To think young women should consider future income and career prospects when choosing their degree?

[strengthandhonor]

I post on a student forum and I see the same discussions again and again : boys talk about how much income and prospects a certain career will provide them with or what is the future of that industry while girls are all about following their passion and treat ''uni'' as a life experience with little or nothing to do with future employment prospects. No wonder the gender wage gap is still here and shows no sign of going away.

Countries like India, China and even Iran have far better results in getting girls into science, engineering and other lucrative degrees than say places like Sweden or Norway . So how can countries that year after year are trumpeted as the most gender equal societies on the planet have such awful outcomes especially when compared to medieval type patriarchies ? Why does reducing the social factors cause such imbalance in outcomes instead of equalizing them? What are we doing wrong as parents and as a society?

What are you talking about?

Have you confused me with someone else? Or just not understood the discussion?

There are many reasons why girls might not be studying STEM degrees.

I was very good at science at high school and I enjoyed it too. Mid-way through year 10 the school shifted the classes around, the setting was removed and we were all put into mixed classes for science. My class was given a shit teacher who spent every lesson leaning on his desk with his head in his hands; he hardly taught us a thing and he couldn't control the rowdy people in the class.

I had this teacher from mid-year 10 until the end of year 11. I lost interest in the subject and didn't try anymore because of the poor quality teaching that we were getting. I ended up with Bs and Cs in science instead of the A/A* I was predicted.

I then decided to pursue English and social sciences at A level because I'd experienced good teaching within these subjects. The poor teaching that I'd received in science meant that if I'd have chosen any science subjects at A Level then I would have been playing catch up.

Right, and what was I saying that in response to?

It wasn't a manifesto of mine. I was answering something else.

And I haven't said that SAHPs are unhappy (or should be) or anything about toilets. You're being most odd.

YANBU . I really wish my parents and career advisors had encouraged me to think about career and future income instead of just being so pleased I was off to uni they just told me to study what I enjoyed. Yes, I enjoyed the subject, but it didn't equip me for a specific career with decent prospects. I ended up returning to studying years later to better my prospects. I know my family would have pushed me to think about future income if I was male, purely because of their sex is assumptions that men need to earn lots to keep their families (unlike women who will probably go part time after having kids). These days women need to think about their earnings potential just as much as men do, as families need more than one decent salary coming in to avoid living in poverty.

Me, obtuse?

Go and bother someone else. I'm not up for having whole blocks of text put in my mouth thanks.

You can't make girls do what they don't want to though, just because they are girls.
It's almost as bad as saying they should do cooking and sewing.
Mine has no interest in STEM subjects at all and would have dropped them at end of Y8, like she did with Humanities.
She has opted for a single science as she has no interest in it at all, and she does/ hasn't done any technology at all.

I really wish my parents and career advisors had encouraged me to think about career and future income instead of just being so pleased I was off to uni they just told me to study what I enjoyed.

Nothing wrong with that advice. Choosing a subject you don't like as much but might look more impressive to employers isn't really a good plan as you probably won't do as well if you don't enjoy it, get a worse degree result and then find it hard to get a job anyway. Or plough on, get a good result and end up in a job you don't enjoy and don't do well at.

You could just stop inventing things? Just a thought.

I come from a family where everyone studies useless subjects they love at university (english, history, classics etc.) and then we all sort out our careers later. No-one earns less than six figures so it doesn't seem to have been a problem and I would encourage my kids to do the same.

Dh comes from a family where (with the exception of DH) they all study useful subjects at university (maths, medicine etc.) and they all earn six figures too.

I think if you are clever, hard-working and relatively sensible (although some of my not-very-sensible relatives have made pots of money), it all comes out in the wash.

Getting girls into STEM careers is, I think, a different problem than encouraging them to thinking about lucrative careers.

Getting girls into STEM careers is, I think, a different problem than encouraging them to thinking about lucrative careers.

Totally agree with this. I don't know why STEM is always trumpeted as the holy grail on MN when there are lots of great careers available in other areas.

