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 thinking, we must have far more humanities graduates than 30 or so years ago yet reports suggest the creative industries are still
dominated by those from more privileged backgrounds. I’ve heard older journalists from working class backgrounds say they got their first job at 16 with the local newspaper but those jobs (and the local newspaper) don’t have exist any more.

What makes you think universities aren't honest about career expectations? No averagely intelligent/savvy PhD humanities prospective candidate these days starts a doctorate expecting it to be a straightforward entré to a career.

I was talking to DH about this yesterday. I know that for courses like Engineering, some universities ask for a high level of maths and physics as basic entry requirement but I have seen other engineering degrees where no physics and a lower grade is maths is required for entry.

As those at universities don’t all sit the same exam/assessments, are those recruiters focussing more on work experience gained and their own assessments? I’m interested in how the process works.

Also after 3-4 years of observing staff burnout in academic departments most don't want to be an academic anyway!

not really no, most universities have such societies. many have rowing clubs and thousands of students get those grades without going to oxbridge

She’s saying that use of the word ”college” is an Oxbridge giveaway.

Seriously? DD2's recently completed Masters involved many hours in a lab working on a particular section of a piece of original research (which has since been published) and getting the chance to use advanced tools and equipment – they tend not to let teenage undergraduates loose on gene-editing tech such as CRISPR – which will make her better qualified for employment than those with 'only' an undergraduate degree.

Lots aren’t blind recruitment. Those that are if A level grades or degree modules are requested it’s easy to guess. Reference to ‘college’ makes it likely to be Oxbridge, Durham or York?

I’m in Humanities and our PhD students often end up with experience in events management, public engagement, communications, working with external partners, including potentially running their own projects and managing budgets. And of course plenty of teaching experience. It’s a question of marketing those skills and experiences in a way that explains their transferable relevance to employers.

All the PhD students I know realise it’s no good nowadays sitting in the library getting on with your research for 3 years - you need to build other forms of experience (paid and voluntary) into your PhD. It’s essential for an academic job but even more so if you are not staying in academia.

I would be the first to advocate learning for its own sake, especially in the humanities and languages.

This is an extremely unfashionable view, but I feel that the over expansion and commodification of higher education in this country was a terrible mistake.

It has led to many non academic children being encouraged to go on to higher ed at institutions of sometimes dubious merit, and saddling themselves with tens of thousands in debt that they will never have the means to repay. I think this is a time bomb in the making actually.

This may sound brutal, but the modern mantra of ' you can be whoever you want to be - look at this person- they are just like you- you can do this too' - is in some cases - not all, but some - simply a lie. Not everyone has the intellectual capacity to be a lawyer or a doctor.

What we desperately need are many, many more skilled tradespeople. Many of whom, if money is the object, will probably out earn their peers in mid range professional jobs if they make a success of it.

This.

Long gone are the days where a student can rest on their laurels of stellar academics alone, they need to put some research graft into their future options and what the application process looks like. There is so much online now that the barriers have reduced and whilst a typical 1st year UG student or 2nd year of 4 may think a few months in they are not worthy of applying to spring breaks, those that have will know how to leverage their potential worth. Early bird and all of that. Internships maybe once were preserved for those in the know, but this is less so, with many prospect employers wanting the right traits a good grad brings (if that's the entry pathway), as most else is totally trainable, especially in a fast moving world. Even in sectors like tech consulting, it's a myth that only computer science or similar are hired, many are from humanities backgrounds, including MFL. In fact welcomed due to their skillsets.

There are wider pathways of entry to different sectors, being able to schedule the applications alongside their studies is challenging but worthwhile, for those that don't want to leave their options to the scrum of last year/post graduating. Anecdotally, we see many YP reach the end of their UG studies and then decide to apply for stuff they're really not thought about deeply. Scattergun, not always effective and hugely demoralising leading to 'should have picked something else/stuck to vocational' spiral. Some drift into post grad studies, to keep them occupied and buy more thinking time.

It appears, from what I can see of my DD's cohort on internship applications from a number of universities, that is very much LESS about what you have studied (aside from vocational type professions), but more about what value do you bring, not only from your area of study but how you draw upon your wider interests/experiences. Those that get this have been very successful at securing opportunities like Lampzade's DD. 'Just' being an economics grad doesn't cut it, they will be competing alongside all other grads who recognise and leverage their worth.

The article is written by someone who has clearly indulged her passion in a romanticised, bubble way.

I don't think they are dishonest exactly. But I don't think they are always very vocal about it, as they want to recruit! And I think PhD candidates can be unrealistic - they believe what they want to believe.

I'm an academic in my 50s in top UK university. I do have some experience of this. My colleagues would generally agree with me.

I think many PhD candidates want to believe that they will be one of the lucky few. It’s perhaps not surprising- they have often been stellar undergraduates and Masters students, they are buoyed up with passion and enthusiasm about their research, and feel they can beat the odds. It is only after the first rounds of unsuccessful job applications (often the first time in their lives they haven’t been successful) that things start to feel different.

