What subject did you do at Uni and would you do the same subject again.

[Cobwebs5]

Did you enjoy your Uni subject.

My DD wants to do Maths, probably only because it's her best subject, I don't think there's any great passion there.

I see so many who don't enjoy their Mats degree.

Physics and Philosophy. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Philosophy and Politics. I enjoyed politics, philosophy less so, but I've never used my degree. If I had my time again I'd do either economics or law jointly with a language. I've slowly drifted into law/justice adjacent roles, and the lawyers I work alongside have a better cash: responsibility ratio. And I was really good at languages at school, and think it's a shame I now can barely remember any of my previously half-decent French and German.

I took History and English Literature. I loved it. I still love it.

I think my year 12 son would love it too (he's taking English lit and history as two of his A Levels) but he seems to think it's a pointless degree with regard to getting a good job. I find this both sad and incorrect. He seems set on either Law or PPE/PPL.

Business Studies, with a lot of options to specialise in certain areas. I did pick it because it was my best subject but I loved it too and its opened so many doors. I loved my university setting too, I had a photo of it above my desk whilst I was studying through my final year.

I would hold out faith that your child can find a subject AND setting that they love and is useful for their career. It is possible to tick all fhe boxes.

Have they been to some open days? Finding a setting they feel right in, can trigger them being open to a subject they hadn’t previously considered seriously.

I did medicine. Had a good career. I'd do accountancy now.

Teaching. Never again. Wish I'd done a finance degree.

I always wonder why people don't just do a law conversion in one year instead of the three year course. Do the three year degree in something you adore and then the conversion.

Unless there's an advantage of the three year course I don't know about.

I don't know either @SugarPlumpFairyCakes. I think education should be for the love of learning, not to see ££££ on a possible salary once you have finished. But then it costs so much to go to uni now that perhaps its seen as frivolous to study what you love, rather than what will make the best paid career.

I don't know about others, but for DS it also seems to be that he sees a law conversion as another year of additional student debt.

I did a Psychology degree in later life, graduated in 2021. I didn't do enough research beforehand or I would have realised it's basically impossible to get a job in psychology without experience. And as even the most basic 'starter' level jobs in psychology also require experience I've had to give up and accept I'm saddled with a huge debt and a degree I can't use. Voluntary work might have provided the necessary experience but I'm a single mum and need an income. Younger graduates without ties can potentially move location to gain a PhD leading to a career in clinical psychology, not applicable for me. I also warn anyone I meet thinking of psychology that it is very research and statistics based, which I wasn't expecting and struggled with.

I'm glad I got my degree in middle age, but in hindsight would choose a subject with more direct career progression.

I enjoyed my 4 year LLB (not in the UK but in another common law jurisdiction).

I felt I had come home. The focus on fine legal argument, contractual interpretation and wider jurisprudential concepts about the Rule of Law as well as specialised optional subjects like intellectual property, public and administrative law, European law, jurisprudence made it interesting and intellectually stimulating.

I could not imagine studying crime, tort, contract etc all crammed into a one year conversion. That would only scratch the surface and be enough to put me off law.

It is fine to do a degree you love and then a law conversion. But that is not to say that everyone doing an LLB is just doing it for money and not love of the subject.

Modern Languages, and yes, definitely. I've spent the last 30 years teaching them!

That sounds great! Ds is considering doing a physics degree (possibly followed by law conversion). I think he'd like philosophy...

Music and yes I would do it again! I did it as a mature student though and so didn't expect it to open doors for me. Did a Masters too.

English Language & Literature, I wish I’d combined it with something practical like PR or marketing.

Medicine
has a weird route to it and if I’d had better early support I would have done physics/engineering.

@Fedupdoc - Can I use that quote to school/college students who are dead set on doing medicine? I talk to a lot of them, and (a) I don't understand why most of them think they want to do medicine, other than not really having a clue what it involves, and (b) I really wish there were more useful web resources to point students toward to show them the range of interesting and rewarding careers in science & engineering.

Joint honours in two modern languages. Yes, I'd do it again. It was great fun and I met my partner and many life-long friends.

If I had to choose another degree, I'd do classics.

First time - Psychology, would I recommend? Not really but that depends on what you want out of it and what you want to do next because you will HAVE to do something else to progress.

Second time- Microbiology, I would recommend this. It’s a subject that leads into many jobs in several industries.It is also extremely interesting, to me it is any way.

Thanks @blueshoes, that's good to hear. I speak only about my son; I know others will want to do an LLB for the love of the course.

Perhaps DS will too if/when he goes to university. However, since he started school, all he has wanted to do is study history. It's his passion. To find now, in year 12, that he wants to take law has knocked me a bit sideways. Also, he has never studied law (beyond doing mock court in years 9 and 10) so it seems a bit risky to suddenly chose it as his undergraduate degree.

Did your ds enjoy his mocks? If he did, he will take to law like a fish to water.

People do law degrees from all kinds of backgrounds. You don't need to do law at A level and in fact it is preferable not to. History is quite a natural segue way into law. I don't think it is risky at all to switch from history to law. I dare say Law will give him more career options. One of the reasons I chose law as an undergraduate degree (what did I know, no one in my family was a lawyer) was that I did not have to practice law if I did not like it. I said to myself ok, give it a year or two, but here I am still doing it 30 years later.

What I did know was that I liked arguing and conceiving pros and cons, justifying a decision, achieving an outcome. If your ds likes problem solving, law is a perfect fit because he will solving everyone else's problems (but his own) 😆

He thoroughly enjoyed them @blueshoes. He sounds a lot like you actually He is very bright and very capable of convincingly arguing that the grass is blue! He is taking History, English Lit and Economics at A Level and his school run all of the lessons as debates and discussions, which he loves.

We looked at some of the LLB courses on offer at Universities last night and he sounded very keen and positive and has signed up to "register interest" with several. Roll on the summer Open days! Exciting times for him and his cohort.

Thank you for your replies; you have set my mind at rest that he does have the right sort of personality to enjoy taking a LLB

That sounds great @Waspie Your ds will thrive in an LLB.

Economics - loved it and always worked within it and loved my work. It is worth looking at exact content of degrees - mine had lots of history, politics, development economics, economics of countries options like Russia which I really enjoyed.

Fine Art and loved it. One of the best times of my life and fantastic course doing what I enjoyed. Now though looking back I would have gone into social work possibly if I had my time again.

I did biology. I didn't enjoy it much, parts of it were fine. I'm in my 50s now and it's obvious that my interests are history and geography. I didn't take either to A level because I chose A levels where I thought the teaching would be good and I'd get good results. I was right but it's a shame humanities were so poorly taught and looked down upon at my school. I'm in finance now, I did know that I wouldn't go on to do a science related job, even before I went to uni.