STEM v social science degrees

[Whcjsveh]

Flowing from the previous thread on a tren picking politics for their degree - I was curious to hear whether people really would mainly try and get their kids to do a STEM degree and whether docial science subjects like politics are seen as soft or less clever?

DH and I are both politics profs, me from a family which was mainly into STEM and I wanted to be a bit different though was equally good at both. However, twenty years ago doing a politics from a top uni was seen as pretty competitive.

DC is bright and has just started secondary and it did make me think - should I steer him towards STEM because it's the right thing to do? I think he's pretty rounded and could certainly succeed in both. Any thoughts?

Please let him do what he enjoys. I really don’t know how you could “steer” a 16yo to do science A levels if they preferred history and Eng lit tbh.

DD did well at science GCSE but really, there was no thought that she would pursue the subject. Much better to take A levels and a degree you enjoy then look for a job role that’s of interest, than take science, dislike it, maybe not do so well, not enjoy your degree and end up in a high-paying role that sucks out your soul on a daily.

I really enjoy my job and that's worth more to me than the six-figure salary everyone’s DC on MN seem to be on.

I wouldn't steer them towards anything. Let them decide what the like and what they want to do. They might not even want to go to uni.

I would really let him do what he likes and what he is good at.

I'm in STEM, DS always loved humanities. I didn't try and steer him away from it. I did encourage him to keep going with maths for A level, and to apply for a humanities degree with an economics component. My reasoning was that there will be a lot of humanities graduates that are not at all numerate, so it might help him with future employability.

He's extremely strong willed so wouldn't have done anything he really didn't want to.

I think the premise of your question is wrong. You don't have to chose either STEM or humanities these days, if you like and are good at both you can do a combined degree.
And I think as a country we need people who can bring numeracy, analysis and logic into politics and social sciences so I think he would be in much demand.

I think parents push their kids towards STEM because there is more chance of a decent paying job at the end.

I did a humanities degree and it was a complete waste of time, had to retrain in something else to great cost. I would tell any DC to learn what they enjoy in their spare time but at school focus on getting hard skills so they aren’t working for minimum wage for years after uni like I did.

My dad insisted I chose 3 out of chemistry, biology, maths and physics for A-level. I chose chemistry, biology and maths. I got an N in chemistry, U in maths and D in biology. I wanted to take English, classics and history. Thankfully, the D in Biology coupled with a D in general studies was just enough to get me into an ex-poly to read economics, which I thrived in and I've worked in investment banking my whole career. I was lucky to be able to turn things around. But I cannot emphasise enough how utterly miserable I was for 2 years doing A-levels.

My dad learnt his lesson and allowed my younger sister to take RE as one of her A-levels a few years later. DS is in Y11 and will be choosing his A-levels soon, I've told him he has a completely free choice and to take the subjects he loves.

I am medical and DH is engineering. DS has chosen music despite being good at sciences. (He did chemistry A level). We tried our best to encourage music for pleasure and another STEM a level but he was having none of it. Strong willed child. As is our middle child. Amazing GCSE science results but she went down the drama route.
Are DH and I happy about their choices? I'm not sure but we did discuss options with them. Only time will tell tell what their future holds.

Largely it’s going to depend where they plan or choose to take their degree post qualification, and how solid their accompanying transferable skills are. STEM isn’t necessarily a route into good pay, and “clever” on its own doesn’t always translate into career and real world success: I have friends who work in biomedical research who are undoubtedly more “clever” than me on paper, but the work they do has fewer transferable skills than and pays a fraction of the work I do.

I think the most important thing is to encourage young people to keep a really broad mind about what the world of work can look like and all the opportunities which might be available to them, rather than to take a narrow focus very early on. At 18 I didn’t know anything about my current sector, nor even know my job existed, and U’m really glad I was always encouraged to follow my strengths as they emerged rather than a fixed path.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Sociology, am I both?

Let them do whatever they want, a degree is hard enough without having to study something you don’t love

I obviously wouldn't stop DC from doing something they love - I also didn't grow up in the UK and so the notion of specializing so young seems crazy. However, when I picked my degree, it was mainly about not following in my parents footsteps. I never thought that STEM subjects would get you a more lucrative career. At the time - law, civil service and academia paid well enough.

