To think ds is good at and loves the wrong stuff - i.e not STEM?

[coffeerevelsrock]

He's in Y10 and very focussed and ambitious, but without a clear idea of a specific career he would like to pursue. He's already thinking about A levels as applications would need to be in this time next year, and when asked, I've said take the subjects you like best/are good at. These would be English, history (his passion), drama and MFL. His targets are all 8s and in his assessments this term he's got mainly 8s with a couple of 7s and a 9. Obviously I'm not bragging as this is completely relevant to the thread.

Although he's doing well all round, and always has, English and humanities come to him naturally and are his passion. I teach English Lit A level and he will read a book or watch a play and just say things it can take me a lot of effort to get some pretty able students to understand. He thinks, and it seems likely, that he is far more likely to get better grades in these subjects if he takes them at A level. He's determined to take French assuming it keeps going well at GCSE as well.

My instinct is to say take the ones you like, which would be lit, history, French and drama as a fourth that he might not complete necessarily. But now he is telling me about the wealth of statistics he has found about the poor pay and limited opportunities history and English graduates can look forward to. He is thinking he needs to head towards STEM subjects but isn't particularly enthused at the prospect. He's been considering law as a career, but has done some research on that which has given him the impression that it is very difficult to get an interesting career in which has further pushed him towards STEM.

Any words of wisdom from the knowledgeable people on here would be much appreciated! I certainly don't want to believe that arts and humanities degrees are pointless.

O

That said, the people I know who are most successful in terms of money and status are ALSO working in fields that have always interested and fulfilled them

I also know plenty of people who chose certain supposedly wealth attracting fields who are not doing well as it's not their natural field of ability

A good money career path is the ambassador type one. So do history of a nonEuropean region for bachelors degree, then do an international relations masters degree and then you can work for foreign office and work up to being ambassador. Multinational companies also hire people with these degrees to do government relations in those regions at VP level/six figures plus. So do large NGOs for charities.

He’s a clever lad! Tell him to go for the money. If he wants to go into law he can do a history or English degree then a law conversion and bar course afterwards. Just a thought.

Also - I haven’t gone into STEM for the money, I’ve gone into because I bloody love it.

Ds1 did a degree in law, and now works as a quantity surveyor for an infrastructure company - he loves his job and he’s really found his niche - and he is making good money too.

I honestly think it’s better to do the subjects you enjoy and are good at, than to try to make yourself be a round peg in a square hole. I also think that a good degree in a humanities subject will get you further than a less good one in a STEM subject, and that’s what I’d tell your ds, @coffeerevelsrock.

And you are 100% correct about coffee revels too, though I think we may be in the minority here.

I always hoped my son would do STEM subjects as he was good at them (all 9s in GCSE) but he didn't enjoy them and chose History, French and Latin for A Levels. He needs to do what he enjoys and loves.

@Graphista

Not rtft so not entirely sure if nobody else has said this but

Money isn't everything!

Yes it's a necessity to live but here where it may be simply the difference between high pay and very high pay it really doesn't matter!

A good work life balance, doing something you genuinely love and that fulfils you? FAR more important than a whacking great salary which is usually only possible by not having a life outside work!

We need to stop making our children focus ONLY on money and perceived status as indicators of living a successful life while their mental health and personal lives suffer

Have you ever been poor? It's really not much fun. For people without family help or connections, it's rarely the difference between 'high pay and very high pay'. I know plenty of Humanities graduates still scraping by on very low salaries in their thirties, their hopes and dreams ruined and their lives limited by their lack of money and their self esteem in shreds.

I would never tell a young person to 'do what they love'. Only privileged people get to do that, unless they're so in love with their subject that a lifetime of poverty is worth it (I know some artists who are like this). Most people should seriously be considering salary when choosing careers. I wish I had gone with STEM from the beginning and not waited so long.

It's hard though when you've got a humanities degree and realise that you're not qualified for anything and that it's going to be an upwards struggle to get a well paid job.

MFL graduate - jobs in civil service/ law/ TV and film production/ politics/ journalism/ tourism . . . Recently went to a talk by a trade advisor for Dept for International Trade, who pointed out that languages are power. It’s a myth that everyone speaks English and even if negotiations take place in English, you risk missing out on the important back room chats and connections and negotiations, if you can’t understand and join in. Your son’s choices seem excellent to me.

Are you near any colleges offering the International Baccalaureate? It would allow him to continue with both arts and science-focused subjects and is well-regarded for uni entrance.

I went to a humanities school. Many of my cohort went are in tech, civil service and banking earning £££. Myself included.
I did one of the few ‘sensible’ subjects offered but my current job has nothing to do with it. If I could choose again I’d have some languages which is my true love. I know work in tech and we have makeup, fashion and even viking studies graduates as project managers etc!

A good degree from a good uni + good research and extracurriculars is enough. For the Big4 accounting firms for example they take any degree.

That’s not really logical, my daughter did history, English, government and politics and then studied law and is now a lawyer and she loves it.

It is hard to get into though, but he should do the subjects he loves, or he is going to struggle and not co well at all.

Well said @dabbydeedoo. My DH and I both chose to do law to earn more money than our parents so we could provide a more comfortable life for our kids. We knew what it was like to go without.

@Keepitonthedownlow

It's hard though when you've got a humanities degree and realise that you're not qualified for anything and that it's going to be an upwards struggle to get a well paid job.

Not true; there’s very little advice about modern career paths. People keep banging on about law, teaching etc etc it’s so outdated and frankly rubbish!

