DD changed her mind about degree course to apply for - away from a useful/vocational one!

[Tortoise44]

My daughter was all set to apply to unis this autumn to study finance. We have done four uni visits already and have booked in three more (and already bought the train tickets!). She has now decided that although she wants to work in finance (probably), she would rather study languages! This is surely a very bad idea from a career perspective.

I am annoyed because she wants to look at different unis to the ones we’ve visited/booked up for so we have wasted time and money. In addition, she never reads books and I am told that languages require studying literature. A languages degree is also four years rather than three so extra funding required! All in all, she should clearly stick with finance but what do others advise? Her A-levels are Maths, Business and Spanish and she will hopefully get BBB in her mocks at least.

I have a year 12 DS currently studying French and German (and Geography) at A Level who is looking at modern language degrees. He has no idea what he wants to do in the future but something finance related is a possibility (his Dad and I are both accountants...) but languages, travel and different cultures are his passion at the moment and everything I have read suggests language degrees are a really good grounding for most career options to be honest so we're very supportive. And the year abroad will be great for life skills.

I also wanted to say that I trained with a Big 4 accountancy firm and although I had a related degree, most of my peers didn't. In fact one who had a degree in French and German is now probably the most successful out of us and is FD of a huge multinational plc.

What are called "ab initio" courses are available at the better universities (not all universities even offer MFL) and usually students in those courses are expected to converge in standards with those who've come in with A Levels in the specific language by the end of second year, and certainly by the end of the final year.

They do extra hours & it's usually a pretty tough course. But nothing that's valuable comes easily.

• personally I believe that studying a language per se (just enjoying learning it and learning about another culture/society) is very valuable, and valid, BUT, it's not necessarily a straight route into a job.

But very few disciplines covered by a generalist BA or BSc actually are. Reading history or biology isn't a straight route into a job either.

Kudos to you OP for taking the feedback on the chin and actually going away and reflecting on it. Good for you. Your dd will thank you for being open to changing your mind for many years to come.

That's true, but I feel like there's an expectation that MFL is inherently more useful than other traditional core subjects, due to our what is now perceived as a very "global" society. In reality, languages grads from the UK will always be competing against European grads who were probably fluent in at least one foreign language before they even got to university. Perhaps I'm just a little bitter about Brexit still 🤣

@Belmondo MFL grads do all sorts of jobs. My DD is a MFL grad. Never used a word of her MFLs on her job. You make the mistake of thinking MFL grads have done a vocational course. Many don’t see it like that. DD converted to law. That’s not particularly unusual. Other MFL grads do a wide variety of jobs in business and in the public sector. It’s the transferable skills that give you options. The MFLs are icing on the cake if your chosen career needs them.

MFL grads do all sorts of jobs

Absolutely. From among my MFL peers at university, I became an MFL teacher, the rest have been really successful in all kinds of jobs, from the metals broking industry to (pretty high-level) politics, publishing and various corporate jobs. When competing with other graduates, it's not going to be about how long they've been fluent in a language for!

Yes, I'm very aware of that, as an MFL graduate myself. I only really used my languages in my first graduate job - since then they haven't really been relevant. I'm not saying that an MFL degree is necessarily limiting - I'm saying that IME, in the UK, there's a sometimes a perception that a language degree will make you a standout candidate in an international jobs market, when in reality the vast majority of European graduates, for example, will be very fluent in English (and will likely have been taught their main subjects in English to an extent), and possibly 1 or 2 other Euro languages too.

Once again, I'm categorically not disputing that languages (or a language degree) are useful, I'm just saying that sometimes expectations differ from reality post-graduation.