Do people really see subjects like politics as an easier degree? Am obviously surrounded by people who are obsessed with the subject and it's hard to know hiw everyone else sees it.

A pp upthread talked of being numerate, this is essential, remember when they were explaining the R rate of spread of Covid. Some explanations were a bit sketchy.
We all need statistics.

should I steer him towards STEM because it's the right thing to do?

Why do you think it's the right thing to do? There's no right or wrong here. Even if you think politics is an easier degree, so what? LEt him do what he's interested in, that's a far better indicator of what he'll do and how happy he'll be with his work later in life.

You need to let them figure it out for themselves.

I did an arts degree. I'm now, via a roundabout route, in STEM, and very happy to be so. But it would not have been at all right for me to go directly into STEM, and a lot of the insight I bring to what I do now is derived from my previous life and study. Many STEM degrees are more confining in terms of future prospects than a "pure" academic degree in the arts or social sciences anyway.

@PollyPeachum I think that's definitely true. I might be unusual in so far as my father was a maths prof and everyone else did science. So I actually have quite a good understanding of maths and science without studying it. My impression of combined degrees is that in England it seems quite hard to find a decent social science/STEM degree....

It's not that I think a politics degree is easier - I teach on them. I was wondering whether societal perception sees them as such.

Where are we classing economics?

@MyFartsSmell A fake science and a very poor social science. Am joking but only half. As much as I understand their obsession with numbers, a lot of their actual research is not based on decent stats, misunderstand both politics and the social .... and pretends to be a science when it isn't.

You could push your DC in the direction you feel is better than they actually want for themselves and come back to us to see how that panned out for them

To be honest my view was that I don't want my children running up tens of thousands of pounds in debt, as well as spending thousands of pounds of my money, if their degree doesn't help secure a job afterwards. It's rare that someone studying politics gets into politics and rare that someone studying criminology for example gets a job full stop!
I think politics is considered a tough degree but personally I'm not sure how useful it is jobs wise. STEM degrees tend to be more useful.
I encouraged my kids to follow what they enjoy but that of uni didn't further that then don't go. One is doing nursing (definitely not lucrative but a clear career path), and the other engineering.

My drama degree proved to be pretty useless 30 years ago

DS's experience when applying a couple of years ago was that pure politics was seen as a bit lightweight. He ended up applying for a triple honours instead.

I would never push DC into a direction they didn't want to. For myself, I always saw politics as leading to a career as I had my sight set on academia and therefore it was, failing that I assumed I would go into the civil service which at the time paid well enough.

Am never quite sure why my students choose it as they don't seem to be all that interested in politics but I do work in a very prestigious university so they usually end up going into the city anyhow.

I suppose its more focused on what career they are interested in and them doing a degree with enables them to do so.

For what it's worth DH and I are split - I always did STEM and my career has been linear with positions and earnings.

DH did politics at uni and hasn't been linear and he's had to retrain (in a STEM masters subject) in order to move into the career he wanted as the minimum requirements are a Bsc. It's obviously much more of a juggling act and takes longer to do a degree when also working.

It depends on their interests and aptitudes, of course.

It may be fair to say that there are some subjects which are certainly worth doing at a high level, but may be less appropriate for a middling student on a mediocre course.

OP, you could listen to the ‘let him do what he enjoys’ crowd or be honest and steer him towards what will give him better chances.

The ‘do what you enjoy’ narrative has resulted in legions of media studies grads in the last two decades working on or close to min wage and wondering where they went wrong. They were lied to. Not all degrees are equal. Most social sciences degrees are pointless and a waste of cash. And now that some of that cash comes from the students and their families rather than the endlessly deep taxpayer pocket, it’s even more criminal to encourage to do these Mickey Mouse degrees.

I think forcing to take stem A levels when humanities minded is a recipe for disaster (one of dc’s friends did really badly - it’s a big jump at A level especially if you hate it)
Just my recent experience with dc’s cohort but top grade A level students more likely to choose PPE, Law with politics, HSPS at Cambridge not straight politics.