Loads of people have never heard of things that bring in the big bucks. Like product management, operations and logistics, technical sales, communications, compliance, risk and controls.There’s a wealth of opportunity!

However you have to do your research, speak to lots of people and be career focused before graduation. Plenty of people graduate and just apply for jobs without really considering it, thinking they’ll ‘fall into’ something and work their way up. Some get lucky. Some don’t and end up in a series of low paid jobs that make it harder to progress.

Even in tech - the T in STEM - ‘technical’ things are a smaller percentage of the work than communication, project management, stakeholder management, strategy. We need people in all of these! Cyber security - the ‘cool thing’ for instance a lot of it is policy and procedure , domain knowledge rather than being a hacker. You can pick it up as you go along.

Linguistics if he’s interested is good to check out!

Currently studying history with the Open University at 37 after being told repeatedly as a teen that it was not going to lead anywhere and to take languages when it came to my A levels. I did and then did most of my first year of a French degree and hated it so much it turned me off any further education for almost 20 years. I was forcing myself to do something to please others or to further a career I didn't even want. My heart was in history and so it has remained. And I will encourage my children to follow their passions too. Let your son know that if he loves what he does, his life will be happy. Money and prestige are not everything.

@dabbydeedoo I agree that ‘do what you love’ is rubbish advice but it’s not about the degree really it’s about advice.
I never knew that loads of careers existed until I went to uni. I spoke to loads of people. My parents knew nothing about corporate jobs so no help there.

However my boyfriend’s lower ranked uni really didn’t do much. Their career fairs consisted of local employers looking for specific things that the uni specialised in, usually STEM but nothing for humanities grads except for generic business management positions.
We had the FCA, Bank of England etc talk to us. GCHQ (another one for you OP they’re always hiring linguists!) foreign languages an advantage

Anyone can apply but if you haven’t been exposed to it and have nobody to advise you - you won’t even know that these things exist.

However I agree that money is important and it’s very privileged to sa money and prestige aren’t everything.
If you’re married and your DH earns enough for you to step away, or you already accumulated enough from a high earning career sure.

But you go in with the assumption that you’ll be on your own. Life is expensive, don’t moan if you threw opportunity away

I think the difference is in the working hours.

You can get into law, management consulting, recruitment etc. with a humanities degree. There's even lots of banking jobs you can do. All these jobs are very well-paid. But they take over your life.

The people I know earning six figure salaries but getting home at 5/6 in the evening work in accounting, IT jobs or as actuaries. They seem to have a good work/life balance but are also very financially comfortable. It's not impossible to do these jobs with a humanities degree but it is harder to get into.

@Gliderx

I think the difference is in the working hours.

You can get into law, management consulting, recruitment etc. with a humanities degree. There's even lots of banking jobs you can do. All these jobs are very well-paid. But they take over your life.

The people I know earning six figure salaries but getting home at 5/6 in the evening work in accounting, IT jobs or as actuaries. They seem to have a good work/life balance but are also very financially comfortable. It's not impossible to do these jobs with a humanities degree but it is harder to get into.

Not for accounting it’s the easiest! As everyone takes the professional exams nobody cares what degree you have. Actuaries need STEM. IT depends on whether they’re ‘technical’ or not

I'm in consulting. Degree in chemistry but we hire people from all disciplines. I knew I'd never become a research chemist but had a keen interest for it and loved the degree. University isn't just about career, or shouldn't be. It's such a wonderful opportunity to deep dive into an area of interest and rub shoulders with real leading thinkers in that space. I often daydream about winning the lottery and going back to do something like French and History, or Economics, just out of interest (but it is a silly day dream, as DH points out, as I'm not the breadwinner in the house and could totally do it if I wasn't a workaholic!)

Also my husband works in IT, earns six figures and didn't finish his A levels (though is incredibly clever. Just a bit lost as a teen!) He is only 31 so I'm not harking back to some distant good ol' days before everyone and their dog had a degree.

I’m not even close to rich, I’m a single parent to 3DC and was on NMW prior to going to Uni - even 30K would be a huge jump in salary for me post STEM degree.

Thanks all - so much to think about and it's good to hear that arts degrees can lead to so many different roles. Sometimes I think he is too focussed on all of this too young (he is very much the driver in all of these discussions) but I did English because it was my favourite subject. I loved it and did very well but never gave careers any thought and 'ended up' teaching, which I do love in many ways (not so much in recent years) but I wish I had done more thinking about my life rather than just drifting along.

He's not against law but has apparently found that the degree itself may be quite dull compared to English or history, and he's put off by the extra expense of doing the conversion course afterwards (worried about the extra cost to me!). He also thinks he'd like to be a barrister rather than a solicitor but he says the whole area is massively competitive and he's worried about that too. So any stories from solicitors who find their work interesting and well-paid and are not from upper-class backgrounds would also be lovely to hear! I am always telling him to stop thinking too far ahead and just keep working hard at school because that's the only thing he can control now, but having some, albeit anecdotal, evidence to counter his worries would be good too!

My DD sounds similar to your DS. She did history with a Language as an undergrad, then a masters. She now works for the Foreign Office in a policy advisory role (she absolutely loves it)

For info, I work in STEM, and I've earned peanuts for most of my career. Sure, there's lots of jobs, but pay and work conditions are a lot worse than what you might expect. I'm not sure it's a career path I'd recommend to my kids, and they do love STEM.