If you went to university what courses or degrees would you say are worth it and what is pointless to study?

[Cupcakeicecream]

Whether you went to university or would start over and go back to university what would you study.
How many of you actually use the degree you got is it actually relevant to your life or a complete waste?
What degrees would you say are absolutely pointless to study and why.
If you had the chance to change your career what would you study.
Or would you bother going to university if you had your time again.
What degrees are worth it either getting you into a job with work life balance good salary job prospects ect

D'S did wildlife conservation and zoo biology, as did DDiL. DDiL also did a degree which qualified her to be a ODP. D's works in insurance, although not call centre DDiL had 2 job offers within days of getting her 2nd degree.

The best degrees are those that get you a professional qualification at the end especially if there are shortages.

No degree is pointless. Define pointless? You could go to the best university and study the top rated course but if you don't engage with the material, the course or use the time productively than that could be considered pointless.
Employability isn't the only measure of how successful your time at university is.

Although, I don't need to rtft to know that this will turn into the usual ex-poly bashing snobbery it always does.

My degree is in Dentistry. I am a dentist so I use my degree, it is well paid and makes a positive contribution to society. People need dentists.
Work life balance pretty good as fixed sociable hours and not much work taken home. On the other hand it is very stressful.
Would I do it again? No, I find the stress difficult as I get older.

I did history and loved it. I'm great at pub quizzes and conversation, my reading and writing skills are great as that's all I did for four years, and I am so glad to have the knowledge I do. However, I have never used my degree for a job and wouldn't encourage my DC to study history, sadly.

DH did maths and went into IT. The world is your oyster with a maths degree and if my DC had an aptitude for it, I would love for them to study maths.

I work in the HE sector....

Anything STEM-related is valuable

Any social science discipline with an analytical /numerical component - eg Economics

Politics - (just my personal opinion) just because the world seriously needs more politically literate people right now!

English Language can be useful in terms of developing good understanding of technical written English.

Whatever you do, back it up with professional work experience - an internship etc.

I am also a dentist (so use my degree every day!)
I'm lucky that I love my job, but agree that it's stressful, and not as lucritive as some think it is. My DH did a science degree and a masters and has had an interesting and varied career and has done well. I must also say he works very hard, so that might be more to do with his success than his original degree. Most friends who did a STEM degree have 'good' jobs but probably nothing directly related to what they studied. For example a friend did a physics degree/phd and is in the oil industry due to his transferable skills.

For my children, I would encourage them to look at something that interests them and not choose something for the career prospects alone. I've met too many miserable dentists who chose the degree for the wrong reasons and hate the every day reality of the job! (Although, they could use that degree to change their career, lots of medics and dentists do)

I don’t think any degree is useless/pointless, but I’d advise people considering a degree to be confident about how it may be useful in future and why they want/need a degree. I think possibly in non-fee paying times, some people might have embarked on a degree because they weren’t really sure what they wanted to do in life (me!) and were delaying. I did languages and am now a language teacher.

BSc Geology and Physics followed by an MSc in Geotechnical Engineering, which pulled these both together. I have used this every working day since I graduated in 1993.

I am surprised at people saying no to psychology. I'd have thought it offers lots of transferrable skills. I regret not studying psychology. I'd have loved to become a Clinical Psychologist or even a psychology teacher, the topic is endlessly fascinating. Is it really such a bad idea? Are there any people on here who did a psychology degree and used this directly in their career?

I personally would say study something you are really interested in, otherwise it will be incredibly boring and you won't do well.

Chemistry BSc and PhD, have worked for over 30 years in a field where these are the entry level qualifications. Work part time from home, salary ok, good work-life balance.

Re 'transferable skills': Decent STEM degrees, whether 'vocational' or not, should provide many - if you have the requisite aptitudes and interest.

One size doesn't fit all.

@postitnot
That’s great that you love it. I have days where I enjoy it and days where I get really anxious which is my problem. It’s getting worse as I get older.
I’m Clinical teaching one day a week now and enjoying that, so that might be a future pathway for me.

I didn't go to university - if I went now I would like to study Geology and Biology. I would have loved to have worked as a dendrochronologist. I know someone who did equine studies for their degree - they now work as a clerk in an office - I would call that pointless as far as careers are concerned.

