To ask for a careers advice thread for dc

[nellyolsenscurl]

When I was at school the careers department was rubbish and sadly for my dc it is still the same. The best careers advice I have seen is on MN, I love the threads asking for advice about salar ie s or career progression.

I did a general ized social science degree that had very little scope for progression or salary increase and have never been able to get on the property ladder. I am very keen for my dc to go into a degree that offers scope in terms of progression and pay rise and am keen to steer them in a direction that facilitates this. As I said careers advice i n school is very limited and I think the online stuff is very generalised and often optimistic. The dc are following a scientific pathway, d's doing 3 sciences + maths for AS.

My first questions are regarding a physics/chemistry degree vs medicinal physics/chemistry. Is the medicinal route a 'l ite' option and will this be limiting?

D'S ideally would like to have a career in something sports related so would a degree in physics/chemistry be better as an entry point?

Or if anyone would like to give their advice about what is a good pathway these days (graduate scheme etc) please do.

The better half did medicinal chemistry and has done well out of it, though they would have don't far worse if they had wanted a lab career rather than using the background to go into the trials side.

My limited contacts with people working in 'sport' is that the money is crap as far more people want to do it than there are people looking to pay for work.

Asd can I ask what the trials side involves?

DS was keen to do Exercise Science but from what I have read (contrary to the careers adv ice!) it is very unlikely to lead to a recently paid job. Most seem to go on to be PT's. I saw on here actually that it is better to do a solid STEM degree first then possibly do something sport related at postgrad.

Also meant to add a general careers advice for dc, not specifically mine

I would say that more "traditional" degrees probably give people more options in the long term. My undergrad degree was in physics, and my university had a number of specialisms including medical imaging. I did a 4-year undergraduate masters degree and at the end of the second year chose the research area I wanted to specialise in for years 3 & 4.

In the end I didn't continue in that field - I went into finance and now work in energy, so while my career hasn't been in science, it has been very technical and the training I received in my degree has been useful even if the specific knowledge hasn't been.

My advice would be to research end career options before choosing a specialist degree subject. A few years ago there were more people graduating with degrees in forensic science than there were jobs in their field due to the popularity office CSI type TV shows. So while it was a serious degree and not a soft option, the career prospects were quite limited.

Navy that's great advice thanks. Would you say that the integrated Masters gives you an advantage over a BSc?
The problem with researching end careers is that it never says 'there are few jobs in this field', it always bangs on about how lucrative the prospects are. IME it is much more helpful to ask on here.

Yes, I definitely think the undergrad masters gave me an advantage vs a BSc, partly due to the research component and partly due to status...loads of people have a BSc, not many have an MPhys or similar.

In terms of research, I suggest trying to find people in the chosen field and asking them, particularly any alumni of the universities your DC are thinking of. Also organisations like the Insitute of Physics and other STEM bodies might be helpful, although again I would try to find real people to connect with rather than just reading their websites.

The other benefit of a more traditional science degree is that at 16-18 few people really know what they want to do or what careers are available, so keeping more options open can be really useful. Choice of university is also important here...the higher the prestige of the university, the more organisations will be on campus looking for talent. That means the quality of information as well as the prospects will generally be better.

There really aren't that many well paid jobs in "sport" beyond playing certain sports at a high level.

There would be medical related jobs that might have exposure to sport resulted issues or knee surgeon, physiotherapist - but you would train in a much broader field that just sport related injuries of course.

I do actually know someone in my family with a well paid job at a premier league football club so it's not impossible but best to be realistic. He is a statistical analyst (looking at opta data and player stats). He did maths at a highly ranked university, worked for a couple of years as a quantitative analyst in the city then went back to uni, did a master's in statistical science and did his thesis on something to do with football player data and got his job off the back of that.
But he needed a couple of years grounding while working in the city before he did his master's to probably give him the skills needed to do the job.

Oh actually I also know a lawyer at a magic circle firm whose clients include a football team.

A stem degree at a traditional uni keeps most options open.

The people who I know who did sports/exercise science degrees have ended up doing personal training or doing some form of teaching. The other people I know did a combined degree with sports/exercise have ended up as accountants. The latter group where the ones who were serious amateur sports people but didn't make the grade.

testing new drugs and devices. Lots of different roles but the better half essentially does a mix of project management, troubleshooting, and making sure the contractors stick to their contracts and are collecting robust appropriate data. As ever though breaking into the industry is tricky and it took a three month voluntary stint to build enough experience to get the first job. There is a 12 week grad scheme however run by icon based in the Republic of Ireland which apparently has an excellent success rate at getting people into jobs if your child has an appropriate passport and a glowing CV when they graduate.

