Schools offers FM but DC didn't take it (block against another subject) - what's their position?

[happyhippiehippo]

I understand that for some courses where FM is 'desirable' etc, unis will look negatively at an applicant who applies without if, if FM was offered at their secondary/senior school.

In DC's case, taking FM was not an option (we checked) as it was blocked against another A-level subject they had chosen.

How do you explain this in an application and would they take it into consideration?

So doesn’t really want to be an engineer! See my earlier posts. This is so typical. If this is the case, why do engineering? What interest do they have? It’s not a goal to be an engineer at all. No wonder we have a shortage of engineers.

Well, hopefully an inspiring degree will change their mind!

As a counterpoint to Tizer's post ...While personally I don't get why people do a degree in a subject unrelated to what they eventually want to do, OTOH it's by no means a bad thing for people in law, management, finance etc to be highly STEM literate. My DH was an industrial chemist, he attributes much of the decline of U.K. leadership in this field to an excess of managers, finance bods and investment analysts etc who were essentially illiterate in the subjects key to their businesses even if they had a first in English lit from oxbridge. And there have been significant miscarriages of justice caused by innumeracy, not understanding basic statistics.
And there's some roles such as being a patent agent which absolutely require relevant technical expertise which might appeal to someone thinking towards law.

Great post above by @ErrolTheDragon

The main (maybe only?) downside of people who don't want pure stem careers doing stem degrees is their expense, given we do have lots of good unis and courses. But maybe it's a price worth paying for a more STEM literate population? Otoh - going way off topic! - there's definitely a case for something more like some US degrees which are broader with majors and minors.

@chocorabbit Do you not think a switched on student works out how to get a job without being told? It’s really common sense and actually finding out what is required is part of growing up. After all, some Dc get jobs at 18.

I don’t think all schools are up to speed on advising pupils on A levels. However looking at groups of subjects is a good start. You really don’t have to show passion in the PS. Only the competitive ones use them as a tie breaker or part of the interview.

Industrial placements don’t help with history or anthrapology. I’m assuming you mean courses with direct links to employment. The issue is, they do lengthen the course. You might not want that employer. There’s often not enough placements to go round. They can be great but if you end up with a BEng and not a MEng, it’s not necessarily the right choice.

Industrial placements don’t help with history or anthrapology. I’m assuming you mean courses with direct links to employment. The issue is, they do lengthen the course. You might not want that employer. There’s often not enough placements to go round. They can be great but if you end up with a BEng and not a MEng, it’s not necessarily the right choice.

Yes, in the context of engineering and some other STEM degrees, relevant summer internships are often the way to go and a doing certain amount may be a course requirement. Fits in with standard 4 year MEng (integrated masters), and can allow for trying 2 or 3 different types of thing (size of company, more industrial vs research etc).

The main (maybe only?) downside of people who don't want pure stem careers doing stem degrees is their expense

engineering degrees are nearly as expensive as medicine - it is therefore not unreasonable for admissions to prioritise candidates who can demonstrate genuine interest in pursuing engineering even if they don’t have the same stringent criteria as for medicine and veterinary medicine.

I would be suggesting a different type of degree such as UK style liberal arts for the OP’s DC.

@sendsummer @ErrolTheDragon I can see the value of having a stem degree for other careers but not really wanting to be an engineer before you start is a bit much. It’s usually more of an issue on general engineering courses as Dc entering haven’t made a choice of which type of engineering. Oxbridge frequently has this issue as money in other careers is higher.

Yes. These are expensive degrees. The ones who don’t want to be engineers clearly stop others getting the places at Oxbridge and top tier unis. At other unis it’s less likely to be an issue but it’s now a common route to other jobs, eg finance, big consultancies (not engineering ones!) audit, etc. Anyone can write a ps about engineering so unis will never weed out the ones who don’t really want the job. They can easily say and write what the unis want.

@TizerorFizz I agree with you but some students are quite immature and you keep reading threads about wanting the "university experience" i.e. partying, sleepless nights, missed deadlines, failing multiple times etc.

Of course mainly humanities subjects can't do placements and I am not talking about them. Graduates can't be picky in a volatile market, but of course people have choices. I know many who didn't manage to get a job and work in admin roles. They would kill to get their foot on the door even on a company that is not of their liking. I know graduates who went to work for their placement company. I also know plenty of graduates (no placement) who once they got a few years of experience moved on to better jobs so whether you like the company or not is immaterial when all you need is experience.