Business and marketing and have used something from it every working day.

If I had my time again, I would probably focus on accountancy, as a more 'secure job' which values age and experience. I work in marketing now and I'm Very much aware I'm quite 'old'.

For me if was pointless having my STEM degree or any degree as I live up north in a land of little job opportunity, what’s the point of being a graduate if you’re not in a position to relocate to where the jobs are

I don't think you can say any degree is worthwhile or worthless in the abstract. It depends on your personal situation.

Someone from a privileged background, supportive family, confident enough to network easily, will find a way to turn a degree in ancient greek or medieval Italian literature into a nice job that they love. Someone without those advantages, maybe not.

Doing a degree in journalism but then having to live in a rural area where there are not many possibilities to do anything with it would probably be very frustrating, but if you live in London and can network could lead to a really exciting life

Personally I would recommend cybersecurity (either the technical side or the policy side) there are loads of jobs and it offers good transferable skills, and there are a lot of interesting angles to it.

My first degree in the 80's was Hotel Management. Didn't work particularly hard but having a degree has always opened work doors for me.
Now 50 and almost a 3rd year student nurse. Completely different, much much harder but I love it! Xx

I did Environmental Science. And worked for 20 years in the sector so it was a very useful degree.
Plenty of people said my degree was useless. But the only really useless degrees I think are the ones people do only to go to university. I knew people doing business, computing, law and nursing who were only there as it was the only course that accepted them. None of them enjoyed it or got anything out of it. And they all went on to work in v different areas.

I think it depends on what you want, where you go and what you do...I mean a law degree is pointless if you become a teacher or if you end up as a secretary in an pharmaceutical company.
A medical degree is useless if you don’t continue down some sort of medical route!!
Bit of an odd question OP!!
If ppl want to study a subject and it’s what the like and it leads them to a job they love then who cares 🤷‍♀️

Literature. I have always used it. I can research, construct a concise argument, criticise a bad policy. I have written policy documents.
The arts are as important as STEM subjects. It is more frequent that the poet or novelist challenge a society, than an engineer.

A psychology degree is only worth it if you specialise in post grad afterwards.
But it has ALOT of different routes it can take you, the obvious ones being forensic, clinical, health, education which all require professional doctorates, then you have research/academia (my career path as I love research and my interest is very niche in the Uk), but it can also take you down the marketing/business routes (a lecturer I had back when going my undergrad had worked in big international company on their marketing strategies and had travelled the world full expenses paid with a brilliant wage while doing so, she loved it but wanted to settled down and start a family so went back into lecturing for a few years before going back into marketing based career again

@FunnyScience psychology has a lot of transferable skills and can be used in multiple professions, I think the bad rep it gets is because lots of people do it because they dont know what to do, and dont do anything with it as you cant really do anything without post grad (clinical for example requires usually a masters and a DclinPsych before you can be a practicing clinical psychologist).
But you can take psychology in a lot of directions as it has a lot of transferable skills, business, marketing, I know graduates in real estate, you often do a lot of statistical work, so can open doors onto data analysis and government work etc etc

Another biochemist here! BSc, MSc and PhD, every job I've had since has relied (and built) on those qualifications.
Now very senior in biotech, good salary, interesting job.
There are so many opportunities in life sciences - I would definitely recommend it.

I did Economics and for years I thought I’d never really used it as I work in IT. But in fact thinking back, it was a really good grounding, I’ve used so many of the skills - maths, stats, data analysis, logic, philosophical thinking plus I did some options in law and accountancy.

I worked in IT for a financial institution for quite a few years and understanding base rates and general economics was really handy then too.

Maths, science, languages, engineering along with the more vocational doctor, vet, dentist etc... are good. English, history, geography don't have a lot of options other than teaching. Psychology is a bit basic unless you actually wsnt to do psychology. Often just gets picked as an easy extra credit

I did a degree in geography. Did not enjoy it at all and was a really stupid decision done for the wrong reasons. I wish I hadn't done it. It has been of little use to me. I should either have done a health care profession degree ( not medicine ). One of the therapies or I should have done a general humanities degree which at least I would have enjoyed.