I am really struggling with what my DD wants to study at University please come and talk some sense into me

[minsmum]

My DD is currently doing her AS levels and started off thinking about a joint English/Philosphy degree. She then changed her mind and it became Philosophy/Creative writing. Now she is concentrating on Creative writing.

My DH and I left school after O levels so have no understanding of degree courses and I can't stop myself feeling this not a degree subject. I really want to support her and feel enthusiastic about her choices but I am struggling with this.

It is of course her choice and she will do what she feels is best I just think I need help understanding what creative writing is for, if you see what I mean.

Why do you think it's not a degree subject?

To be able to study it, she will (I presume) need to do a huge amount of literary criticism/stylistics, i.e. analysing other people's writing. This will include novels, poetry, plays - possibly even non-fiction writing.

She will learn (again also presuming) about language and language construction; she may even study some linguistics.

And then she will learn to write/developing her writing skills.

Has she chosen a specific course? Why not go on the UCAS website and have a look at the university/course she has chosen, to see how the course is constructed?

It would be better to do Eng Lit and/or Philosophy at a university that also does creative writing, then she can take CW as elective modules. Where is she thinking of studying?

The problem is that a lot of employers are now very snobby about what you studied at university and prefer it to be a traditional subject, like English, History, Engineering etc. they tend to have a bit of a problem with degrees like Creative Writing etc. because they are perceived as not being very academic.

Has she had creative writing classes before? Does she know what it's like? I love reading and writing and am writing a novel, but I found creative writing classes very frustrating.

A friend of mine is finishing a creative writing PhD at the moment, and he teaches undergrad classes in it.

Nothing wrong with it - it is a proper subject - but I find it interesting that he studied English Literature at Cambridge first, which gave him a really solid grounding for moving into acadaemia and writing his own novels.

Why not encourage your DD to read English Lit for her undergrad degree, and then do a Masters in Creative Writing afterwards?

It would probably be really useful to study english lit alongside creative writing, but that may well be built into the degree programme anyway. The programme may include compulsory modules in English lit because you have to read lots of good writing (and understand why it's good) in order to write well yourself.

As BIWI says, there may also be English language/linguistics modules within the programme too. And there may be options to take electives in philosophy and other subjects.

It could very well be a brilliant degree programme. You just need to look into the details a bit more.

Thanks for your replies. I will respond properly when i get home from work. Its very helpful

I think you're right, tbh. If she is clever she should probably do something a bit meatier. I understand it would maybe feel harder to comment if you left school at sixteen, maybe you could get a teacher to have a word with her if you think she won't listen to you?

Agree with those who say that an English degree with creative writing elements would be better recognised and offer more options afterwards.

If she's good, she'll write anyway.

I agree that a more traditional English degree would give her more options - the recognisably prestigious thing to do would be to follow it with the creative writing Masters course at UEA, but there may be other Masters courses elsewhere which are equally good these days.

Yep, the trick is to balance your passion with what ticks boxes with employers.

The sad fact is that there are a lot of talented, intelligent graduates who have a real problem finding work because employers don't rate their degree subject as 'respectable'. For example, a lot would be perfectly happy with English Literatue but turn their nose up at Creative Writing, when actually there are a lot of similarities between the courses. It's pretty arbitrary, but seems to be what happens. And as degrees are so expensive nowadays it makes sense to take their opinions into account, even if it's not really fair.

You need to understand 'why' she wants to do that course over something else. There is a balance to be struck between doing something of sufficient interest that you will want to stick with it for 3 years versus what you are thinking of doing after university and the requirements for that chosen direction.
e.g. is it because its 'easier' to get a better grade or complete the course, is it because she wants to be an author/writer, is it because its the only way she can get into a favoured uni, is it because its what her friends are doing
I'd be asking your daughter those kind of questions to understand why she wants to do creative writing over something else

It depends a lot on your DDs individual personality and circumstances, and how much financial support she would be able to get from you after uni in the early stages of her career.

Presumably shes wanting to do this course because she is hoping to pursue a career as a writer. In which case, what sort of writer does she want to be?

Assuming that what she is currently writing is "very good, considering the author is only 17" - (I have no knowledge of her actual talents of course) - it takes years and years of writing stuff which she will later agree was never publishable, but gradually improving, before she can write stuff that is actually properly good. If she wants to be a really good writer, she will either need to have an independent source of income (e.g. you) to support her while she writes unpublishable stuff for years, or she will need to have another income stream e.g. a career.