Supervisors should be realistic with their students- but they also don’t want to make the student feel that they are trying to tell them they are rubbish and their research is no good. There is a limit to how many times you can warn people about the job market - and once they’ve decided to do a PhD anyway, there’s not that much help in warning them. And many supervisors won’t fully remember or realise how bad it is (many got jobs at a time when it was much easier, or now look back with rosy-tinted glasses). It is a bit like asking a group of lottery winners if they would recommend playing the lottery.

I don’t think universities tend to market PhDs as “if you do this you will definitely get an academic job”, more as “do you want to do cutting edge research?”. They could market it as “do you want to do cutting edge research on the understanding that you will probably not get a job as an academic at the end” - but why would they? They could just as well market their law degree as “study law - but bear in mind you have only a 25% chance of getting a training contract at the end” - there’s a pretty obvious reason they don’t flag that statistic. Ultimately PhDs are good business for universities and, rightly or wrongly, it is not in their financial interests to deter people.

PhDs are not that good business, compared to fees from BA. They take up a lot of time and energy. International students pay more, but then the Home Office makes us keep in top of them like a hawk. And they demand much input, of course. And we don't have PhDs counted for in our workload because the whole thing is just meant to be pleasure, something you supervise to keep up with field, a beneficence towards next generation.

It has led to many non academic children being encouraged to go on to higher ed at institutions of sometimes dubious merit, and saddling themselves with tens of thousands in debt that they will never have the means to repay.
This is exactly what I’m saying. Young people are starting to get wise to this and are choosing different options other than degrees. Probably after seeing older relatives get into masses of debt for a degree that never benefited them.

The oldest people who had to repay student loans are in their mid 40s now and able to look back and see if they got their moneys worth. Many didn’t.

I think many PhD candidates want to believe that they will be one of the lucky few…. It is only after the first rounds of unsuccessful job applications (often the first time in their lives they haven’t been successful) that things start to feel different.
Thats what the article is saying. Students being misled as to the reality of their opportunities. Not lied to as such - but lying by omission.

They could just as well market their law degree as “study law - but bear in mind you have only a 25% chance of getting a training contract at the end” - there’s a pretty obvious reason they don’t flag that statistic
I actually think universities should have a duty to flag this. 75% are wasting their time and money. It’s insane.

Maybe it depends where you are and in what subject. For us, PhDs pay more than BAs but require far less staff time (they are doing research degrees so are meant to be self-guided - and as you say, supervising them is meant to be out of our sense of duty on top of our regular jobs.) And most are international and so pay top dollar. Plus having lots of PhDs creates a vibrant research culture (which is genuinely a good thing but also helps with REF research environment narrative). So all round a big win from the perspective of university management.

Conversely, BAs take up a lot of teaching and are mostly home students so don’t cover their costs.

But 75% of law students are not necessarily wasting their time and money - they just won’t be solicitors. They will be very employable (just as maths and history graduates are employable, but not necessarily as mathematicians or historians.)

The difference is that most parents think (erroneously) “law is a safe degree with a vocation, so do that” rather than “a law degree teaches excellent skills of critical thinking, writing, and argumentation which are applicable to many careers.”

My understanding from my colleagues in law is that they tell candidates the stats at open days but, rather like PhD students, they all think that they will be in that 25%.

If I did a law degree and didn’t get a job in law I’d say I wasted my time. I could have studied something else that had more chance of leading to a relevant job.

Around 80% of graduate jobs don't ask for a specific degree subject. They are looking for the skills developed whilst studying.

A law graduate who decides a career in law isn't for them isn't a failure.

Lots of law graduates don’t want to qualify it’s not a vocational degree. It’s an academic well regarded degree. Civil service, insurance etc.

both my DD's have degrees and both work in their feild so no not a waste

But the entire point is that for almost no jobs is there a “relevant degree” in the sense of a degree that will guarantee you end up working in that field. You don’t have to study finance to work for a bank, you don’t have to study business to get a job in a business. Many people who don’t study law do end up becoming lawyers and are often very sought after by big firms. Turning your argument around, I’m one of the few people in my subject cohort who has ended up working within that discipline. Many of them ended up being lawyers, civil servants, working for big graduate firms, starting their own business (as well as doing everything else under the sun). Does that mean their degree was a waste because they didn’t end up being academics? Of course not - they (hopefully) enjoyed it and it acted as a launchpad for a career which they also hopefully enjoy.

The reason I gave the example of law is because it is widely regarded as a degree with a guaranteed outcome - but it is not. That doesn’t mean that a lawyer who ends up in a different job has “wasted their time” any more than the French graduate has failed if they get a job at Goldman Sachs rather than becoming a French teacher.

What bollocks. I went to university. Not sure it taught me a lot. My job has nothing to do with my degree and I don't need a degree to do it. University didn't teach me much other than how to go out drinking a lot on no money. I did little critical thinking or reading around my subject. I learnt a lot more working my way around the world for a few years and cost far less!

PS I am in a very interesting, pretty well paid job .