiters in another country may not know your qualification. Help them:

  • Translate the qualification name into its nearest equivalent and keep the original in brackets: “Bachelor of Engineering (Licenciatura em Engenharia Mecânica)”.
  • Give an equivalence only if it is official or widely accepted. In the UK, recognition services and professional bodies can issue statements of comparability; in other countries, look for the national recognition body. Do not invent an equivalence yourself.
  • For regulated professions (medicine, nursing, law, teaching, some engineering roles), recognition of your qualification may be a legal requirement. State your registration status clearly.

Training courses and short courses

Short courses usually belong in a separate Certifications or Training section, not in Education. Keep Education for degrees, diplomas and formal qualifications. See certifications and languages.

Common mistakes

  • Listing education above a strong ten-year career.
  • Giving every module, prize and society from a degree finished fifteen years ago.
  • Inconsistent date formats between education and experience. The builder checks dates across the whole CV.
  • Abbreviations the reader may not know (“PGCE” is well known in UK schools, but spell it out for an international employer: “Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)”).

Next: writing a graduate CV and the skills section.