Uni choices: what you like vs what pays the rent. What would you tell a teenager?

[CForCake]

A younger relative will choose her A level subjects next year and wants to talk about university choices to me and my partner at a family event in a few weeks.

I am curious about comparing views and experiences on how other people have framed the matter of studying what you like vs what pays the rent.

My view is that (almost) any decision can be the right one if it is an informed decision.

So don't study business law or banking thinking you will get the most meaningful, creative, impactful jobs making the world a better place, but at the same time don't study gender or media studies thinking that you will get a high-paying job.

From previous conversations, this girl like STEM subjects and liked the idea of becoming a teacher.
My issue with that is that she may not appreciate that 1 or 2 generations ago a couple with two teacher jobs could buy a flat and raise a family in London, while that has become impossible now, without financial help from the family (which she won't get). She always said she's frugal and doesn't care about money, but there is not wanting a Ferrari and there is not being able to afford rent and childcare. It's easy to say you don't care about money when you don't work and everything is paid for by your parents.

If she brings up teaching again, I would mention that she needs to appreciate that being a teacher is financially very challenging in London, and might mean relocating somewhere else with a cheaper cost of living.

At the same time, I would never tell her to consider banking or law or tech just because of the money.

So what is a reasonable balance?

Most academic studies will tell you AI can't do all those things without us.

Of course. But a lot of those jobs can now be done by fewer people than were needed in the past.

And tbh, any "academic study" that has been done on AI, is already out of date.

What, you think researchers aren't the leading authorities on this? Research is what gets us to AI advances obvs

Of course "academic researchers" are not the leading authorities on AI. The people building it are. Researchers will be playing catchup because AI is coming on in exponential leaps and bounds.

You did a study on AI last year? Cute. Now let met introduce you to this month's iterations.

Professionals are creating, or paying for, AI agents that work to their specific instructions. PHD level agents. Not "Oh I used ChatGP and it told me about a restaurant that doesn't exist" type stuff.

For now, I reckon teaching is more secure than a lot of entry-level professional jobs.

I wouldn’t normally recommend social work as a career as it can be extremely stressful. However, it can also be very rewarding and is a varied career where you can get a job just about anywhere in the Uk. Promotion tends to happen quickly with increased confidence and competence. Not stellar salaries by finance/law standards (around £60k as a team leader) but secure. Ditto OT/Speech therapy/allied health profession work like radiography. If she’s a very high achiever and relishes a challenge/has the right mindset then Law or Medicine.

Ok so you think AI is not developed by academics, scientists and researchers. Interesting theory. You also think the reliability and success of its workings isn't being investigated, monitored and tested by the experts out there.

Sounds like you've changed your mind. Do you not think 'professionals' are researchers etc.

@CForCake - well, for a start you have admitted it’s a person’s personal characteristics that can bring them success more than their actual degree - then you pooh poohed anyone pointing out that humanities graduates can end up in very high paid careers. You are also woefully ignorant yourself on teacher salaries, so appeared happy to patronisingly suggest to your relative that they might have to move away from London if they considered teaching as a career (when you could more accurately suggest they might well need to do this for a massive range of careers if they want to be able to afford the rent, unless willing to work as an investment banker…). You also appear woefully blind to the fact that you don’t have to take a teaching degree to become a teacher, so rather than putting the poor relative off a potential ambition by banging on about things you haven’t even bothered to research before opining on them (like potential teacher earnings), you could instead discuss degrees that could keep her options open, so that teaching can very much be one of her options. You could consider her actual personality and her actual strengths and weaknesses, and other ways she could develop her employability alongside a degree. Someone who does a law degree does not have to go into law. Someone who does engineering does not have to become an engineer. Someone who does physics can be a teacher - or a banker. The way you write about what you want to discus with her comes across as very blinkered, tbh, as though her degree choice will define her and channel her far more than is actually the case. The knowledge she obtains from her degree might not be of much use for long, given the speed at which things become obsolete these days, but the development of her skills, her adaptability, her resilience, should stand her in good stead. You have been asked to discuss degrees, not degree apprenticeships, after all, so she is not at this stage fixating on a specific career or future.

