AIBU to want to be completely sure of my future prospects before going to university?

[CocoaButterGirl]

Hi MN,

Knowing what you know now about what life is like, the real world, skills that are in demand and useful, degrees and career paths that more or less lead to secure comfortable employment....

What would you recommend your DC study?

I am 21, left school after GCSE's and have been working/travelling ever since. I'm now thinking about going to university. My fiance and friends are all for it and I would like to have a interesting career.

Currently, I work as an office assistant in a beauty/health company, the freebies are great and it was a lot of fun for the first few years, but I have always gotten the sense that the others look down on me for not being university-educated and 'only' being support staff and it is not a nice feeling.

I'm interested in most things; history, anthropology, pharmacology, literature, philosophy, genetics

There are so many choices I don't know how to pick just one.

I want to choose something sensible and something that will lead to a good job, especially since it will cost me £27000 and three+ years of lost income.

OP I agree that you don't sound ready to make this decision - and also hardly any degree bar medicine or accountancy is going to lead to just one career. Also even med students may not stay the course. You need to actually enjoy what you are doing. I teach English and my first years in the last month have read 3 Shakespeare plays - in depth - a couple of novels and a chunk of secondary reading. This is the bit where we're easing them in..... It's a lie that students don't work, and you'll need to live with your subject 6 days a week ish for 3 years.

That said if employability is your main criterion be sure to look at DLHE results - destinations of leavers of higher ed - it maps recent graduate prospects for all courses and can be accessed via UCAS.

RevoltingPeasant The DLHE sounds interesting, I am looking into that. Thanks

IMO there's no point in doing a degree for the sake of it (unless the only point is enjoyment if it's something you love).

I am a bank manager. Out of 12 staff under me, 8 have degrees - most of them humanities related. These are graduates with God knows how much in debt, doing pretty standard customer-service work. There are people on the same grade and pay as those that have gone into the same role straight from school.

Unless it's a targeted degree (nursing/medicine/law) with a definite profession attached, degrees have become pretty pointless in terms of career advancement. They used to be for the elite, the avademic, those that are most dedicated and intelligent. It's just not the case anymore.

If I wanted to guarantee a job? Plumbing/electrician courses. Get qualified in as either and you'll be in a position to turn away customers.

Can you do a Foundations of Science access course? I flunked my A-levels (and didn't do the right ones to start with) so did that prior to starting my degree - it was really helpful in focusing my mind on what I wanted to do, vs what sounded like a good idea at the time. It meant, rather than starting a degree in Digital Commerce, 2 years before the dot-com bubble burst, I read Geology, which has lead to all sorts of interesting jobs, none of which actually involved geology.

I've got an MA, and I'm now doing a MSc through the OU. Really, don't discount a full OU degree on the basis that it's not a campus course. Particularly if you've a very diverse set of interests, an Open degree is worthwhile, and I've not come across any snobbery, if that's a concern.

The other path of course is to be more mercenary about your career. Can your push for promotions? Switch jobs for a more senior role in another company? I used to work with a woman who didn't go to uni, but who was a pretty senior account manager for her company because she worked hard at demonstrating her skills and her value to the company, and was rewarded for that.

Personally I would rate a person with an OU degree as being far more focussed than a 'normal' degree.

Some health related degrees, nursing, Physio, OTs, midwifery are paid for by the NHS and you can get a means tested bursary so if you are interested in these professions then you will not need to get into too much, if any, debt. You can also do 'bank' work as support staff to pay your way.

I would start by asking yourself what you want from life. You say you want to study something that 'will lead to a good job'... what do you mean by that? One that pays £50K? One that helps other people? One that is arty and creative? One that is active or outdoors?

There is little point setting out on this expensive and time consuming journey unless you know (at least roughly) where you want to go to... and are pretty passionate about getting there.

The sciences seem to do well - I did maths and physics and all of my classmates are in decent employment.

LimeLeaafLizard I know the conditions of the career I want, but not the actual career itself.

I am looking for a career that has most of these things

1. Main thing: Helps people, affects people lives for the better

1. Is something you can take a career break from when you have children and then go back to without having to start at the bottom

1. Flexible - can do part-time, full time, term-time

1. Uses science and maths, challenging

1. Pays enough that I don't have to depend on a man/government, ever. Right now I make £20k which is okay for now, given that I have no expenses, but that is only because I live with my fiance, if we broke up I would be screwed. I hate feeling this vulnerable, that is big part of the motivation for me to be educated, to have my own career and to be financially independent.

1. Some travel abroad

Occupational Therapy would be good then, except I doubt you'd travel abroad. You're helping people, you can have career breaks, it's flexible, definitely challenging and you will use science based evidence

Wages are: Occupational therapists starting their career as allied health professionals in the NHS typically start at Band 5 (£21,176-£27,625), moving to occupational therapist specialist (Band 6, £25,528-£34,189) and then occupational therapist advanced (Band 7, £30,460-£40,157).