And the biggest issue of all encouraging women to stay in those lucrative careers once they've had DC.

From society's point of view, a good many people feel it is not a good idea for all our laws and major decisions to be made by prosperous white males, or for all our gps and consultants to be male. Similarly, it would be good if our technology wasn't being largely designed by men. So that in itself is a reason to encourage more women into STEM.

I don't think we're yet anywhere near trying to encourage into STEM women whose interests lie elsewhere. We're at the stage of trying to say to women that they are able to pursue study and a career in STEM, and that they don't have to give it up because "it's boys' stuff", or "it needs a masculine brain" or because only men work in the area and they will be made to feel out of place.

Haven't read the full thread but if you are referring to TSR forums, there is a definite hardcore of male posters on there (most of them barely out of their GCSEs) who fetishise banking, high grades, high salaries, trophy wives, fast cars and corner offices above all else - often with a dose of misogyny. Personally, I tend to hope that they are not representative of teenage boys in general.

Having gone to the university I did I know plenty of men and women who managed to both do a subject they loved and be career driven. And of those who are particularly high earning some did STEM subjects but some did humanities. Subjects like history and philosophy may not be vocational but they do teach you research skills, writing skills, ability to read and summarise quickly, debating skills etc - all of which transfer into well paid fields if you want.

I think one of the problems is that teachers have very little experience of other careers and can't give useful advice in school. Too many teachers go from school to university and back to a school again with only a bit of Saturday or holiday work in between. I taught for a long time and generally I was the only person in the staffroom who'd done anything other than teaching.

DS2 did a creative art related degree, he got a very good job when he graduated because he used it for vocational purposes i.e. did two manufacturing based internships in his holidays and took an industry based approach to his work. Interestingly both grandfathers and his father are/were engineers. He was quite optimistic about his prospects because many of the females on his course seemed to be very keen on the creative side of the course, but had few ideas about how they could apply this in the world of work and what might be attractive to an employer.

My daughter did an arts degree with no particular intention of doing it as a career - got a First t, because she enjoyed it immensely, did all kinds of other things that challenged and interested her. When it came to graduate training schemes it was the quality of the university and the First that helped get interviews and she was then able to talk with passion about interests other than just her degree subject. She is now well paid at a job in in the City and taking professional exams, which she doesn't find too hard after her rigourous academic training.

There are careers where you have to take the relevant undergraduate course, especially in the sciences,,but there are plenty of professional tracks where an unrelated degree course does not matter at all. Aiming for a good quality course at a good quality university is much more important .

I fail to see how this is specific to women? there are lots of male students doing degrees which are not relevant for any specific profession.

There are so many post graduate courses now which will convert any degree to a specific profession I don't see the issue with any student(male or female) choosing to study something they are passionate about! There is far too little of this in the world which is leading to a lot of unhappiness amongest the population.

some of us have no desire to go into science and engineering and don't want coercing into doing so

Exactly. Although the government seems intent that everyone should go into STEM careers, whether male or female, not all of us have the aptitude.

But to be honest I was reading something only yesterday (or it may have been in the Saturday Times) saying that the unemployment rates among STEM graduates are higher* than from other subject areas. So maybe the girls have it right?

• though one of the reasons given, which seemed a bit racist, was that most graduates of computer science are from ethnic backgrounds and therefore don't have the cultural capital to have soft skills that employers want. I don't personally think that the colour of your skin has an impact on your soft skills.

Why is "And the biggest issue of all encouraging women to stay in those lucrative careers once they've had DC." even an issue @LaurieMarlow**

It's an issue because the way our society is set up leaves women who decide to do this financially vulnerable.

I don't think the answer is necessarily to encourage them to stay in these jobs as they are currently set up. I believe there is a huge amount that can/should be done to make the workplace more family friendly, not just for women, but everyone. For example, making part time working more the norm, helping employees back into the workforce after taking a break for a few years, squashing a culture of presenteeism and/or the expectation of working beyond hours.