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.

Surely this would be backwards? You decide what you’d like to do as a career (or at least narrow down the field) and then choose the degree that is most likely to open that door, no? Do people really just do whatever degree takes their fancy and then wonder what job they might be able to do with it once they’ve got it??? That seems very poor planning

@LyndallMayare you prepared to respond to these implementation concerns? You said you would be…

It is not about whether someone is clever enough to use Google.

The issue is that important information can be spread across a prospectus, university webpages, professional bodies and other sources, and a prospective student may not even know what they need to look for.

I am not asking universities to guarantee a job. I am asking for clearer information about further requirements, costs and realistic employment prospects before someone commits years of their life and significant money.

That is about informed choice. People should not have to discover important parts of the route only after they have already committed.

That is not really what the petition is about.
Of course students should think about what interests them and what they may want to do. My point is that they should also be given clear information before they commit financially, including what the degree does and does not qualify them to do, any further requirements, and realistic employment prospects.
It is about informed choice before someone takes on years of study and potentially significant debt, rather than discovering important parts of the route afterwards.

What’s stopping you telling us the course now? Because I do wonder if it’s the course/area I’m thinking of? If it’s a healthcare course then the difference in the job market now to three years ago is like chalk and cheese. And will probably have swung back the other way in three years.

They should not finish the degree believing that they are already professionally qualified when significant further stages remain. Nor should they have to discover afterwards that certain legal activities are reserved to appropriately authorised professionals.
i was the only person from my school to go to university. I had no clue whatsoever about anything when I went. I did not do a law degree and I still knew that an undergraduate in law would not make you a lawyer. I’m baffled that anyone could do 3 years and this not come up. I understand your point but universities have careers info, careers services and a million other things because they want graduates to get work after they finish. I also think there’s a point when students have to take some ownership themselves.

But that assumes the prospective student already has a clear understanding of the whole route into the career they are considering
.
If someone is expected to choose a degree because they want to enter a particular profession or type of work, then surely they should be told before they enrol what that degree does and does not qualify them to do, what further qualifications, examinations, experience, time or costs may be required afterwards, and what the realistic employment picture is.

That is exactly the point of the petition. It is not about people choosing a random degree and only afterwards wondering what job they can do. It is about making sure they have the relevant information before they make that choice and become financially committed.

Students should absolutely research for themselves, but they can only research properly if they know what they need to look for. They should not have to discover important parts of the route only after they have enrolled, paid fees or taken on significant debt.

If we expect people to plan their future carefully, then giving them a clear picture before they enrol is part of allowing them to make that informed choice.

Nope.

You have made it to he point where you are considering university. You are expected to have a modicum of reading and research skills, critical thinking ability, and sufficient maturity to make decisions for yourself based on easily available facts and public discussion.

What is needed is knowledgable career/ training/ third level education counselors in schools.

But I'm not an expert in graduate careers. I can tell you the route that a few of my students took. I know what the degree I teach on has to contain to be nationally recognised. But there's no way I could know every possible career path for every student who ever crossed my path.
Why CAN'T students be expected to find out for themselves what they need to do to follow a given career path?
Why CAN'T it be the job of specialist career advisors to help them find out?

Post-grad requirements and eligibility criteria for a given career is the sole remit of the employer offering that career path. Or, in some instances, that of the professional body that oversees that career. A university is neither of those for its students.

I have answered your questions and explained the petition several times now.
You appear to be coming back to the same points in slightly different forms, and I am not going to keep repeating the same answers

I have explained what the petition is asking for, what it is not asking for, and why I believe the information should be clearer before students commit.

I have nothing further to add, so I will not be responding to any more comments from you on this.

I have answered you already and will not be responding.

Working to academic principles, I have just gone to the primary source and read OP's petition. Having playfully suggested in a previous post upthread that I would be suing my university for not informing me of what careers my chosen degree would not qualify me for, I find to my astonishment that the petition does in fact include this very proposal.

Here's how that might work: History BA - careers not open to history graduates without further training include astronaut, doctor, bus driver, theodolite, squirrel whisperer, birdseed dispenser, and potato masher. But my DS wanted to use his history degree to restore Old Masters. The information given did not include this career option so the university is at fault for not pointing out that further training would be required, options for training providers, and picture restoring diploma costs.

DC is studying an integrated Masters of mathematics in mathematical physics with a year at a University in America.
She researched everything in your OP (and much more), including funding, internships, career routes, prospects, etc.
No student gets themselves into fifty thousand pounds plus of debt without looking at where it could lead, none that I know anyway; otherwise I'd question their intelligence and commitment to their subject.

You really need to start defining what you mean by ‘route’. And address the fact that there are multiple routes from ALL degrees.

How many career routes do you propose should be mapped per degree at each university?

if you want to find out - do your own research as it’s not hard and if you can’t cope with that I doubt university will suit

I disagree that this information isn't available already.

I think you believe that there are clear pathways toward various careers. This isn't necessarily true, especially in Arts and Humanities degrees. Where does a degree in English Lit lead? History? Psychology? Even a degree in Law isn't necessarily going to lead to a career in law.

Piecing information together is part of the higher order reading and research skillset expected of students heading to university, surely?

For more vocational degrees, information on job prospects and salaries in a specific industry can all be found, and frankly, the prospectuses for these degrees usually make it clear what will be studied and where the qualifications lead.

OP if you keep having to repeat your answers, does that not suggest you’re not explaining yourself well enough?

You’ve not responded to these specific questions. I’m particularly interested in your response to my concerns regarding CMA.

You’ve posted an ill thought out, inflammatory petition with zero substance to back it up. You clearly weren’t expecting people to challenge you as can’t defend your position.

I’m not in the least bit worried though, as there is fuck all chance this will actually come to fruition. Why on earth would the government invest in something that already exists? And universities don’t have the resources to do what you’re suggesting anyway (parts of which are quite literally impossible).

Given that comment wasn't aimed at you I wasn't expecting you to.

Never mind adults at university, I did it as a teenager choosing A-levels. I knew what career I wanted, found out which universities offered the relevant degree, their ranking and employment stats, what work experience they required on top of exams, likely offers, number of applicants per place, number of applicants per place for the job after qualification, starting salary, typical progression, post degree training and registration requirements and options for specialist postgraduate qualifications.

I did all that before the web existed. It wasn't hard, so I did it for a few possible backup options as well. Then I graduated and went into a completely different career, unrelated to any of my plans or qualifications, entirely by accident.

I know people who studied pharmacy and became actors, archaeology and joined the RAF, English and became programmers. It's simply not feasible for a propectus to contain all the info the OP wants for all possible careers, or even all likely careers. Especially as one requirement seems to be to have it all on a single page. It's ludicrous.

I think OP wants unis to list every single possible career plus route that English degrees could lead to. Which is pretty much all
non-science (and even some science probably) careers.

OP also wants unis to list careers not possible with individual degree paths.

Erratum

I also agree with pp. Students are adults, and it is their responsibility to make informed choices before committing their time and money. Plenty do this already. Personal responsibility is what we need, not more laws.