Good list!

Accountancy would meet all of those criteria apart from the first one..! You could work for a charity though.
And you can train without having a degree - look up AAT.

How about Radiography? I have a friend who works scanning kidneys, mainly. Don't think she earns a fortune but enough. Meets all but the travel.

IME most jobs that pay well and involve travel abroad are not ones that involve 'helping people'.

Very true, limeleafllizard.

I think a straight science degree is easier to become employed with- moreso than a humanities degree. The pay is better and you can do some really interesting things with eg a chemistry degree.

Possibly scientific research might allow you to travel, earn fairly well + do work that helps people?

You can do very interesting work with a chemistry degree but the current pay for a new graduate in the south east is £15-18k. Very experienced chemists are taking work for £20-25k as that's all there is.

Engineering - loads of different opportunities depending on which type of engineer and can lead into management/ consultancy. Can work UK or overseas and for charity/ aid.

Law, English, history, business studies or psychology or anything that teaches you transferable skills that you can apply to a variety of professions. I know that you & a lot of others believe a vocational degree is the only way to a job but the downside to that is what after 3/4 years of study you dont want to go into that field?

I work in the HE sector & find that the unemployed graduates are unemployed not because of their degree choice but because of their attitude & lack of skills & failure to optimise their potential. You have to be multi skilled & be seen to be willing to work your way up & use every opportunity in the holidays/spare time to update your skills by volunteering, jobs, internship whatever.

I deal with highly educated graduates who can't string a sentence together, who don't want to put the effort to build a career because they feel with a BA/MA they can walk straight into a CEO position. The sense of entitlement is unbelievable which is why I believe it is down to transferable skills & social & communication skills more than just degree subject alone.

What about devising a career plan with your employer and see if they will support you perhaps look at your intranet career page and identify something you can aspire to. Work out what qualifications you need and cwhat you want from your employer (reduced hours, paying for the course even). Some places will do this but have a clause that if you fail the class or leave the company soon after you will need to pay back.

If you like maths and decide to go down that route ( might need an a level though), something heavy in stats and computational maths will have good prospects. Hard to find a job where you help people though.

Pharmacy might be a good option for you. It's a four year masters course. The job meets your criteria.

I'd just add Law completely depends on where you live and who you know. My best friend recently finished her law degree, she's now a paralegal but loads of we year are struggling to find work

a few months ago we went to UCAS induction for parents evening at ds school. The presenter talked about choice of subjects and asked which we thought would be best in terms of employability- out of - geography, physics, drama and I think media studies. I would have said geography (as it can cover a wide range of skills, you have to be numerate, literate etc)- turns out it is the drama graduates who are most employable. Because they excel in the soft skills employers want- team work, communication etc. Of course, you have to want to do drama!

Maths or science teacher? Once trained in the UK there are opportunities everywhere there are international schools - Dubai, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc. Don't do a school-based training route though as some countries don't recognise it.

Go on to google and type psychometric testing or careers questionnaire. Then answer lots if questions to work out which areas might work best for you.

Podiatry - degree to look after feet. Can take a break once qualified, can work for the nhs or yourself, can work from a clinic or be mobile and visit homes, can work round holidays or a school timetable, is both silence and people based, can be very specialist, is regarded well.

YANBU, and you WILL get in without A Levels as you're classed as a mature student, especially if you do a foundation year.

You can't guarentee a well paid job though as others have said. DP decided to go back to uni at 21. Doing Electrical Engineering (no A Levels in relavent subjects, did a foundation year). We're on his second year, third if counting foundation, and he doesn't regret it. His job prospects will be a hell of a lot better when he leaves (in fact, there are hundreds of engineering jobs for graduates, it's mad!)

If you want science and maths then engineering might be your thing tbh. It's purely science and maths. DP is doing a degree in it now actually, he was in a very similar position to you: 21, a job but wanting a career, wanted to go to uni but didn't know what to study. He fell into Engineering and chose Electrical after a generic foundation year which could go onto Electrical, Mechanical or Civil engineering. He's also going to have a sandwich year next year and apply for a paid masters, so two of the five years of study would be paid which evens out how long you live in poverty for a bit!

There are also good opportunities for engineers to go abroad with the volunteering agencies that specialise in graduates.

Feel free to PM me, I can get him online to talk to you about his course if it's something you feel may interest you :)

The only way you can completely ensure you get a job after uni is if you do something like Nursing

The uni I got to actually has the host trusts they work with 'order' the trained nurses they need in three years time, then allocate that many students to the host trust. We are pretty much guaranteed jobs within our trust at the end of our degree.

Pretty smart way of doing it, but nursing is not for everyone.