Finance or Engineering at Uni - Help my son choose

[blueshoes]

Ds is in Y12 and doing Maths, Physics and Economics A level. He thinks he can get AAB (solid chance) or AAA* (aspirational, cough) if he finally knuckles down.

He finds Economics naturally easy. His fave subjects at GCSE are Physics and Maths but he is finding it hard work at A level and not getting the grades.

He is starting to think about his course and uni and veers between Finance and Engineering but does not know where to start. Not Oxbridge, he is not that material so probably more Russell Group. He definitely wants the university experience and not an apprenticeship.

Neither dh nor I are Science-y nor Finance-y, so not much use.

Any thoughts at all about Finance or Engineering as a career in terms of future prospects? Which uni or course is the best for either? Any other thing he could be doing that is all the rage?

Yes to confirm @KalaMush , personal statements are being greatly changed from next year. My(limited) understanding is that applicants will more or less be directed to answer specific questions. But I confess I have not been paying attention

UCAS have pushed back the date of reform of PS to the cycle for 2026 entry (see linked below but read carefully as their edit of earlier text was incomplete and confusing). In any event, OP's observation is that DS's PS will be blunted if he tries to articulate simultaneous interest in engineering and economics and that would hold true under either PS regime.

I would recommend attendance of 2-3 Open Days this summer; perhaps one aspirational and two more compatible with current performance. Make sure engineering, economics, management depts are all visited. This will help answer: is uni for me? is this uni for me? is this subject area for me, whether at this uni or another?

I had a DC looking at a very wide range of options and prospect.ac.uk helped understand different careers more fully. The site has a handy pdf report called 'What graduates do' which summarises stats on post uni jobs by broad subject area.

https://universitycompare.com/advice/ucas/ucas-personal-statement-changes

@blueshoes *Truth be told, he is more interested in buying stuff on Vinted and going to parties and meeting new people than hitting the books.

So the last few weeks and into the Easter break, he has been bulking up his physics notes and working on harder maths questions before taking his progress tests when he gets back to school.*

Sounds like my DS and the majority of his friends, and probably the majority of most 16/17/18 year olds. He'll be absolutely fine

The abilities of the population at large aren't really relevant. What is, is that there are some fields which require a high level of mathematical ability, and that there are enough people who are good enough who want to do them.
Maths is the A level with the highest entry rate (~90k per year), and like other subjects with many very able entrants has a high rate of top grades awarded. FM now has ~14k entries with the highest proportion of top grades awarded (because only those who are very good at maths will be doing it).
And degrees likely to lead to good careers are most likely to be competitive.

Within a field, courses at different unis won't necessarily demand the same ability level. The few which pretty much require an a star in fm will want students who can hit the ground running and be able to really do harder maths, working through proofs etc and applying to novel problems (and perhaps coming up with something new). Lower down the tariff it may be more at the level of 'understand and be able to apply methods in more standard situations' , if that makes sense? There's a need for people at the various different levels of ability. It sounds like you and your son are quite pragmatic and realistic... good qualities in all the various career paths mentioned.

Yes I agree any degree with a reasonable maths content will offer good job prospects and I would research what the courses entail and then go with the one he enjoys the most.

Thank you for the information on the PS, @PerpetualOptimist . It is a pleasure being less concerned with this now but I apologise for my mistake

No worries, Poetry. To be fair, UCAS have made a bit of a hash of the comms on the proposed Personal Statement changes.

Easier to move into finance careers after an Engineering degree than viceversa

I work in Finance - if he wants to be an accountant or similar he doesn't need to go to uni.
He can get an apprenticeship and work towards being Level 7 qualified through ACCA, ICAEW or CIMA (and be paid while he does it!)

DS studies economics and it is very mathematical- about 70% of his course relies heavily on maths. He got top grades in maths and further maths and even then he is learning lots of new things such as T-distribution, regressions, using differentiation in new contexts in his first year.

