To think that most degrees are a waste?

[Bellamari]

https://archive.ph/4PdgM

The author of the article has an undergraduate degree, two masters and a PhD. All totally useless in terms of getting a job.

I have to agree that the current high fees require students to consider education as an investment in a future job. They need to consider whether their degree will actually lead to a job - and if it doesn’t, then pick something else.

Schools and colleges (and society in general) are still telling people to “follow their passion”, but often this leads to an investment of 5-15 years and £50-150k, with no job at the end of it, and no time or money left to retrain in a field where there actually are jobs. PhDs in particular are a total waste considering the lack of jobs for most graduates.

Full disclosure - I’m one of those who was encouraged to follow my passion, do postgraduate degrees because I was so clever, and then left high and dry with no job prospects.

Just a reminder here that it’s very difficult to get into drama school etc - and I’m sure we all watch tv, films, theatre etc

the entertainment industry in the uk is huge - if we all did stem degrees it would be a very boring country

Well I had a cracking time. I now work in a profession closely related to my degree, and more than that from a very working class kid, who grew up in poverty, it gave me a confidence, opened my eyes to a bigger world. Got me out of the area I grew up in and taught me that I could hold my own with people with lots of money and very expensive educations. It also taught me your background doesn't define you, got rid of the chip on my shoulder and helped me make some lifelong friends (some of them very fancy 😂)

PhDs are a completely different ballgame from undergraduate degrees. For most degrees, you come out more employable and with more transferable skills, and if you have a degree job options are open for you which are not available for non-graduates.

OP is right that there is a massive oversupply of PhDs and most of them will never get an academic job. To get a permanent job you not only have to be very good but also very lucky. I did get lucky, but I have seen so many of my peers become embittered and angry after wasting years on the temporary job treadmill, and seeing others arbitrarily succeed when they don’t. I hope that nowadays supervisors make it clear to prospective PhDs how bad the academic job market is and that they need a plan b from day 1 (I certainly do), that the main reason to do a PhD should be because you really want to regardless of whether you get a job at the end, and that in particular doing a self-funded PhD is madness unless you are extremely wealthy.

However, the problems with PhDs are niche- for the vast majority of people thinking about “is a degree worth it”, they mean undergrad. And (thankfully) in the UK you can do undergrad in almost any subject you are passionate about and still have a huge number of graduate options.

@Newgirls

I'm not saying it's easy to get into Uni study dance and drama and I appreciate you need talent but I think a lot of being successful in this field is who you know or are related to plus a sprinkling of good luck . Basically you only have your early twenties to pursue a career in dance . The same as art . I did a diploma in art many years ago and about half way through I realised I was wasting my time as there was only two or three of us who had the talent to get anywhere but I enjoyed my student days .

I think a main issue is that people think a degree is just about the content. But our switched on students who get the best jobs understand it's the entire programme. They turn up to every evening event, they make sure they're there to talk to every external speaker, they volunteer to work in the department on research projects in their summers, they are constantly talking to the careers dept etc. it's all about getting your foot in the door for grad jobs as developing a network of external contacts but also across your peer group. Students who get a first but sit inside studying from home and don't do the extra activities and aren't 'known' will likely have a harder time getting a job. They also leave it far too late. I talk to 3rd years in their final term and many of them haven't even started looking for a grad job. They are surprised when I explain some selection procedures last months. That's in comparison to some switched on first and second years who have already secured jobs post uni through summer placements.

The article makes a valid point, but only up to a certain point. Sure it is easy to get railroaded, swept along to an undergrad degree, but after that quite a lot of intention and deliberate actions are required to move onto a masters (or two) and then even more for a PhD. No-one gets a PhD by accident.

Stem degrees aren't the only degrees with a job waiting at the end. Not all humanities are disregarded by the job market. I often read that a law degree won't be as useful as a different degree followed by a law conversion course. Plenty of details in that article are misleading.

Another relevant difference today is that, unlike that author in her 40s when undergraduate degrees were free with some level of grant, even an undergraduate degree is going to get a student in a lot of lifetime debt, and the graduate job market is probably worse now than when that author graduated over twenty years ago and the graduate salaries not much higher than then.

I think if you're motivated and keep your eye on money, career options as you go along WHATEVER you study or do will (probably) pay off.

Affluent people don't necessarily take any advice on trust, but tend to make good decisions based on some research and long term planning.. whether it's property investment (not even with squillions, getting a two bedroom flat with lodger) , or being frugal on some things and having some tough years but riding it out.

If you're a bit more alternative go alternative (learn about investment or something) if you're quite a team player likeable face fits type of person, go mainstream grad job.

There isn't any direct, simple route, just critical thinking and application.

Don't take what newspapers or university marketing departments say on trust, they have agendas.

Find people who are doing well financially and see what they do, and how they've got there.

A Law or STEM or engineering degree doesn't necessarily pay off, unless you know how to leverage it.

An affable English lit or Arts graduate who gets onto a big scheme will do much better than a super specialised scientist.

I think some people (possibly elements ND?) do tend to not read the room.

I'd say a lot of PhDs may be of this category.

It's not the qualification itself, it's that it tends to be a magnet for people who can be a little bit unworldly/pernickety/gullible.

