Shift towards STEM and vocational degrees

[ErrolTheDragon]

I thought some here might be interested in this report from yesterday's Times, and today's leader column with a very positive response to it.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-students-ditch-arts-degrees-and-opt-for-medicine-w63vnzrxd?shareToken=6e46a444cbf4ad46435a1154c599e20a

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-changing-trends-in-higher-education-two-cultures-bzzlfbjzd?shareToken=66db880492335958414064160e810114

My take on it is that it's probably to some extent an overdue rebalancing following a rise in arts subjects in former polys versus their original more technical/vocational focus. And there's more easily accessible data on employment prospects and salaries, which coupled with tuition fees doubtless informs students decisions.

And some of us might argue that no-one really wants a doctor who only studied Medicine for the graduate starting salary...

@Jsnn An arts or humanities degree in a subject you enjoy and are good at, perhaps followed by a one year Masters once you’ve got a better idea what you want to do, can be a great option. Trying to map out your whole career path at age 18 simply isn’t possible or desirable for most people.

Really good news. STEM is our future, whether we like it or not. And you don't have to be a brilliant technologist or coder in STEM these days. Up to now, it hasn't been the sexiest choice, so it's good to see this changing.

I'm a STEM Ambassador and spend time trying to convince students in schools (especially girls) that a STEM career can be huge fun and very varied.

I'm also an artist with a degree in Architecture, who did a postgrad diploma in Computer Science.

The creative industries are enormously important, but I'd have thought that their degrees fell more in the vocational category rather than the 'arts/humanities' group. Although there are some English departments which turn out a lot of thespians, of course. And absolutely we need experts in the arts and humanities too - it's an adjustment of proportions which seems to be happening.

[quote HerculesMuligan]@Jsnn An arts or humanities degree in a subject you enjoy and are good at, perhaps followed by a one year Masters once you’ve got a better idea what you want to do, can be a great option. Trying to map out your whole career path at age 18 simply isn’t possible or desirable for most people.[/quote]
I think it depends on your background. A lot of us who come from disadvantaged backgrounds should be looking at university as a way of breaking the poverty cycle and building a career that gives us enough income to build wealth that we don't get from our family. Those who come from intergenerational wealth can afford to do arts degrees and play around with university and do something that is interesting and go down one of those routes. There are lots of higher paying STEM degrees that you don't need to network your way into a job.

Out of the 4 of me and my siblings, 3 of us were able to break that cycle and earn excellent incomes all with STEM degrees. Other sibling is a carer and struggles constantly.

@Xenia, interesting to read of your family’s experiences in studying law. We have no experience of law but both DC have expressed interest in training as lawyers and specialising later in Environmental Law. Both will need to convert after first degrees; one from an MBiol and the other Land Economy (Law, Economics, environment). I don’t know how doable this is in reality and whether we are already awash with lawyers from more conventional routes? They both have a mix of STEM and Humanities A Levels.

I've noticed that the UK seems to do far fewer vocational degrees than other countries. For example, in Germany and in China almost everyone seems to do a vocational degree.

@Jsnn

Better to do a math , computer science, medical degree and grad to 30k salary then doing history or arts degrees and grading to 18k salary working retail because there are no jobs for your degree (which you never bothered to research)

I don't know why people simply can't grasp that we are not all good at the same things. There is no way I could have done a STEM degree, I would have been lucky to pass A levels. As it was I did humanities and languages A levels, got straight As, did a law and languages degree and have been in gainful and reasonably well paid employment ever since.

Had I done science A levels and failed them what would I have been qualified to do?

@soantediluvian

I've noticed that the UK seems to do far fewer vocational degrees than other countries. For example, in Germany and in China almost everyone seems to do a vocational degree.

That is why my IT department is currently being managed (badly) by an arts grad who got a job on the IT support desk and never left

That is nothing to do with the fact they didn't do an IT-related degree. Management skills are very different to subject specific skills.

If you really can't do science, it makes no sense to try to do it at university. But lots of people have some degree of flexibility. In China, people often seem to decide on their career goals before they apply to university, and they then apply to do something very specific, which feeds straight into a particular job.

Whereas in the UK some people study "modern languages" at university, in other countries it would be unusual to do that, and universities mostly offer "modern languages for teaching". People are expected to study English on the side of their degree subject.

@Criagert

Hopefully it is a general trend towards better careers education and parents/schools advising children to think about qualifications that will be attractive to employers rather than 'just do what you enjoy - employers won't care so long as you have a degree'. They do care!

Bucking the trend, has anyone else noticed greater numbers going into Sports Science? It seems to have become the new media studies. Soon we'll all be able to hire an over-qualified personal trainer for less than the cost of a cleaner.

It's not just the bad advice of "do what you enjoy". It's also bad advice re choice of university. My son's sixth form tutor was terrible with her "advice". We went to a parents' evening to discuss Uni applications and were talking about my son's Uni options - he chose them with half an eye on the published statistics for employment after graduation, graduate salaries from each Uni for his course, student satisfaction surveys etc - she rubbished them all and kept going on about Oxbridge, Durham, StAndrews, LSE etc - all of whom were way down the practical/real life league tables for life after Uni and which DS had already rejected. She just couldn't comprehend that he was only going to Uni as a route to a good, well paying, job, rather than for the "love" of the academic side of it.