Its probably worth looking at jobs in more detail as well - an Economist is the role you couldn't do with an Engineering degree and an Economics degree would rule out a lot of jobs in engineering firms. Though I've known people with economics degrees work at oil and gas companies but on the economics side of things not the engineering side. Economist and engineering roles are very different so would have thought would have a preference or maybe he wants more general finance like accounting. Economics roles can cover policy/strategy, press releases, newspaper/TV interviews, policy, political lobbying, news monitoring, country forecasting, house price forecasting, econometric models and can have a lot of dinners / garden parties. Very wide range of engineering roles.

Probably worth reading the initial post before commenting;

He definitely wants the university experience and not an apprenticeship

@lastdayatschool

Ffs! There is always one, and this time it's me! totally missed that, sorry OP!

Appreciate the info on the PS changes. Looks like ds has to do more research on what he wants to do. We will be doing onsite Open Day visits in the summer and virtual ones too and looking at those links. Tomorrow ds is visiting the UCAS Discovery exhibition. Hopefully he will get a better idea of the sort of uni he'd like. This is very helpful.

No worries at all 😂

If only ds wanted to do an Apprenticeship. I am all for them but he is adamant he wants to go to uni like his sister.

Wow, the maths sounds difficult. A bit worried that ds is not doing F Maths and is not hitting the As or A* in Maths.

You are so right. Apologies for the rant about general math ability. It makes sense the rarer the skill, the better paid it is. I told the boy he needs to focus on improving his maths. He is not going to thrive in an F Maths A* environment but a solid second tier 'application' maths you described with a broader curriculum will suit him. He has some people and presentation skills, so more of a technical generalist.

@blueshoes - re Wow, the maths sounds difficult. A bit worried that ds is not doing F Maths and is not hitting the As or A in Maths*

He won't need the level of maths for a Finance/Accountancy degree that he would for an Economics degree

Thanks, that is true. His friends are also like him. Not super academic like some mnetter dcs (haha).

Interesting perspective. He might be one for dinners and garden parties 😆.

The difficulty is ds does not want to do accounting (or what he thinks is accounting) but his maths is possibly not strong enough for Economics BSc or some of the Engineering degrees.

Do you know which engineering degrees have a lighter maths component?

I think you need to look at various engineering degree entry requirements to get a feel for what is needed grade wise.

Your DS needs to have a look at the various engineering degrees to see what really grabs him - civils, mechanical, electrical, aeronautical etc. Chemical is out as DS would need chemistry A level (and it involves a lot of maths).

I’m a civil engineer that didn’t do maths at A level, but came to it through a different undergrad degree and a specialist masters - although I think this would be a harder route now given the changes to masters funding and the introduction of MEng degrees.

For civil engineering there are lots of good unis that have reasonable (AAB - BBB) entry tariffs - Surrey, Queens Belfast, Nottingham, Cardiff, Newcastle etc. There are also some odd ones that you wouldn’t normally think of like Portsmouth that have a good industry reputation.

Not all Economics degrees are heavily mathematical, I did one without A level Maths though most people did have Maths and FM. The econometrics and statistics I didn't find difficult, computer does the maths for econometrics and stats GCSE was enough. Could opt out of maths after y1. Exeter for example requires a B in Maths. My DD is applying and has no FM and 3 out of 5 have offered with 2 to hear. Joint honours like Economics and Management or Economics and Finance can reduce Maths as well. But the top courses are crazily competitive so wouldn't put more than two of those. LSE is very maths based and Warwick is too.

If he wants to party I'd echo taking a year out to work, mature and have a think about what degree he actually wants to do. He could then apply with grades in hand.

DS is doing engineering and the ones who party hard seem to be in the main the ones who don't make it into lectures and the ones not making it into lectures also seem to be the ones not passing the exams.

There is a world shortage of engineers. DS did Mechanical Engineering and studied maths and physics at uni every year for 4 years.
One difference, though it depends what type of engineering you do, but you might have to move to where the job is - but it gives you the chance to work abroad due to shortage. So if you are building HS2 you will go to where that is (unless you are just in the design stage). Not so much in Economics i wouldn't think. I imagine you stay in the office wherever that is.