Unfortunately things like Masters degrees have been cash cows/vanity qualifications for universities for a while, and although you respect the work, looking up if things are actually worth it (Reddit or search for online info) is always helpful.

Because not all phd students go on to teach…I work with loads of people with phd’s. I work in the pharmaceutical industry. They do it for the knowledge too and so they can specialise in certain areas etc

Some excellent posts on this thread but also some that really show the impact of 14 years of university bashing.

People have bought into this idea that university has to equal instantly obvious job or it is 'worthless'. It's quite childlike (medicine=doctor, law=lawyer). What about the value of knowledge for citizenship, for society and for the individual's future self?

If we want to offer practical financial advice to school leavers, we should probably be future proofing, not looking at easily-recognisable careers that exist now.

The Conservative tradition has been to mock the arts and humanities (unless studied by the wealthy). They are actually one of the most successful exports for the UK and likely to be one of the most resilient to AI job threats.

I tell my kids that unless the job they want to do actually requires a degree (teacher, nurse, lawyer ect) then don’t bother. You can work in business or marketing or whatever with no degree. If you do need a degree eventually, get the company to pay for it.

I did a degree in my passion area (science) and then later did a teaching degree.

Because the universities are offering PhDs for the sake of knowledge and research, not specifically as a route to a job.

And many PhDs don’t go on into academia but do get meaningful jobs related to their fields, whether that is in industry for scientists, or in think tanks, the arts and heritage sector, etc.

But also, more cynically, because as long as there is demand for PhD places, it is in the universities’ interests to create those places. As long as there are paying customers, universities are unlikely to cut back. (Especially in a climate where they are running huge losses on undergraduates.)

Our PhDs tend to be wealthy overseas students who go off to get jobs in the ivy league or run their parents' companies.

The degree I ended up graduating with was not only an academic qualification but a professional qualification too. Definitely not a waste of money!

It depends if you go into education with your eyes open, knowing where the degree could take you, and have a plan (or an idea!) around that. It's an expensive investment & needs direction.

I worked at a uni for many years & an academic I worked with, when I asked what motivated students to study his field, laughed & said 'because their parents told them to'. I also know several people holding degrees and debt for careers they didn't like, or didn't meet the fantasy excitement, rather than degree worth.

I also saw plenty of degrees that were generic & useless. A visiting professor (10 years ago!) said we needed to drop generic degrees & focus on future industries & non AI replaceable (and AI degrees!). I work in finance & it'll take years, but most of our jobs could realistically be automated by AI quite quickly.

There's often a ceiling in companies, or hoops to jump through to keep women and non-white people or people with the wrong look out of the more prestigious or better paid roles.

So someone whose face doesn't fit could have all the right qualifications, and more, get in at the same level as everyone else

then find they're somehow stymied or directed to where they'll be stuck as reliable workhorses with worse working conditions.

Always read the room, make contacts, trust your instincts.

The guys I know who made millions did a lot of pivoting and reading around what could make them money and not necessarily getting on the "linear" career path. Or easing into places where their look was desired/wanted.

In fact, they both had massive blips in the post degree years... Didn't quite fit in to the mainstream career where their fellow grads were thriving. But they found alternative, better networks and ways of making money.

Maybe in science or maths. But there’s literally nobody with a PhD in languages, arts, etc who has a job outside of academia. So why are these courses accepting more students than there are academic jobs?

You actively encourage your kids not to pursue their dreams and to remain less educated than they could be? Doesn't sound very inspiring.

Why do you begrudge people getting an education you yourself don't want?

I think it is very weird to want to hold other people back.

This is not true. I am in a Humanities subject and I know plenty of people who have got jobs outside academia - and often say they are much happier than when they were on the academic treadmill.

It’s important to give this information to students. Those who don’t have educated parents don’t get told this stuff. Lots believe that you finish uni then apply for a job. They think the degree is what’s important and don’t do extra curriculars. Maybe they have to work for money so they can’t do extra curriculars.

And I do strongly believe that success is often about connections and personality. You can have a fantastic degree and still not get a job because you’re too withdrawn or don’t know the right people.

No-one gets a PhD by accident
A lot of people do it because it comes with a bursary which is more than a min wage job, and they haven’t been able to get a decent job so think they might as well do a PhD.

I did a masters for that exact reason - because I couldn’t get a job and I wanted to be doing something.

Completely agree, we make sure our widening participation students are always invited to these events but practically they often can't even afford the travel to lectures. We offer bursaries but these don't touch the sides. It's definitely about who you know.

But why do you begrudge someone doing a PhD if they are funded? You did it yourself with your Masters, what's the reason for opposing education for others?

If the PhD has a bursary, it isn't resulting in anything negative for the student.

It’s a total waste of time for one thing. But even worse, it makes the student unemployable in a normal job. There’s a lot of discrimination against PhDs - you’ll be insubordinate because you’re more qualified than the boss, you’ll think you’re always right and cleverer than others, you’ll outshine others (and no interviewer wants that), you won’t be satisfied with a lower salary and won’t stick around long, you won’t be engaged by the work and will get bored, etc.

The author has an MA from Edinburgh, an MPhil from Oxford and a PhD from Penn.

I know for a fact that degrees from these universities will open some doors. Whether the author was bothered enough to avail of these opportunities is an entirely different matter.