@walkaround

The one thing this thread proves is that schools no longer teach text comprehension, and that modern society is full of functionally illiterate people, unable to comprehend the most basic text

well, for a start you have admitted it’s a person’s personal characteristics that can bring them success more than their actual degree

I said that personal characteristics like people skills count more than theoretical knowledge in most roles, and that the person who scores top 1% in standardises tests is likely to do less well professionally than someone who scores in the top 10-15% but has better communication and people skills.

This doesn't mean that what you study is irrelevant, nor that someone who studies gender or media studies has the same career opportunities of someone who studies engineering or finance.

Did you really fail to understand such a banality???

you pooh poohed anyone pointing out that humanities graduates can end up in very high paid careers

No. I highlighted that single cases are irrelevant. "I know someone who" is not the same as "there is enough evidence to conclude that what happened to that person is representative".

You are also woefully ignorant yourself on teacher salaries, so appeared happy to patronisingly suggest to your relative that they might have to move away from London if they considered teaching as a career (when you could more accurately suggest they might well have to do for a massive range of careers

I didn't know what teacher salaries could amount to. I have thanked the posters who highlighted it. What do you want me to do? Repeat it 200 more times while I whip myself to repent? It's not like I have ever said "I know what teachers make and that's not enough". And yes, I know very well that other not so well paid careers exist. Would you have wanted me to list every single one of them?

The way you write about what you want to discus with her comes across as very blinkered, tbh, as though her degree choice will define her and channel her far more than is actually the case

Nothing I have said implies that. You are driven by your ignorance, bias, prejudice, hyper-sensitivity and poor text comprehension skills

The knowledge she obtains from her degree might not be of much use for long, given the speed at which things become obsolete these days, but the development of her skills, her adaptability, her resilience, should stand her in good stead.

That is very true and is certainly an aspect to consider. Again: it's all about informed decisions. But what is your conclusion?? That nothing matters because everything could change, so engineering or gender studies are the same thing?? I very much hope you didn't mean that. And no, I don't mean that she must do engineering, nor that she shouldn't do gender studies, just that her decision should be informed.

It also appears that you haven't noticed you've posted under a different username, from a different login 😆

Ooooops OP, maybe you're not as clever as you think you are!

We also know we have thousands of grads who cannot get jobs but it’s not mathematicians. Low paying jobs tend to be populated by arts and degrees like English and philosophy. Students who want a chance of earning well, who study such A level subjects, now opt for law
there are, and have always been a huge oversupply of law graduates. You dont even need a Law degree to become a lawyer. You can do it with an English or philosophy degree. A Law degree, unless you love Law is not worth much more than a Philosophy degree.

"You dont even need a Law degree to become a lawyer"

Well, you can't get a training contract with a non law degree without doing the Law conversion course, previously GDL, the content of which is equivalent to LLB Law and that's before preparing for the SQE. So your assertion is incorrect.

Actually I don't think thats right anymore in terms of being a solicitor (bar is different)

Technically you could sit the SQE without doing a PGDL or an SQE prep year. You'd be highly unlikely to pass (and you only get three attempts and then you're disqualified so it would be foolish) but you could do it in theory.

Oh dear, oh dear, person who doesn’t know their own identity!🤣Read back over your own posts and consider, using your amazing reading comprehension skills, how you are coming across. No, of course, as an Oxford graduate with a degree in law, I am not suggesting all degrees are equal, just that you come across as a complete twat. 🤣🤣

Just replying to the post about teaching being safe form AI. I actually think the opposite. My dd has a maths app for homework. It responds to her ability by giving harder questions if she is getting everything correct. I see this type of thing being used more and more. I think in school there will be fewer teachers, lots of AI learning and more teaching assistants for crowd control.

I am glad that you and agree. I had an argument about this online (with a teacher 😏) who simply could not see, or refused to see, the paradigm shift that is coming.

I actually think that AI teaching is fairer, because all across the country pupils would have the same quality of teaching, at a pace that suits them.

But, as I said, I reckon teaching is a safer bet for a few decades, until the state system catches up. I'm sure that academies and private will get there sooner.

Basically, I would still say you need to know your audience. Not all teenagers are the same. There is no point lecturing her on the relative unemployability of someone who does gender studies at university if that wasn’t even on her radar, and no point warning her off professions you obviously know little about and haven’t researched, despite knowing she has an interest in them. Knowing more about what she, as the person asking for your advice, is actually considering and where her strengths lie before you start to pontificate would be incredibly useful. She is not any old teenager asking for generic advice, she is a specific person.