If she can rely on independent support, then there is no harm in doing a creative writing course, it can't hurt. If she is going to need a career to support herself too, she would be better off chosing a degree course which will facilitate that, preferably at a uni that will allow her to do some modules in creative writing. Journalism is obviousy a very good complementary career but there is lots of competition for that and she maynot get anywhere. There are a lot of less glamorous jobs which will both draw on and help improve her writing skills that she could look at, e.g. in publishing houses of academic journals and doing in-house copy-writing for various big organisations,

However, it is sadly true that writing that is "good" is not the same as writing that is "popular". Very few authors that are Booker Prize level contenders are millionaires, and very few authors who are millionaires actually write anything of literary merit.

If she is more interested in writing for the more lucrative end of the market, and has no ambitions to create great works of literary art, then the creative writing course will be likely to be very helpful, as it will certainly teach her how to understand and reproduce popular formulars to have mass appeal. However, there are a lot more writers trying to make a living at this end of the market than there is income available from this market. The lucky ones who do successfully make a living are the ones who are also good marketeers - so she would benefit from getting some understanding and experience of martketing if she is going to succeed here.

OP, I have a fair amount of professional knowledge of this area. A bit more information would help me give you good advice.
What AS-levels is your daughter taking, what A2s does she plan to do?
What grades is she aiming for and what were her GCSE results like?
What kind of university might she realistically aspire to: Oxbridge, Russell Group, mid-range (Hull, Keele, best of the ex-polys), or a less selective ex-poly/HE college?
I'll be back later!

ds1 is off to do English Lit in the autumn. Whilst doing the research tons of the single honours English Lit courses had creative writing modules. English and Philosophy sounds good. If she discovers she favours one subject over the other, she may be able to swap to single honours in one of them after the first year.

You should be able to find the statistics for the percentage of students who find work within six months of graduating. Hopefully, this will put your mind at rest or, alternately, give her a reality check.

It is not necessary to do a creative writing degree if she wants to be a writer. I didn't and neither did most of my author buddies.

I think that to be a writer all you need is a pen/pencil some paper and experience. You don't need to have studied other writers.

I can't stop myself feeling this not a degree subject.

The subject matter is not always the important thing. Think how many Historians become civil servants or Classics students become Accountants etc. An employer does not always want a degree because of the knowledge gained but because of the skillset gained/demonstrated. The buzz-phrase is 'transferrable skills' - ask her and the course tutor about that.
As someone said above, who awarded the degree is important: if it is a well-respected University then employers will assume that this skillset is implicit in the degree.

I think that you need to get her to look at the realities of getting a job afterwards and creative writing isn't going to do it. A traditional degree will be far more favourably looked upon. There are any amount of creative writing courses that she can do afterwards, or in her spare time.

Hmm...Obviously you need to be fully informed so you can give her some guidance, and all the above is very sensible, but do you think you will be able to persuade DD to change her mind anyway? She will certainly be advised that doing a subject she loves is more sensible than doing one she doesn't love because if she doesn't love it she won't do it well.

Not much experience of this myself as my DC are still school age and I am only educated to college level.

However, 2 close friends with older DC have come up against similar issues in the past couple of years and have managed to persuade the DC to do more traditional courses with the elements they wanted to do as extra modules (in your DDs case this would be creative writing).

As far as I am aware both my friends DC are doing well and enjoying their courses having just returned home after the 1st year.

My understanding was their parents were concerned that these days degrees are 2 a penny and rather common. Lots of people have them compareds to 20 or so years ago. The employment market is tougher than ever. Recruitment is a whole new career field of its own - companies spend stupid amounts of £££ just employing people to find the right employees. Traditional degrees are making a strong comeback (apparently) and when it comes applications being whittled down the degrees seen as less academic could mean the application does not even make the interview pile. Its sad really because there is no doubt that the students work damn hard to get these degrees but there is definately a consensus out there that some degrees dont cut the mustard in the job hunting world as well as some others.

Life at the end of university is tough-DS is there so I know! The employment market is very hard to crack at the moment. Creative writing won't get a look in-unless you are extremely lucky.

I have been through the whole law grad recruitment process, and they basically will not look at a degree that is below 2.1 from a non-Russell Group uni - here is the list of them. Note the new ones as well.

As I say, it is a bit arbitrary but when they get 2000 applications for 50 jobs they have to do something to make the pile smaller.

senua - even though employers aren't looking for the grad to have studied the subject they will use in work, they still prefer traditional subjects and it doesn't get much more traditional than History or Classics. Just one of those things, probably a lot to do with fashion I suspect...

I was talking to someone in recruitment recently and they were only interested in a first, in a traditional subject from a good university-sad-and I don't think that they necessarily get the best for the job- but it is an employers market.

exotic - were they in legal recruitment? I think they are the worst tbh. They can set that criteria and still get too many applicants...