And who cares if they lengthen the course if along with experience and potential re-employment they can potentially help you wipe off 1-2 years of fees (if you live at home!). Of course again it suits some people but not others.

@ErrolTheDragon are you saying that internships are better than industrial placements? Can somebody do both?

I should have stated that actually DC has not said they definitely want to go into another profession after the engineering/physics degree but it's definitely a possibility. DC is clearly one of the more immature ones, it would seem, as so many on here have kids who know exactly what they want.

Ha ha, I didn't really know what I wanted to do until my mid 20s! ;)

Also wonder whether there's a cultural aspect here - some groups seem to have a razor sharp focus (as a family) on certain professions from very early on. Of course, some kids do know from when they're 5 what they want to do. Not so the case here...

So it's more a case of doing what they were best and enjoyed at GCSE, now doing it at A-level and then hopefully enjoying and honing in on things during a degree.

We have friends who have done STEM Masters/PhDs and are now patent attorneys or working in consultancies or VCs. The STEM was invaluable and, for law, there is usually now a strong preference for candidates who have done a specialised undergraduate degree first followed by a law conversion rather than for straight law grads. It's what I've heard time and time again. FWIW.

My DC is currently studying engineering at a Russell group uni, the maths is hard (a friend lectures in engineering at a non-RG and this is his opinion) even with FM. OTOH, there are also essays to write and some students will find this hard after a break from this with maths/physics A levels and maybe a gap year. My friend finds being a literate engineer (lots of performing Shakespeare etc at uni) has been useful in his career.

Engineering does seem to be a hard degree with many of them struggling to keep up with the volume and complexity of the work. So I don’t think my DC would have chosen it if they had their time again. So, probably only worth doing if your DC really wants to as my DC and coursemates keep having to explain to friends on other courses why even a 40 hour week studying is not always enough. Does seem to be a great career though with so many different types of jobs available.

I fully accept that funding the Engineering (or other STEM) training of students who know before they begin that they have no real interest in the subject is an issue. I think it’s sad, as doing STEM is inherently just about the most interesting thing in the world.

But how can we actually select against these applicants? Finance etc want them because of the skills they acquire. I am very glad we have STEM degreed people in Finance, Law, the Civil Service, etc. I think they bring immensely valuable skills and perspectives.

If their so called dedication to the field becomes an issue, they will most likely just lie on the PS. Interviews will become lie detector tests, most distasteful. Nervous, passionate applicants will also lose out. And if, say, everyone wanting to go into eg Finance trained in Economics and Financial Maths, I for one would feel less secure. I think we need multiple, highly educated perspectives brought to bear on society’s biggest challenges.

@chocorabbit are you saying that internships are better than industrial placements? Can somebody do both?

Not really, more that placements aren't the be all and end all, or the norm. I'm sure some students get great placements that suit them but most are perfectly fine with summer internships (these too may lead to jobs after graduation).

Some of those careers , especially the patent attorneys truly are STEM roles. I think sometimes people can get too narrow a view of what scientists and engineers are needed for! VCs are very often investing in STEM companies, it really does help if some of them have a hope of understanding the technologies involved rather than (as DH was wont to caustically observe) apparently judging the quality of a company by the standard of the lunch they were provided with.

I agree that people’s commitment to continue in the field post-degree cannot be a criteria for admittance onto the degree. For one it’s impossible to know the genuine commitment to a specific career that someone has beyond the course, but also absolutely right that students should remain open and flexible to other options which the 17/18 year old applying might simply not know about.

It might feel ‘wrong’ that some who are dedicated to the idea of an engineering degree (and who later actually do find they are still committed and go into it) don’t get the most sought after degree places, because they are taken by those who have slightly stronger academic profiles, but lack the commitment to continue beyond the degree…..but I don’t think this is wrong.

In the end, admissions has to look at students where they are at 17/18 when they apply and find ways to assess them and distinguish between candidates. they have limited resources to make these decisions and the most popular courses are highly over-subscribed, so blunt instruments have to be used to decide who gets the offers. Measurable characteristics, such as predicted grades, GCSE attainment, subjects studied at A Level understandably get used and have to be used. Measuring genuine commitment to go into the field later in life is not totally possible, or the job of the admissions tutor to make judgements upon. The highly academic courses at a limited range of places requiring FM under discussion on this course, are not there to recruit future workers for industry, but to recruit students with the academic abilities to perform at a high level on their academic degrees. This is the reality, rightly or wrongly. And they know that the students who perform best in their academic and mathematically heavy courses are those with particular A Levels (including FM) and so they offer to the candidates tho meet the requirements they identify that are measurable.

