If you did a non professional degree at uni, do you regret it?

[Pheonix2023]

By no professional I mean a degree that wasn’t for a specific thing
like medical degree to become a dr, dentist,lawyer,nurse etc ?

I regret it massively. It’s much harder to get a job when you don’t have a specific qualification that leads to a specific career. People used to say “just get a degree, you’ll get a better job, most employers will accept any degree, is just proof of your ability to study at a certain level“. Is it bollocks. You will be unemployed.

Definitely NOT true!
80% of graduate employers don't specify a specific subject. They most certainly are looking for the proof you can study at a particular level and that you have developed what we refer to as 'graduate attributes' - the skills you develop while studying at degree level.

All the data shows that graduate schemes take graduates from a range of disciplines.

To be blunt, if your daughter fancies studying geography at Edge Hill or Lincoln or Wolverhampton or a similar third division university, tell her not to bother. If she is an Oxbridge or RG prospect, it won’t do her any harm. Is she unusually intelligent and capable? If so, she can probably get away with geography at a good university rather than a better-regarded subject. Sorry, geographers, but you must know that geography, unfairly or otherwise, was traditionally regarded as the subject you studied if you weren’t that smart and/or couldn’t decide what to study. Don’t shoot the messenger.

my friends son who got on the EA graduate program did geography at one of those named “third division “ universities. 🤷‍♀️

And yes I was also under the impression that geography was a well respected degree from recruiters due to the mix of science and humanities?

I did a really pointless art degree where we learned bugger all practical skills.
Loved it, wouldn't do it now though

@fUNNYfACE36 £80k isn't high return? How clever of you to a) know my salary and b) think it's beneath you.

I've paid off my student loan, and my degree set me up on so many ways. In fact I now write higher education policy, so this is literally my expert area. But please do tell me how my opinion is rubbish?

That one person got a job with the environment agency (assume that’s what you meant by ‘EA’?) doesn’t make a university objectively good. Which universities do you think are in the third division? Or do you think that all universities are considered equal by employers and recruiters? Spoiler: they are not.

Your ‘impression’ of geography sounds like a sales pitch by a geography department in a university prospectus. I’ll explain why it was never, traditionally, regarded as being a respected degree. It’s because the thick Hooray Henries who were hothoused through public school into a university had to study something and many of them chose geography. To argue that it ranks alongside maths, hard science, economics etc is a little optimistic, I think.

What is Greats??

Your ‘impression’ of geography sounds like a sales pitch by a geography department in a university prospectus. I’ll explain why it was never, traditionally, regarded as being a respected degree. It’s because the thick Hooray Henries who were hothoused through public school into a university had to study something and many of them chose geography. To argue that it ranks alongside maths, hard science, economics etc is a little optimistic, I think.

I'm the last Graduate Outcomes survey Geography compared very favourably with maths, hard sciences and economics- in fact fewer geography graduates we're unemployed compared to maths and economics graduates.

I did art, of the "call that art? My 5 year old could have done that" variety.

It's great training for a professional career. It's pretty much the opposite of being spoon fed.. you have to be self-motivated from day 1. You have your work critiqued by lecturers in front of your classmates, and eventually by your classmates as well, so you need to be able to stand up and present your work, take harsh feedback and respond unemotionally, actually take it in, think about it and learn from it. Because art is so subjective you get used to operating in an environment where there is no single "right" answer.

You know from the start that if you want to make it as "an artist" you'll be self employed so you come out expecting to hustle, network and create your own opportunities, so even as students we were encouraged to look for opportunities outside uni to create and exhibit...not galleries as they already had formal intake processes but interesting spaces, events that might appreciate extra content and so on. And that sense of looking for opportunities, of seeing new possibilities in the gaps and edges and turning them into opportunities is definitely something I still do.

Then there's the cultural and social analysis side of decoding paintings, understanding the historical context, thinking about who got to make art and who didn't, and how that affects what we do and don't see represented. You come out with a healthy dose of cynicism/awareness that everything you get from media, news, factual or fictional, has been through many conscious and subconscious decisions about what to include, what to leave out and how to present it.

I went from art in a roundabout way and ended up in corporate technology where most people have a STEM background, and it surprised me how - unworldly?naive? - a lot of them were compared to myself as a grad. We'd get soft skills / professional development and I'd be thinking "how do you not know this?"

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of useless art graduates around as well. Because it's so unstructured it's totally possible to doss around and gain nothing much. But I think if you look at people coming out of fine art degrees with a 1st or a 2:1, you'd find a bunch of smart, savvy and self motivated people. Even if your 5 year old could have done the art 😂

Dear oh dear.

As a university lecturer (not Geography) I’m well aware that some are ranked lower than others. Though I’d never use the term “third division “ myself. My point is that it’s perfectly possible to go to a lower ranked university and still get a good job at the end of it -even in (shock horror) Geography.

And yes, as a previous poster mentioned the graduate outcomes for Geography are good. The guardian had an article about geography employability

Studying geography arms graduates with a mix of skills employers want to see: Geography students generally do well in terms of their relatively low unemployment rates. You could attribute this to the fact that the degree helps develop a whole range of employability skills including numeracy, teamwork through regular field trips, analytical skills in the lab and a certain technical savviness through using various specialist computing applications. Also, the subject area in itself cultivates a world view and a certain cultural sensitivity. These all potentially help a geographer to stand out in the labour market.

so yes, maybe I do sound like a geography dept marketing blurb but I’d say it’s broadly true and the employment stats are objective.

Very similar for me, although I would claim that molecular biology and biochemistry (and some other STEM subjects) are vocational/professional.

I did a professional degree but didn't like it so didn't enter the profession. It limited my choices for training in my alternative choice of career but once I'd done the training it has made no difference in my life. Often, once you have got going in a career, no one cares about what you did at university.

