A strange situation

[cartwright002]

DS is quite bright with many interests and struggled to decide what university course to apply for. His dad suggested medicine. DS agreed, having enjoyed shadowing doctors and volunteering in care homes. He applied for it last year and got a place at Edinburgh to read medicine. However, he got cold feet before the course started and declined the offer to reapply to study something else. Part of the reason may have been that Edinburgh is too far from home. His father was very disappointed. DS then had great trouble deciding what to study and eventually settled on engineering and now has an offer from Imperial to start in September 2023. Much closer to home.

His dad also studied engineering at Imperial and has had a hard time finding a job he likes. It so happens that we have many engineers in the family who only found success job-wise outside engineering. DH therefore is immensely negative and fearful about job prospects. 'You'll struggle to find a job you like',' What a foolish decision', etc etc., are occasional mutterings. Even when DH is quiet, he seems to carry with him a cloud of disappointment. My talking only seems to worsen the issue and university will start in 6 months anyway. But I worry this will demotivate DS as he is close to his dad and his approval means a lot. But DH seems to be struggling to come to terms with handling the disappointment he has about his son's shock decision to turn down the medicine offer. Any advise as to how I can defuse the anxiety that seems to be building up?

Well, you need to gently point out that it is not his life and that he needs to respect his ds's decision. It's totally inappropriate for him to be acting out like this.

He might have been shocked about your ds's decision to turn down the medicine place, but honestly speaking, medicine is an incredibly difficult and stressful career, and if his heart wasn't in it, your ds made absolutely the right choice.

He may find a career that he loves as an engineer or he may not. Your DH needs to remember that his son is not a clone of him, he is his own person. And your DH should not be trying to live his life vicariously through him. Your ds has made his decision and your DH needs to grow up a bit and get behind it. He is being really unfair to your ds.

FWIW few people outside healthcare understand the reality of medical training. It's a long hard slog, 5 or 6 years med school then another 8 plus years training. If your ds had cold feet it was absolutely the right thing to pull out. The drop out rate for young medics is horrendous so young people need to be very sure and committed.
Engineering opens up a huge range of possibilities after graduation, Grad schemes love STEM grads because of the skills they bring. My dh is an engineer and coincidentally it crossed his mind that ds should apply for medicine (he had never shown any interest!). I soon put him straight (I'm a HCP).
Your ds sounds very mature snd has s great offer from a very prestigious university, best of luck to him!

This isn’t ‘strange’, this is your husband’s poor management of his own feelings and failure to grasp that his young adult child isn’t him!

Your son sounds more level headed than his father. Who needs to realise he is paving the way for future resentment and a feeling in your son that he's never been good enough.

You need a serious talk with your dh and tell him to stop it.

my dh is an engineer, plenty of engineering friends…..none of whom have had problems finding work.

well done on your ds realisation medicine wasn’t for him, it’s a soul destroying job even if you have a passion for being a doctor. If you haven’t got that passion it would be unbearable.

Engineering is a very broad subject and Imperial offers a huge range of options, some far from anything your DH might recognise from his experience.

Your son sounds sensible.

I'm in nuclear engineering - I enjoy it and the pay is good. We're crying out for people to replace the rapidly ageing engineering/STEM workforce!

The only ‘strange’ thing here is your particular family’s experience and acquired perception. 99.99% of people in the UK would confidently assume that someone with an engineering degree from Imperial would have the world at their feet. (I do completely understand that luck, effort, career building connections and having a face that fits - in terms of race, age, sex, class, - all play a part in how one progresses post-graduation. Nothing at all is guaranteed and a great degree from a prestigious institution cannot necessarily prevent spectacular failure. Ask me how I know …)

But your husband is being really oppressive here. Obviously you’ll be encouraging / forcing him to read all the Uni / course literature; watch the student you tube channel; attend, if possible, any forthcoming open days with your son. As back up you need to make sure your son speaks to as many successful engineers as possible. He certainly shouldn’t be left floundering and unsure.

Your husband should stop whining and start being supportive to his son. DS has done really well to get the place at Imperial and he’ll be extremely employable!