You might do better not going to uni if you want a sports career.
You can get a lifeguard qualification at 16 and a part time job at the local leisure centre and then many sporting qualifications can be done part time.

I know a 2 people who did their first degree. Then retrained to be a radiographer
(X rays) withh guaranteed work with NHS for a couple of years. They both work shifts in hospitals.

I don't think that you can choose a career for someone else. I think that you can make suggestions, but I believe that for some careers you need a certain type of personality or a calling. I think that it should be a personal decision. I know someone who was pushed towards being a nurse, but choose to be a chef instead and loves it.

What was bad about the careers advice at school?

Medical scientist within the NHS, first degree in biology or chemistry? Sports psychology? (First degree in psychology). If it were me I might go for a core science degree (my strongest/favourite) and then find a university with an excellent sandwich/placement year to get some experience/idea of what I might like. Then try and week for a few years before doing a specialist Masters in the area I was sure I wanted to specialise in.....

3 I'm a careers adviser and I couldn't agree more.

I think you may be think8ng about this the wrong way, nelly. You say I did a generalized social science degree that had very little scope for progression or salary increase Which makes no sense to me. Your degree, unless it’s vicational and very specific, isn’t really related to progression - it’s a tool to get into a field that can, if that’s what you want. You could have gone into lots of structured careers with that - for example with a joint degree in English and Social Policy I got a job train8ng as a public sector accountant (I hated it, left and retrained as a teacher but that’s beside the point).

I’d say do a traditional degree in a subject you love, with a joint/subsidiary second subject if you think you want something new,then think about careers later. If you know what you want to do as a career, then you can do a vocational degree or a degree aimed towards it - or an apprenticeship or similar if that is possible.

Secondly, I believe the person that you are at 16, is not the person that you are at 36 due to life experiences. So you could retrain and have more than one career /s. I did a degree in a subject that I love, but I don't work in that field. I have worked with people who don't have degrees, but have worked their way up, by changing jobs. I would say that having a degree is not a guarantee of a well paid job. When you say well paid, do you mean over the national average ?

Thanks for all of the replies.

The careers advice has been bad as in they are told to look everything up on the internet. Everything on the internet (well the official careers sites and universities) states that every degree is amazing and will open so many doors in xyz field. Open doors it might, but I would prefer and encourage my dc to choose a degree that has clear pathways and a good chance of employment in a related area. From what I have read a degree in physics will overall be more useful in terms of progression and employment than one in sports science.

I'm certainly not forcing any courses, but want them to be realistic as to what certain degrees can/not do. Yes 3 I hope they would have the scope to earn above the national average.

Have they considered Physiotherapy? Pharmacy? Radiology? Personally I would want a degree that led to a job. There are an awful lot of sport science graduates out there.

If they did a physics or chemistry degree then a pgce they would be highly in demand. There is a massive lack of physics and chemistry teachers. Especially in the Channel Islands

Hairy yes he is considering physio, but would only want to do private work . He attends a private physio that mostly deals with sporting injuries so that really appeals to him, but he told him that he would need 5 years + in NHS before considering private work. Any physios around?

Side teaching is the last thing I would recommend. Both siblings teach in post primary and have a very poor work/family balance.

His placements at uni would be mainly hospital based, perhaps with outpatients / community placements as well. He should then get a band 5 rotation job in the nhs which would basically extend on these placements, giving him a varied experiences, eg 6 months working in respiratory, msk, neuro, community etc. Only once he is experienced would he realistically be considered for private work.

Is he interested in simply being involved in the sports industry and that environment? Have you/he considered materials science/engineering degree?

I have a degree in materials and it's a subject that pretty much every industry requires and we have a huge shortage of them in the UK. Specifically wrt sport, there's a huge amount of research in materials that are simultaneously lighter, stronger, tougher etc: the holy grail! Think F1, cycling, golf, wheelchair racing... Anything where equipment is used. And not all this work is done at uni: lots of industrial jobs with better wages and contracts.

For the biology side there's also biomaterials: hip replacements, heart stents, prosthetics etc. A huge and really interesting subject area.

In particular Loughborough does a well respected materials engineering degree and has great links with a lot of sports. They used to have an option for doing it as a joint honours with sport science, but this seems to have been replaced by a sports technology BEng. Worth a look at those perhaps?