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Who’d be a student these days? The lecturers always seem to be on strike and when you do get a degree, there will probably be no jobs thanks to AI.

As a graduate of Edinburgh University, currently facing £140 million in cuts, this makes me sad. It remains one of the world’s great learning institutions but perhaps it has rested on its laurels for too long and not moved with the times?

I studied history and English and spent weeks writing essays about what happened in Africa during the First World War. Apart from winning me a Trivial Pursuit question in 2008, I’ve never needed any of that information.

So instead, let’s see what we can learn from the hallowed halls of Nottingham Trent University. Perhaps most famous for a series of antisemitic incidents, it’s now reimagining itself as the university of the future with a course aimed squarely at what this country needs right now more than anything else – content creators.

Its three-year ‘content creation’ degree aims to give you all the essential skills you require to make videos and posts for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

While others are doing boring stuff like learning to be doctors or engineers, at Nottingham Trent you can focus on the important things in life such as how to build audiences, engage with brands and monetise your content, especially if it involves cats.

Destiny McGowan graduated this summer from the course which costs £9,790 a year and says she’s already posting about fashion and streaming as a live selling host on TikTok.

So what on Earth are Edinburgh University waiting for? Instead of cutting up to 90 current courses they could be grabbing the zeitgeist and offering options suitable for the contemporary world. Out with ancient Greek and in with cool Gen Z stuff.

A content creation degree is the obvious place to start. According to a recent poll, over half of young people say they want to be social media influencers, so that is a sure-fire winner.

For the more industrious, we could have a BA in barista studies with the first year spent learning about coffee beans, second year focussed on hot water application and the third year perfecting the foam love heart on the top. All that caffeine should make them really good at concentrating so we can be confident of a high pass rate.

And how about a drone doctorate? Ukraine proves electronic air combat is the way ahead for modern warfare and, given the current depleted state of the British armed forces, we can’t depend on the actual military to defend us so instead let’s prise all those teenagers out of their bedrooms and away from Call of Duty and get them educated, employed and ready to fight for their country, using only their thumbs.

Alongside degrees in illegal e-bike modification, zero alcohol brewing and distilling, and the hidden references contained in Taylor Swift songs, I really think we have stumbled upon a brave new way for Edinburgh University to emerge from its current financial crisis.

Which reminds me of the time during the First World War when fighting forced a college in Mombasa to abandon its courses and find new ways of educating students. You see, I knew it would come in useful one day.