It might well be that students who go to the next tier down of uni send higher proportions of people into the engineering workplace, or that those people go onto be more successful engineers. It might be that pure academic ability isn’t always the best predictor of practical career success.

In my mind I see degrees as a stage in life and a stepping stone to the next phase. Some degrees such as medicine might be highly vocational and send the vast majority into that workplace. Most other degrees, including engineering are less so. The degree gives skills and knowledge that can be useful in a wide range of different areas. Some students know at 16 what they want to do and then stick with it. Others think they know and then change their minds by 21/22 and others have no real idea at 18 and still little idea by 21 but their degree is still equipping them for the next phase. And I think that’s right. The degree is not there to prepare individuals to be the engineers to serve the state of the future or any teenager to be a a particular career, but to educate students so that then they can choose. I don’t think the teen who knows what they want to do is anymore worthy of a place than the one who doesn’t know what they want to do, or the one who is using a particular degree as a stepping g stone towards something they already know about that is very different.

If their so called dedication to the field becomes an issue, they will most likely just lie on the PS.

I'm not sure it's too easy to lie when the applicants truly engaged in a field will be able to describe various things they've actually done. Eg I'd guess probably a fair few of those who get places on the most selective engineering degrees will have won an Arkwright award. That sort of thing.

Using any objective criterion is fine by me, @ErrolTheDragon

I have taught in America, where Law is a three year PG degree and virtually all UGs must train in Writing. Those with STEM degrees, particularly Maths, and good writing skills are amongst the most prized of Law applicants

inclined towards Physics or Engineering with the aim of ultimately going into the law, consultancy or investment banking.
Apologies OP, I misread this as a saying that engineering itself was not (one of) the possible career aims.
I don’t think it is immaturity to not be committed to specialisation age 16 or 18. I would encourage your DC to spend some time thinking what courses would best suit their interests as well as strengths. And perhaps check out what patent attorneys do.

BTW I have a DC who did a STEM degree (not engineering) and then ended up in investment banking. However they loved their degree subject and in the ideal world would have very happily continued as a researcher in it.

What sort of lawyers are telling you they favour grads with non law degrees? I have worked in a variety of City firms including Magic Circle and firms with a specialist industry focus and I can tell you for a fact that we have no policy preference on this. It is decided on a case by case basis. The candidates who might have an edge are ones who have actually had full careers in industry before, generally because they are more mature so develop more quickly and may well bring client contacts with them. But we do not filter fresh grads for law vs non law degrees.

(I am assuming you are not lumping patent attorneys and lawyers together when you say “law” in your post).

DD converted to law. They don’t prefer non law grads. They just want bright people! My DD isn’t the most academic but she’s sharp, is a great advocate and gets on with people. Of course stem grads can do all of these things too but they are in a minority for law conversion I think.

It’s interesting we have numerous hoops for doctors to go through when they are 17, but won’t do it for engineers.

I do not think going into industry for a placement is vital for employment either. However experience of work in a suitable placement is far better than nothing eg paid internship. The better students do get jobs.

@WombatChocolate Have you actually looked at what an MEng covers at uni? Of course it’s vocational and academic at the same time. These are courses approved by the Engineering Council as being suitable prep for professional registration. Therefore the courses are designed for young people to progress to being chartered or incorporated engineers. As such they are academic and vocational. Like a doctor, you won’t be a chartered engineer these days without an accredited degree plus years of CPD snd exams.

Also engineers don’t all end up in industry. We have some of the best engineering consultancies in the world. They recruit grads. There is of course a role for academic engineers but most don’t want this. They also come from a wide range of unis. Not just O/C/I. That’s such a narrow view.

I think I actually agreed about the very best and most successful engineers often coming from other courses.
Im not advocating for those 3 universities. I’m not suggesting everyone should aspire to them. My point was quite simply that these universities recruit on the basis of particularly academics and interest in the subjects, rather than the extent to which someone can say they want to be or will in the end be an engineer.
Everyone chooses where to apply. Some have more choices than others because their academic credentials open the doors to all of the places. Lots who could go to the most prestigious will choose not to apply to those as they prefer other courses. All good.

Again, it’s a thread about engineering courses at unis which are extremely selective and are notoriously hard to get into - so I think it’s okay to talk about those places.