Geography/Geology degree - any risks with not studying an accredited course?

[HelpAWelshie]

DD is looking to do Geography and/or Geology, or Environmental Geoscience. She’s finding that some courses are accredited and some aren’t. Does this matter? I know it’s meant to be a reflection of the high level of teaching but is there any risk to her future career options by doing a non-accredited course?

I studied geology and it never mattered for my career (I guess it was accredited because it was a high ranking university, but never checked). It will make a difference if she wants to work in a technical field (engineering or energy) in the uk afterwards because it will take much longer to get chartered, which will make promotion discussions harder. Hardly any of my class mates went into geoscience careers though and it won't make the tiniest bit of difference if she goes into teaching, data analysis, science, consultancy, post grad law or moves abroad. The best career option is to pick the course with the most programming/data science and fieldwork modules, because they're the two skills companies value.

Worth thinking about masters before you get too far into the process as the difference between doing an integrated masters and a separate one is massive from a financial perspective.

An integrated masters is paid back from the same pot as your main degree. So you owe more money but at most it means you're paying off your degree for a liner time period. So this is at 9% of your salary over I think 25k for 40 years. Whereas an independent masters you pay back as a second additional loan on top of that, so I think it's another 6% on top, so 15%.

I was on an earlier student loan version, but for me that felt like a massive difference and not one I was prepared to go for, if I could find an integrated option.

Wow, what amazing experiences he’s having. My daughter would love to do something like this. She’s hoping to do a course with at least a module abroad. She would be in heaven if she could go to Iceland!

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads and @StamppotAndGravy Thanks for your advice, it’s all really valuable. As we’ve visited a few uni’s now, her favourite courses are ones that are accredited which I think is a good thing for the routes she’s likely to take. She has some virtual work experience with British Geological Survey over half term, hoping she enjoys it.

@Ineffable23 and @SabrinaThwaite Thanks for the advice about the masters. I chatted to daughter about it and she’s keen to do it. Birmingham offer a 4 year MSci with the 3rd year abroad so that really interests her. She’s yet to visit Birmingham, going in a few weeks. The other strong contender is Southampton who also offer the MSci but with only a module abroad. I don’t know which one she’ll end up preferring.

Both Birmingham and Southampton are great choices (I did earth sciences at Birmingham back in the day, a course mate went on to do his PhD at Soton).

@HelpAWelshie I think jobs are more difficult to come by in Environmental science than, say, Geology. The big issue is lots of Env science jobs are with the public sector or charities and pay is not great and lots of courses are on offer. I have a relative with a first who could not get a job at all because a car was needed and they don’t have any money. RG uni degree. I would think about career goals carefully and how they can be achieved.

if you can do Environmental engineering and solve the problems the scientists find, it’s more lucrative! However driving and having a car is often required because lots of these jobs do involve getting to site.

Also look at degree apprenticeships. Places like the British Geological Survey offer things like this.
Incredibly competitive but they pay for your degree, a salary of around £20k and a job at the end
Message me if you like.

I can’t message you for some reason but if you could message me with more info that would be great