Sadness of Open Days

[Gemauve]

So on the stand this morning at 0905, I was approached by a charming woman and her keen, enthusiastic daughter. It's the first university they're visiting, in fact the first university that either of them has ever been to, but they're really looking forward to ... and they reel off a list of good places. Daughter really wants to do our subject, and has clearly checked out the top places.

And what A Levels are you doing?

Ah.

Well, you can't come here, and for what it's worth, we're slightly more relaxed than the other places you've named and I know that you won't be able to go to any of them to do our subject or anything even vaguely related. I didn't say "and on past experience from when we were even more relaxed to the point that we might have admitted you, you would almost certainly fail, and the last cohort where we did that less than 5% of them made it to finals". Sorry.

"My school said these subjects would be ideal".

They're catastrophically wrong. Did you look at any prospectuses before choosing your subjects? No. And off they went, their hopes destroyed by 0915.

What the fuck are schools playing at? Why do they let children who don't have middle class parents get into this situation?

Gemauve I was reporting what is fact not what I think should be the case. I have very little time for accountancy degrees full stop, but I am not the only person in the world...I would prefer not to out myself so I can't say too much but - there are conflicting views within the profession in this country as to what is the best route, accountancy degree or not (there is no conflict in most other European countries, or anywhere else really). But there are at least 2 decent accountancy degree courses out there (I must grudgingly emit this) and graduates from those courses will have plentiful opportunities especially if they are sponsored graduates. This is a fact and unfortunately I do not see things changing any time soon despite...counter factors...because the firms that have invested big time in the courses and the schemes to buy the souls of young people and turn them into indentured labour for however long it is have invested too much to abandon the process.

As far as people knowing what they want to do at 17 - well. I can't say. But many young people do work experience with professional service firms and many young people are the children of people who work in professional service firms or know people who work in professional service firms and so that probably does influence them. In both directions.

My personal advice to people who ask me is always to not do accountancy at university. But I'm not the only person in the world and there are other people out there (typically, ones with accountancy degrees) who feel differently. So, anyone taking my advice is taking a risk because I won't be the person interviewing them for their truing contract.

Narvine
One of DDs friends wanted to do Accounting A Level and then Accountancy as a degree.
I hassled and cajoled and nagged both her and her parents until they saw the light.
She is now doing Maths, Further Maths and Economics to A2 and planning to do a maths degree - and her grades are so sky high she could get into anywhere.
Pigeon holing herself to Accountancy at 17 would have been a waste of great talent.

Incidentally the 'something else' other than accountancy which would be preferable to me, as someone involved tangentially in recruitment (from a quality perspective) is most definitely not maths. Although we obviously do look for sufficient numeracy.

And I'd guess that if eventually she does go into accountancy it's more likely to be interesting business stuff rather than filling in tax returns?

Talkin' - with those A levels and that degree if she wanted to go into the profession (and obviously she may not want to) she'd need to be able to convince on the ability to write/analyse/argue front. Is she doing an EPQ?

It is absolutely not the case that applied and combination degrees are all worthless. There are some outstanding examples of applied and combination degrees which are universally recognised as being the best in their field with very high employability - the obvious one that I know of is the Tonmeister course in Music and Sound Recording at Surrey, which combines music and physics and is very highly practical as well as academically rigorous.

But you need to know that, and students and families who come to it cold will not necessarily have access to that information at the right time.

talkin you've reminded me of my first ever job interview for an Accountancy traineeship as an Economics undergrad. "so Best, tell us why you'd like to be an accountant." Cue total silence on my part.

I went into IT.

Poor dh did a degree in Accountancy because the pil said they would cut him off if he did anything else. Even that was a concession as they wanted him to join a firm straightaway and do day release. Even more bizarre was that he was actually no good at maths! He wanted to do History and the head of his school actually visited dh's parents at home to persuade them to let him try for Oxford. The pil would not budge. Back in the 80s with no internet he didn't realise he could have gone off on his own and applied to the hardship fund. He just did as they said . He has spent 30 years being a crap accountant hoping nobody notices...

I was going to mention the Tonmeister course.

But then, going back to where this thread started, people applying for that course need (last I looked) something like AAA+ Maths, Music and Physics plus Grade VII in an instrument. I bet their open day has a lot of conversations akin to the one that started this discussion.

I'm really glad I went for a more vocational degree at a Uni-you-never-heard-of rather than stay at a top10-in-world-Uni where i would have got a degree with great theoretical grounding but few practical skills.

lljk, a history degree (for example), or history A level, for that matter, as well as imparting knowledge, will teach skills that are extremely valuable in, say, journalism.

And speaking of journalism, if someone aspires to be, say, 'Our Chief Science Correspondent', then presumably s/he needs to have a solid background in science, ie a science degree, rather than a degree in journalism?