I agree that this seems to be much more of a DH issue than a DS issue and your DH needs to stand back and let your clever DS work out his own path in life. He sounds mature and sensible and absolutely did the right thing to turn down the medicine offer if it wasn't the right path for him. An Imperial engineering degree opens up many, many options in STEM but also beyond. The main thing is that he enjoys his degree and then he can consider what he wants to do with it. I have worked with a number of bright and ambitious Imperial engineering graduates who subsequently decided engineering wasn't for them and flipped their first degree and a few year's work experience on to completing top MBAs (Stanford, Harvard, INSEAD, LBS etc). This opened up fast track to partner/board level roles in both top management consultancies and FTSE 100 companies. I think your DS has made a smart choice.

Some of this resonates with me and I can sort of see both sides of what is going on. However like everyone else I would agree that an engineering degree will open a lot of doors even if he doesn't find a direct path through whichever field takes his fancy.

I knew that had I ever remotely expressed an interest in engineering my father would have tried to talk me out of it - he was a frustrated engineer as where I grew up, only those who moved into management were paid well and, an MBA notwithstanding, my father was no manager (he also couldn't teach sadly, he could otherwise have been happier and more fulfilled in academia I think). I followed my first love and did a physics degree, though ended up studying medicine as well. And I remember phone calls with my mother when the offers came out, she wanted to make absolutely sure I wasn't opting for medicine because I thought she would want me to (I wasn't). As you may guess from this I also had quite a few different directions I could have gone in.

I hope your son really enjoys Imperial, it should be an excellent option for him (I've been looking at their website recently, my DS will probably have it as an insurance offer for maths).

“Engineering” is a huge umbrella term. Somewhere like Imperial will have masses of courses where students will say they are studying engineering, but their courses , experiences, and future jobs, will be wildly different. Your OH sounds a very domineering person, I am pleased your son refused the medical course he had been coerced into. I hope he enjoys his time at Imperial, my relatives who studied and are studying there found it an amazing experience. Tell him to get ahead of the game with accommodation!

You haven’t said which branch of engineering, @cartwright002 - but it’s a wide open field.

I know an aeronautical engineer who became a lawyer. And I know an electronic engineer who works in the aeronautical industry. Several are in academia and engage in an incredibly wide range of scientific and artistic collaborations. That’s in addition to all those who set up companies to exploit their expertise.

I work in careers guidance, and there is something about medicine which makes it an obsession amongst certain parents. I have never really seen this with any other degree! I like the sound of your son, he has got a great offer from a world class university. I hope he has a fantastic time and he will never be short of career opportunities. It is interesting I rarely see parents who are doctors getting this obsession that their offspring become doctors.

I can't understand it either, @Ratatouille1. My dd is about to embark on a medicine degree, and frankly, the more I read about the pressures on med students and junior doctors, the more I wish that she would do anything but medicine! Of course, I recognise that it's what she wants to do and I will absolutely support her choice, but I can't really understand why any parent would actively push their child in that direction. There are so many easier paths that they could follow.

And yes, the medicine open days were pushy parent central! I thought Manchester University handled it best by only allowing prospective students into the live presentations and letting parents watch a streamed version from a separate lecture theatre so that only the students could ask questions...genius!

Loving Manchester's Henman Hill for pushy parents @MrsBennetsPoorNerves 😂

@opoponax.

Your DH needs to pull himself together and start being supportive!!

Your Ds has done very well to get an offer from Imperial.
Engineering is a huge area and there must be 1000s employed in various branches of engineering. There will be numerous opportunities for your DS when he graduates. And even if he doesn't want to go into engineering after uni, a decent degree from Imperial will still open lots of doors for him.

Your DH is being very unreasonable and is risking his future relationship with his DS.

It’s not a strange situation, pretty normal for 18 year olds to change their minds. My DS did similar after one semester at uni. Luckily DH is supportive and does not try to push his ideas or expectations on DS. Your DH needs to accept his son is a separate person who will make his own decisions now. You need to sit down with your DH (go out for a coffee to discuss) and set him straight. It’s really not fair on your DS. It’s good DS has you in his corner. It’s not like your DS has done anything wrong, gone off the rails, he has just changed his mind. Good luck.

Your DS sounds like a most impressive young man, both academically able and mature enough to step away from a path he realises isn't really for him. And his father sounds like my DH, so acutely aware of the pitfalls and disadvantages in his own field that he dismisses the difficulties faced in other careers as comparatively trivial. He needs to take the blinkers off. For a start, there's nothing wrong with jobs that aren't directly related to degree subject.