I did a degree in Applied Social Sciences and graduated in 1999 so no fees and got grants. Don't regret it but if I was going to go to uni today I'd deffo think more carefully about what job my degree would get me.

Both DH and I did arts degrees.
We then did functional MAs a few years later when we had worked out what we wanted to do.
Didn't regret it at all.

Dc aren't planning particularly practical degrees and that is fine by us. They might as well be interested in what they are studying.

But they are likely to need more than one degree. So we have thought about financing for that.

I can guess what type of university you lecture at.

You must know that ‘graduate outcomes’ and ‘employability statistics’ can be presented in many different ways. Usually in such a way as to make the institution or subject look more appealing to prospective punters.

Let’s say that somebody dutifully pays their £30k for a degree at a low-ranked university. They get a job in Pret A Manger at the end of it. How do you think that will be presented by the university? If it’s the same outcome for 90% of the same intake, with 10% not securing any paid work, it will be presented as “90% of our graduates had a job 6 months after graduation”. We seldom hear about the type of role. If that university were regularly turning out graduates going into magic circle law firms, or big 4 accounting firms, or investment banks, or private equity houses, you can be sure that we’d be hearing about it.

We all know that the most prestigious employers usually only consider graduates from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St Andrews and the Russell Group. Why pretend otherwise? It doesn’t mean that every other university is without merit but to pretend to the OP and her daughter that studying at a low-ranked university, and studying a relatively poorly-regarded subject, will deliver an unusually good outcome is misleading. It’s a variant on the pernicious myth referenced by other posters: that getting a degree, any degree, from anywhere, will set you up for life. It won’t.

I can guess what type of university you lecture

I suspect you’re guessing incorrectly. 😄

I’m very aware of the rest of your post, none of which I actually said any different to. My original post was about someone who had gone to a lower ranked university, got a geography degree and then a decent graduate job. So just a throwaway anecdote.

You’re perfectly correct about employability stats. Another anecdote, DD’s best friend has graduated from Oxford and has been working in Costa since graduating. She either read English or History, can’t remember.

But my point about graduate recruiters when interviewed saying they think geography is a worthwhile degree stands. I have no skin in the game regarding geography, I don’t teach it, my kids don’t study it but I think your comment regarding it’s worth is unfair. My opinion, but like I said backed up by the opinion of graduate recruiters.

You must know that ‘graduate outcomes’ and ‘employability statistics’ can be presented in many different ways. Usually in such a way as to make the institution or subject look more appealing to prospective punters.
Haha you clearly know nothing about Graduate Outcomes.

The data I referred to is the data collected as part of the Graduate Outcomes Survey, a survey carried out independently from universities. The data is the data and the person who sent me that data is the UKs leading expert on Graduate Employability data and he doesn't work for a university.... his job is to present the information as it is even when it's not favourable to the university ( and I've been in those meetings!!) Of course, a university will use their personal data to paint a particular picture but that's not what is happening here. And you can't lie about your GO figures, they have to be displayed as part of your course information.

We're talking about geography as a subject area so the data refers to geography graduates from all universities offering it as a degree course. And overall geography graduates perform well and the number of unemployed geography graduates is lower than maths, economics and some science graduates.

I don't. I think I should have had a year out before starting, when I was a bit more adult and could have been a better person to be with.

Let’s say that somebody dutifully pays their £30k for a degree at a low-ranked university. They get a job in Pret A Manger at the end of it. How do you think that will be presented by the university?
It's presented as employment but not graduate employment. There are two different types of figures presented and these are made clear In league tables. The is an overall employment figure and a graduate employment figure.

If it’s the same outcome for 90% of the same intake, with 10% not securing any paid work, it will be presented as “90% of our graduates had a job 6 months after graduation”. We seldom hear about the type of role.

That information is there and freely available.

If that university were regularly turning out graduates going into magic circle law firms, or big 4 accounting firms, or investment banks, or private equity houses, you can be sure that we’d be hearing about it.

And you do.... but not all graduates want to work in those types of roles. The biggest graduate employer in the UK is the NHS.

We all know that the most prestigious employers usually only consider graduates from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St Andrews and the Russell Group. Why pretend otherwise? It doesn’t mean that every other university is without merit but to pretend to the OP and her daughter that studying at a low-ranked university, and studying a relatively poorly-regarded subject, will deliver an unusually good outcome is misleading.

and I never said any of that, sorry if you have misinterpreted my posts.

i never made any comment at all about whether prestigious employers will consider graduates from a handful of leading universities. I agree with that and never said any different.

i disagree that geography is a poorly regarded subject.

i stand by my comment that having a degree from a lower ranked university is pointless. I totally believe if you get a good grade and the student is the type of individual to put in a lot of graft towards making themselves employable then they have a chance of a decent job.

We all know that the most prestigious employers usually only consider graduates from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St Andrews and the Russell Group

prestigious employers won’t be taken in by RG marketing and will judge on the merits of the course.

there are a number of Uni’s not included above where graduates are in high demand.

i stand by my comment that having a degree from a lower ranked university is pointless. I totally believe if you get a good grade and the student is the type of individual to put in a lot of graft towards making themselves employable then they have a chance of a decent job.

This is absolutely true. But It doesn't fit with the MN narrative of only certain degrees from certain universities being worthwhile. However, those of us who work in HE and those of us heavily involved in employability in HE know how it actually works.

i stand by my comment that having a degree from a lower ranked university is pointless. I totally believe if you get a good grade and the student is the type of individual to put in a lot of graft towards making themselves employable then they have a chance of a decent job.

sorry, that should have been is NOT pointless.

No, but fees were total £6000 for me. No way I’d pay £30,000 for it.