Certainly not much evidence of the possession of any Science qualifications in most journalists .

Narvin
DDs friend rather enjoyed her day at Cambridge as part of the Maths Olympiad team - esoteric maths and macro modelling is a whole new world that would not have been open had I not nagged!

Silverbirch
Certainly not much evidence of the possession of any Science qualifications in most journalists
DH nearly punched the TV journalist who started his live report from a science festival with
" I always hated science at school but lets see what the boffins have been telling the kids today "
Thank you BBC

Talkin - that's nice. :) Is she going to apply there? AIUI they like physics at A level now (it wasn't compulsory in my day which was lucky in many ways for me since I didn't do physics A level and did do subjects which turned out to be much more useful to me in later life as well as more interesting to me at the time).

Narvine
I've no idea where she'll end up, but her options are wide open now so my bit is done!
And my kids are doing boring old subjects that keep their options open as well

IIRC, Barak Obama's first degree was in Art History.

If I were advising my dithering but otherwise grafter DC today, and if they were remotely oriented towards quantitative thinking, I'd tell them to try for a math degree (almost anywhere), or closest subject to math degree that they were suited for, followed by a 1 yr master in whatever subject they liked best at the time.

That's my impression of what choices can open the most future doors.

Ah, my kids are doing interesting subjects that keep their options open but all solid traditional ones nothing new or whizzy.

And speaking of journalism, if someone aspires to be, say, 'Our Chief Science Correspondent', then presumably s/he needs to have a solid background in science, ie a science degree, rather than a degree in journalism?

Yes and triple yes. In fact journos and lawyers who are scientifically literate are rare beasts indeed, so pure science + professional training would be a very good combination indeed.

My particular bugbear in the 'crap degree courses' hall of shame are the various 'Forensic Science' degrees. If you want to be a proper forensic scientist you either join the police (with or without a degree) and work your way up, maybe doing a degree on the way if you didn't have one start with, OR you do an academic degree (probably followed by a research degree) in chemistry or biology or some other pure science, and specialise in forensics afterwards. The FS degrees are classic examples of courses that are cobbled together from modules that are already being run as part of mainstream degree courses (ie very cheap to run because most of the components already exist). The science content of these courses will be far too broad and not nearly deep enough to enable its graduates to be serious contenders in their academic discipline.

Oviously if you just want to be a lab assistant, then it will be fine, but you don't need a degree and £40k+ of debt to do that.

Certainly not much evidence of the possession of any Science qualifications in most journalists

Susan Watts, who was until the recent blood-letting Newsnight's science correspondent, has a physics degree from Imperial followed by a post-grad journalism qualification.

An acquaintance retrained as a barrister after a first in computer science from Oxford. They don't want for work, I gather, these computer thingies being involved in the occasional court case these days.

Tonmeister course in Music and Sound Recording at Surrey

How hard is it to get offers for this course?

I haven't rtft but the op does fill me with sadness. It seemed the op told them they had no chance and sent them on their way. In reality, doing the wrong A levels at 17 is very far from having no chance of doing practically any degree anywhere. Of course it probably will involve a year or more of further study and require good results in the 'wrong' A levels as well as any right ones studied subsequently. Most Universities also offer access courses and have people who can offer advice about this. I've known people to get into vet school after doing arts at school (had to do three science a levels at college), do law at a good uni via an access course, and quite a lot who did graduate medical degrees after science degrees.

Tonmeister course in Music and Sound Recording at Surrey
How hard is it to get offers for this course?

According to unistats 65% of people who studied it in 2011-2013 had in excess of 520 ucas points - how is that possible? Triple A* with an extra A at AS would only give you 480

bilberry if you are on a device which lets you use the 'customise' option, you can highlight all posts by the original poster. You'll then see hat access/foundation courses have been discussed quite a bit.

And also that it's not really been to do with 'sending them away'. Just great sadness that the chosen A level options were nothing like entry requirements for the specific department visited, when the pupil had clearly been misled into thinking they were.

"how is that possible?"

UCAS points for one or more instrument to grade 8, probably.

They'll have had points for their grade 7/8 music won't they? (or does that not count if they do music A level) And maybe an EPQ as well. And they could have done 4 A2s - someone doing maths and physics may well do FM and another subject.

Bilberry - well, one would hope that the girl in the OP was given some advice as to what she might be able to do where, or how to look for such information. But why should staff in one particular uni dept have that info - it's not really their job to do that.

The two open days we went to, foundation years were discussed, as was the fact that good BTECs (3distinctions) were acceptable for entry to the engineering courses (one of them might have also wanted A-level maths). But of course foundation years cost money. It's financially harder to make mistakes now that the first degree isn't essentially free. I know a chap who always wanted to be a vet but didn't get the a-levels - so he did a degree in anatomy, worked hard with local vets for summer jobs and got his place - now runs a thriving practice.