@poppycat10

Of course there are pathways to good careers outside of STEM and you can get a good return on some non STEM degrees. Just like there are some STEM degrees where you don't really get a return on your degree.

My general point was just that for people who don't come from money (like me) we should be looking at university as a way to break that cycle and we should be making sure we get a return on our degree.

For people who come from money they don't need to care about that, they can just go off on a whim and do what they like and get their parents to set them up for life. Must be nice but unfortunately wasn't how it was for me.

I assume that those whose parents set them up for life are in a small minority, though more will have parents who will provide a safety-net if all goes wrong. There will be lots of others who just end up in low paying jobs.

@Northernsoullover I find that there is huge snobbery about which uni you went to. I went to a specialist agricultural university, everyone laughs and says it’s not a ‘real university’. My friends who went to ‘real universities’ mostly work in admin or bar jobs.

The uni I went to has a 99.4% employment rate and I was earning £30,000 working part time in my mid twenties. I just nod when they make jokes about having a degree in agriculture.

Yeah of course you're right but that's my point, let those people whose parents will give them a down payment for a house (or just give them a house) and get them a job with their family friend or at family businesses... let those people do those degrees that don't really have a good ROI.

But the majority of people should be looking at university as an investment in future.

That is nothing to do with the fact they didn't do an IT-related degree. Management skills are very different to subject specific skills.

@poppycat10 no, it's because he doesn't understand the skills of the people he is managing or the additional skills he needs to recruit to make his department run efficiently.

@Jsnn

Yeah of course you're right but that's my point, let those people whose parents will give them a down payment for a house (or just give them a house) and get them a job with their family friend or at family businesses... let those people do those degrees that don't really have a good ROI.

But the majority of people should be looking at university as an investment in future.

I understand the point you're making, I just feel a bit uncomfortable with effectively telling working class kids that they shouldn't bother trying to do Humanities or getting some cultural capital - sounds a bit too much 'not for the likes of you' IMO.

I know it sounds quite rough but reality is we aren't all born with same opportunities and the best chance we have at making it in life is understanding where we are and how we can get somewhere better. Education is one of the best tools to shift classes in society and unfortunately a humanities degree is much less capable of achieving that than a comp sci or civil engineering degree or whatever else there is.

There are lots of really interesting and engaging careers and degrees that pay well, it's not like you're crushing someone's hopes and dreams by saying you should look at career statistics when choosing a university program.

I understand the point you're making, I just feel a bit uncomfortable with effectively telling working class kids that they shouldn't bother trying to do Humanities or getting some cultural capital - sounds a bit too much 'not for the likes of you' IMO.

If they have the potential to do well in that field then they should be given as much support as possible to fulfil that potential. But 'cultural capital'... hm, well maybe that's a tad 'two cultures' and you're displaying a bias towards thinking one side superior?. There's a lot of 'cultural capital' that intelligent people can pick up on the side while, or after, doing STEM or other vocational studies, I'd argue more easily than the other way. There are a lot of problems caused by our politicians and policy makers etc being functionality illiterate in sciences. The old idea that the private school chaps did classics, history, ppe while the grammar school oiks did 'stinks' maybe hasn't totally been banished yet.

Well my friends who are lawyers would agree and advise the same as Xenia. Do a degree in something you love and are passionate about, work hard get a 1st and then do a conversion course. They advise this because law degrees are hard and quite boring in places and it’s quite hard to get a 1st.
I only know this is their advice and several of our friends children have taken it.

@Itscoldouthere

Well my friends who are lawyers would agree and advise the same as Xenia. Do a degree in something you love and are passionate about, work hard get a 1st and then do a conversion course. They advise this because law degrees are hard and quite boring in places and it’s quite hard to get a 1st. I only know this is their advice and several of our friends children have taken it.

Yeah and that's excellent career path. I don't think anything I have said would be directed towards someone doing that. That would be an example of someone taking post uni career into consideration

I just don't get the ridiculous push towards STEM - it ends up bashing a lot of round pegs into square holes. We don't just need scientists and computer programmers. We also need linguists, lawyers, economists, creative arts (which is a the second biggest contributor to the economy after finance) etc etc. I have a first in a humanities subject from Oxford - my degree taught me to absorb a huge amount of text based information in a very short amount of time, to draw conclusions from it and then to think on my feet defending my propositions whilst one of the worlds leading experts on the subject picked holes in everything I said/disagreed with me. All of which was hugely useful for a career in complex international trust and tax structuring.

What we really need is an education system that can breathe and inspire all pupils to identify and develop their interests be it astrophysics, cancer research, caring, coding, hairdressing, cooking, composing or anything else rather than the stultifying teaching to the test we get now.

STEM is the future.

We will always need some arts degrees but the level of scientific illiteracy demonstrated as we battle a pandemic is absolutely shocking, including by ‘well educated’ MPs and journalists.

People have not only no idea of the maths of random processes or exponential curves but no feel for them either. This has led to bad reporting and bad decisions.

I agree with a poster up thread that says the current trend is the start of a rebalancing from the position of where too many of our best and brightest favoured the likes of PPE over proper science of maths.