Degree ideas

[chopc]

My DS is in year 12 and is doing IB and his higher level subjects are Maths, Chemistry and History

He has no idea what career he would like to do. I would imagine his future career will
Involve numbers but HL IB Maths has taken its toll and he doesn't want to do a Maths related degree

I know he can study his favourite subject at Uni which is History but I have heard from many sources that a Maths/ Science related degree will have better employment prospects.

It wouldn't matter so much if he knew what he wanted to do but as he doesn't, I am wondering if you could suggest some degree subjects and I will then look it up

The careers service at school
were useless as they said anything relating to maths, chemistry or history would be for him but we knew that anyway

Let him follow his strengths which is stuff related to history. Don’t push a person who is miserable doing maths to be an engineer.

Absolutely - you do have to enjoy maths for lots of engineering courses and roles. It was more to point out that lack of physics is not a deal breaker.

Thanks again everyone! I wish there was a like button on mumsnet

Thanks for the link @PerpetualOptimist . I will take a look

@chopc
I think FO jobs are as rare as hens teeth! The stats for applicants vs offers is almost unbelievable. No MFL won’t help. Play to
your strengths.

Well, I disagree but I guess it might depend on the subject. I am a Professor of Archaeology and I work with and consult for commercial units working on major road/tunnel/building projects, museums, etc. And I am by no means unusual.

As a discipline, we are very vocational and closely linked to the wider profession. Our degrees are accredited by CIfA (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists) to ensure they are fit for the commercial sector and we give our students a whole range of transferable practical, analytical and teamworking skills (not just writing essays!). They go on to a wide range of jobs in heritage, museums, conservation, environmental agencies, scientific and forensic labs and commercial archaeology etc. As well as entirely different career paths.

I have never understood why anyone interested in the past confines themselves to just the written text when there is such a richness of other evidence!

@Mytholmroyd
It very much does depend on the subject and, of course, the individual.

As employability data becomes more and more important as a metric we are finding more academics taking an interest in employability but it's a slow process in some places.
Some universities have done a better job at embedded employability into the culture of their institution than others.

Yes, I was just about to say the same when I saw your post.

My son fell out of love with Maths after GCSEs and refused to do Further Maths in the sixth form saying A level maths was enough for his sanity! He did Maths, Physics and Economics at A level.

When we looked at Unis/Courses, he was adamant he didn't want to do a Maths degree, and went all around the houses looking at alternatives such as economics, natural science, physics, engineer, accounting, etc. But it kept coming back to Maths because he genuinely excelled at it (Grade 9 at GCSE and A* at A Level).

By really thinking about the bits of Maths he liked, and those he hated, he came down on the side of liking algebra, probability, statistics, etc and it was the scientific and engineering side of Maths that he hated.

We started looking at various "maths with physics/computing/economics" degrees, but they were still pretty heavy with the maths he didn't like, so we kept looking and eventually found some Unis that do "Financial Maths" which included economics, accounting, finance, probability, statistics, etc. , i.e. all the areas he actually liked, so that's what he ended up doing and is about to graduate with hopefully a first this Summer.

So, the OP shouldn't really discount Maths related degrees and encourage her son to look at the modules to see just what kind of Maths he'd be studying as it might be mostly the bits he likes. As for economics, accounting, etc., yes, there's obviously a lot of Maths involved, but it's at a pretty low level mostly, and the harder bits are probably nothing harder than Maths at A level/IB. To be honest, if it's the scientific/engineering side of Maths they don't like, then they're probably best avoiding science/engineering degrees!

Fir Economics or CS u will need top grades in all GCSE’s taken and the equivalent of 3-4A*s at A’Level standard and the last few years even with those grades people r being rejected.

Good point @@Skybluepinky

I think he needs proper professional fee paying careers advice rather then generic school careers advice.

This was fee paying- I can't recall the platform

I have just signed up for morrisby so it would have been something similar

Sorry meant I have signed my DD up for morrisby