@RainbowBagels My DD is a lawyer with a MFL degree. It’s more expensive though! Yes, we have over supply of grads. We have also greatly expanded what we think is graduate level work. Often it’s not. Hence pretty static grad salaries.

I suggest the DD here does a Morrisby test. That might help with possible careers based on the answers she gives and then work out which degree.

Engineers study maths and physics (usually). Media grads won’t have done. They won’t be interested in science A levels and vice versa. We cannot make everyone a scientist! The higher earnings are going to scientists overall (doctors and economists) according to the IFS. There are some science jobs that don’t pay that well - biomedical and environmental for example. Law grads do pretty well but they are grossly over supplied and there are fewer and fewer training contracts due to the new exams. Others can convert to law but it’s costly. This DD should do a careers test for guidance and then look at academic subjects that meet the ambition.

@OhDear111 Yes that's what I think most people are trying to say. Before even dolng A Levels the best and really the only advice you can give is to choose subjects that she is good at and enjoys and do as well as she possibly can in those. The young person OP was talking about likes STEM so really, rather than careers advice or what the highest paying jobs are the best advice is to do STEM A Levels that she enjoys and try as hard as she can to get as high a grade as she can. Then she has far more options, whether she wants to go into teaching or anything else. That would then lead to a degree in a subject she is good at and enjoys. Once she has good A Levels in a subject she enjoys and a degree in a subject she is good at and enjoys she will have more options open to her, and will be able to access far more advice that is more relevant to the economy and jobs market in 5-6 years time when she will leave University than she will now.

@RainbowBagels I think dc need some idea of where a degree might lead and certainly make sure they attend careers events at uni. Many science grads seem to find careers easier but others need a good overview early so they can get some work experience. Thinking about all of this in y3 at uni is very late.

@RainbowBagels Choosing STEM A'Levels isn’t as straightforward as simply picking the subjects a student enjoys. They still need some sense of the career direction they might want to pursue. Many students are all rounders, capable across a range of subjects without clear favourites. E.g someone might take Biology, Chemistry, and Maths but later decide they want to study Engineering. Enjoying a subject doesn’t always translate into enjoying a career in that field. Likewise, being strong in the arts doesn’t necessarily mean a student wants to enter the creative industries, they may, in fact, be more drawn to health sciences so @OP is asking very pertinent questions to enable the young relative to make an in formed decision.

If strongly interested in a career in science, but uncertain what branch to go for, then physics, chemistry, maths and further maths would be very strong contenders, obviously. Biology could replace further maths as a fourth A-level, although not a good idea if some engineering degrees, or a maths degree itself are contemplated. An essay-based fourth A-level with maths and sciences would also be an interesting combination that could keep options open and showcase an all-rounder. Or design technology or computer science with maths and physics are good combinations. All would be excellent choices for anyone interested in going into teaching, ultimately. If not keen on future scientific careers, maths A-level is still a good choice for an all-rounder to prove their skills are not limited to words, and maths can be combined with anything at all, as it is a subject that can stand alone (whereas physics and chemistry in particular are extremely difficult to do at A-level if not combined with maths). If the aim of the game is keeping as many career options open for as long as possible whilst staying true to your interests, then ideally your interests will be in fairly traditional subjects…

I’ve found quite a few maths people who aren’t all rounders. English can be average for example. So writing reports isn’t easy for them. Genuine all rounders at a very high level aren’t everywhere. This is why most dc end up choosing arts/humanities or science. They prefer one or the other. From GCSE results, one would think my dd was an all rounder but she had preferences. As nearly everyone does.

@Walkaround I agree that those combinations make sense for someone already set on science, but that’s exactly why I think “just pick what you enjoy” is incomplete advice. At 16, many students don’t yet know their career path, so choices should balance enjoyment with keeping doors open. Otherwise, they risk limiting themselves before they’ve even discovered what they want to do.

@OhDear111 I don't disagree that most students eventually show preferences, but as above, “pick what you enjoy” is incomplete and being average in one area doesn't mean they won't need those skills later. Like I said, at 16 many don’t yet know their future path, and subject choices can quietly close doors before they realise it. Foresight is very important.