Should universities give clearer information on degree career routes and prospects?

[LyndallMay]

Parents of university students or applicants, would you have wanted to know this before they chose their degree?
I have started a UK Parliament petition asking universities to give prospective students clearer information before they enrol or become financially committed.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/776439
Require universities to explain degree career routes and job prospects
The petition asks for students to be told about the full career route connected with a degree, including what the degree does and does not qualify them to do, any further training, examinations, professional requirements, work experience, time and costs.
It also asks for clear and recent information about realistic graduate employment prospects, including where entry level roles may require previous experience.
This is not about guaranteeing anybody a job or discouraging people from university. It is about giving students the full picture while they still have a genuine choice about their degree and career route.
If you agree, I would be very grateful if you would sign and share it.
IMPORTANT: After signing, please check your email and click the confirmation link sent by UK Parliament. Otherwise your signature will not be recorded.

I think this is a stupid petition personally. Universities cannot possibly provide information about all possible career paths that students might follow after graduating.

I don't understand why you think it's impossible for students to research this stuff for themselves. Surely it's easy enough to google "how to qualify as an x" or what can I do with a degree in x"? It isn't rocket science, and if you're intelligent enough to do a degree, then you should be able to figure it out!

Did you or someone you know do a degree and not realise there were more steps?

But web pages for vocational courses contain details of routes into that profession. Discover uni does provide employment data - why do you think it doesn’t. And of course it says to consider the data alongside other factors. Experience required will differ. Of course some data is at subject level - there are GDPR issues at play if the course only has small numbers.

You really are infantilising applicants in quite an embarrassing way.

I suspect OP thought doing simply doing a Law degree was enough to become a solicitor.

I’m still boggling trying to work out what the OP means by ‘the full career route’ for any particular degree subject.

The lack of critical thinking damages any student prospects.
Student needs to research and think.
Some degrees are pathways to many different careeers.
Is a daft petition.
Most unis say "our graduates have gone on from course xxxx to careers on xxxxx". The info is there.
It is not hard to think and if you going to get any degree you must learn to think .
Clearly you won't become a vet by studying art history.
But both those graduates could get taken on by the nhs to be a management trainee.
Some go to uni to follow aptitude and interest then decide.

It does not contain every professional route, further examination, experience requirement, additional cost or employment reality for every individual course, and some of its data may even be at subject level rather than for that particular course.

It’s actually quite embarrassing that you keep repeating this.
Either you can’t understand what people or saying or you’re just ignoring it but I’ll repeat my earlier points.

It is impossible for a university to provide this information. This would require a university to know the individual career plans of every single student and have up to date information of every single career option available to graduates. Both are impossible.
Not to mention the fact that if possible, it would be a ridiculously huge amount of information. Where would a university put that information?
Also, course pages and prospectuses are produced at least 18 months before a course start date as then need to go through a stringent CMA approval process. Employment information changes quickly so a university can’t risk having incorrect information on their website or in the prospectus.

As a professor, I am saying 'aint my job, love'.
Honestly, we are not vocational colleges, but academic research institutions.

Indeed! My students go into literally dozens of different careers when they leave. That is replicated many, many times over!

No, that is a ridiculous idea. It can easily be researched anyway. Anyone who needs that sort of spoon feeding shouldn’t be going to university. This is one of the worst petition ideas I’ve ever heard of.

Discover Uni is useful, but it does not give the full picture for every course, including all further professional requirements, costs, experience and the route into employment.

That is exactly my point. The information can still be spread across different places.

There is also no need to be aggressive or rude simply because you disagree.

I think that we're in effect sending OP a Howler . . .

I’m going to keep repeating it….

What employment?! How can you predict what graduates want to do?!

Over the years we've realised that, for whatever reason, some people blindly apply for courses without doing this research.
This is why we now explicitly tell them on the course pages, 'this course will not qualify you to do...' Does it work? Most of the time but not always.
This is also why we now tell them face to face during induction that 'this course will not qualify you to do...' Does this work? You'd hope so but unfortunately not. People only hear what they want to hear and there's always one who, months into the course, becomes distressed and tearful that they're not on the professional course.

You have a single example? But it's secret?

Wow. Well, that's me convinced.

Apropos of nothing, is there an option on these petitions to vote "this is a dumb idea founded on nothing"?

Route into what employment? Be specific - what do you wish to see included on the prospectus page for a BA in History? ‘If you want to become a History teacher you’ll need to do a PGCE. If you want to be a supermarket manager you’ll need to apply for supermarket jobs. If you want to work in HR you’ll need to apply for entry level HR jobs. If you want to be a History lecturer you’ll need to do a PhD. If you want to be a social worker you’ll have to do a Social Work Masters etc etc etc’

Is that really what you want to see?

OP it will be interesting to read your article, including who is publishing it, because you haven't explained here what information you want under versitoes to provide that they don't already very clearly at all. If your law example is an example of what you are saying, then it seems you are being used to provide the usual 'rage bait' article to attract the usual suspects who graduated in the 1970's banging on media studies degrees!

Don't people first think of what career they want and then go and find a program that will enable them to do that job and not the other way around? I don't know anyone who decided they wanted to study, for example, English literature without already knowing what job they want to be eligible for when finished but instead want the university to tell them what they can use their degree for. This petition only works if you decide what to study before knowing what you want your future career to be, or am I missing something?

That actually supports part of the point I am making.

If your institution found that students were misunderstanding what a course did and did not qualify them to do, and then changed the course page to make that clearer, that shows why clear information before enrolment matters.

Telling students again at induction may help, but by then they have already enrolled and committed.

I am not saying every student will read everything or that clearer information will prevent every misunderstanding. I am saying the important information should be made as clear as possible before the commitment is made.

You’re failing to take into account the biggest barrier of all: the fact that most students won’t pay any attention to this. All it will do is give information to people who would have looked for it anyway.

Can I ask what triggered this?

I fully support what you’re trying to say but I’ve never seen a uni that doesn’t do this already.

I want to do a doctorate but in order to do it I must have a very specific conversion course (there are loads out there but only certain ones gives you the right degree needed).
I know this because the doctorate tells me.

I would have no idea how to become a solicitor tbh, even though my career is quite closely linked with the law.
So I would research how I would become one.

I appreciate not all young people have support, access to information or good comprehension skills etc and I think uni should be accessible to everyone - so if you can give me actual real life examples then I’d be happy to sign your petition.
But currently, it seems universities are already doing this.

I’ve asked this repeatedly. The OP ignores the question.

Can you imagine the webpages and prospectuses if we even attempted this?

The article sets out a specific example and the background to why I started the petition. I am waiting for the final response process to be completed before it is published.

It is not a “rage bait” article, and I am not going to speculate about it before publication. Once it is available, you will be able to read it and judge the evidence for yourself.

Do you have any examples of University prospectuses where they do not do this? Especially for courses that lead to professions ( eg not indicating on a Law degree that you need further professional qualifications?) Because numerous people have pointed out that they do!

where there are known further requirements connected with a particular professional route, those requirements are made clear before the student commits.

How naive.
The routes are available. Just look for them.
A prospective student with intelligence can find that information. And even go visit e g a law firm ask for half hour of someone s time be proactive. "Can you tell me your route into xxxx?"
Even a uni open day offers an opportunity. Young people need to learn how to communicate and ask people ..even ask Claude but find a real life person to verify. Show some initiative. Or look on linkedIn at eg a lawyer then look at their education and work experience . plenty young lawyers on insta telling their story . Just search "how to get into xxxx". If student wants to be xxx they can find that info. And show some basic intelligence on the way

You are talking university here . Not a btec in motor mechanics.