To feel scared about my dds future

[bullinchina]

recently, my DD missed her firm choice (rg in our city) but still wanted to stay at home, so cleared into the old polytechnic in our city. With the news that grad jobs have dropped by 50 % in one year, i feel so scared that she has no chances of getting a job. We cant afford resits and shes finding it extremely difficult to find the standard part time jobs anyway. What can she do to better her chances?

What is she studying?

I think you’re going to have to tell us the industry she wants to work in. There aren’t that many where the uni you went to is even relevant. Given your worries (and use of the term ‘polytechnic’ 🙄) I’m assuming DDs industry does care and only those within the industry will know how to better her chances.

Its a worry for all parents. Are you concerned that she is now going to a university that isnt as good as the one she didnt get into? If she wants to stay at home and go to a uni that really isnt the one she wants I would suggest that uni isnt for her and perhaps she should explore apprenticeships.

Studying psychology but unsure what to do after she’s thinking of maybe pursuing clinical or educational psychology or perhaps law, but she’s moving away from law now

Apprenticeships are really competitive!! I hate how they are default advice on mumsnet. Also shes not sure what she wants to do exactly, so i dont think it would be wise ro target a apprenticeship in a specific field

That’s three years in the future. A lot can change in three years.

if she’s staying home she’ll have much less debt than most graduates and she’ll be in a better position.

I didnt realise polytechnic is rude(?) to use? I didnt finish education, so im learning with her about the UK system

Polytechnic isn’t rude but they haven’t existed since 1992.

In 1992 they were all made universities.

Psychologist here. As long as her course is BPS accredited it won't make any difference to her chances of becoming a psychologist. I have not the slightest clue where my colleagues studied their first degrees, and it makes no difference to how likely they are to be employed.

Clinical or or educational psychology are very long and demanding pathways requiring many more years study than undergrad. If she is interested in educational psychology, teaching experience is generally a prerequisite. Maths, science and language teachers are still in demand, so depending on Alevel choices, pgce might be a viable choice for after uni. A family member has done this route (psychology, pgce) and is about to start teaching maths next term, having found it relatively straight forward to secure a position.

Honestly I don't think I would be considering uni nowadays unless I was clear how it was benefiting a career path and I could justify the fees and associated debt.

Whats the alternative to uni though? She thought this as well, but getting a retail job even seems impossible let alone others with 0 experience. Apprenticeships are ultra competitive, theres only a 0.7% acceptance rate

My daughter went to a ex polytechnic for psychology - got a first then got on doctorate first time of applying which is almost unheard of I believe. She’s now a clinical psychologist with camhs. She volunteered for Samaritan all through uni which might have helped

Thats great to hear, thank you

Stop worrying ... she will find her niche eventually

Polytechnic haven't been a thing since the early 90s.

psychology is one course where, so long as it’s BPS accredited it doesn’t matter where you do it. It requires a masters anyway to anything actually in psychology

I certainly wouldn’t be worrying about grad jobs. My experience with having and knowing lots of young grads is that it is taking longer but they’re getting those jobs. I would highly suggest she’s looking at getting volunteer / work / leadership experience to demonstrate those skills to help her stand out when she does start looking

People use it to mean ‘not a real university’. Categorising universities with terms like Russell Group and polytechnic betrays a bias which is elitist and, the vast majority of the time, completely false.

If it helps, the 50% reduction headlines are a load of bollocks! The data is based on a set of job listings at one website. Plenty of "graduate jobs" (which isn't even something easily defined) aren't advertised as schemes on the same site.

I would do a bit more research on this op. My understanding, and I may well be wrong, is that psychology is one of the degrees with a fairly low return on likelihood of getting a related job. You either have the difficult conversations now, or in 4 years time with £40k debt. Although the pgse option detailed above is a good idea, but rather just start that from the beginning by being a TA and qualifying as you go.

Psychology seems like a safe bet for now and her choice of university doesn't matter a single bit. What does matter is the acknowledgement from her that in order to become a clinical psychologist, she needs to buckle up for many many years now.
As far as I am aware, there is no shortage of jobs although she may need to be prepared to travel. Our service routinely advertises for assistant psychologists because they do tend to move around throughout the stages of their training.
After qualifying, nothing stops her from setting up her own practice either.
Although services are pretty stretched, London still has a vast number of vacant posts in the NHS for psychologists and AHPs. It can be much more difficult in other parts of the country, though.

She will be fine. Employers don’t really care what uni you went to unless it was Oxbridge. The classification of degree is what they look at alongside subject, work experience, internships and volunteering, projects etc.

She needs to do some great extra/supracurriculars and be a hard working well rounded candidate.

It isn’t a bias though is it if for one university you need 3 a stars to get in to the same subject as another university you need 3 cs? One is factually a higher academic standard than the other?

Is there a reason why she has not tried to get work before now?

DD1 is 21 and going into her third year at university and has been working for five years. She worked full time for a year before going to university.

DD2 is 17, would be going into Y13 next month but has AuADHD and is definitely done with education for the time being anyway and has been working for a year.

I've always though getting a job was just as important as education, particularly for DD2 who is not into studying.

This. So many people do psychology degrees and there aren’t that many positions within the industry. Many students don’t seem to understand that they can’t become psychiatrists… they would need to study medicine to do that.

to be a educational psychologist, you need a BPS accredited degree, so she cant just get a TA job and start from there.

yes ive seen that, but im presuming its without further study? She loves learning, so she is planning to get a masters and potentially a phd in the future