Education or Entrepreneur

Yes, I remember that FlicketyB. I also accept your comments about unemployment and 'soft' or non vocational degree subjects. I'm just making a plea for the arts, not to be seen as unimportant, irrelevant or wasteful of resources

Iam64 If you read back some of my earlier posts you will find me making exactly your argument, but nevertheless the fact of the matter is that if the degree subjects of unemployed graduates are analysed far more of them have degrees in the softer, student popular subjects than even the more rigorous, not directly vocational, degree subjects.

I still believe that following your bliss when opting for a University course is not always a bad choice. My youngest, and her 3 closest pals are cases in point. One did fashion, one fine arts, and the 3rd drama and multi media studies. One is now doing very well in marketing, another is a primary school teacher, and the 3rd is working in bars whilst doing an internship, she's the fashion graduate. But, she has taught fashion in China and Australia (she was recommended by her university for this). One of them taught in S Korea for 12 months, and one worked with children as a volunteer whilst travelling.
They all did degrees that wouldn't qualify them for a specific area of work. Smashing group of young women, who enjoyed their time at university and learned a lot about their subjects, and themselves. They're all hard workers, and genuinely loved their subjects
I agree we need more engineers and more vocational/apprenticeships.

Fashion, art advertising and theatre do earn a lot of money but the number training in these subjects is far more than these industries need

92% of all those who train as actors are unemployed or doing something entirely different. As I said the number of media studies graduates working in the media is very small indeed.

We need more engineers, physicists, mathematicians,IT specialists and foreign language graduates.

Did you see that the drunken 23 year old who was sent to prison yesterday for sending abusive tweets had a degree in 'creative advertising'. How can advertising be uncreative and can you get a degree in uncreative advertising?

And what "industry" has been generating the most profit and tax contribution - the city, I'm afraid, even though we might not like it.

And there are far too many people wanting to study fashion, theatre, art etc, most of whom don't end working in those areas, or if they are, not making a bean.
If we fall behind in technology then we are doomed to be a theme park providing services only to tourists. The German economy is not strong on the back of fashion, art, and theatre, now, is it?

Fee-free courses for proper, hard sciences and maths? That's a rather blinkered and naive view Jess IMO.

The financial firms in The City make a bee-line for such graduates - those big mathematical brains are great for Arbitrage and Hedging.

Fashion, Art, Advertising, Theatre, and other creative industries are big money earners for this country - they are far from 'soft'.

More chefs? The country seems to be awash with them...

Certainly more doctors.

Yes more chefs and computer programmers I say.
Fee-free courses for people doing proper, hard sciences and maths
And while we are about it a few more doctors wouldn't go amiss. We still seem to be having to import them because not enough are being trained in this country.

But if they get a third in a subject they love, they are unlikely to do as well in a subject that their heart isn't really into.

The universities are expected to be market orientated and when we had a government mindlessly convinced that 50% of the population should go to university, market forces drove the universities to offer subjects students want to study, regardless of whether the eventual graduates will find their degree of any practical or occupational use. The plethora of media studies degrees on offer are a classic example. DD works in the television industry (she has a first degree in acting ). She says she has never met anyone at work who has a degree in media studies.

It would perhaps help if universities were driven more by responding to the employment market and offered fewer of these superficially attractive to students courses and more definitely attractive to employer courses.

Well as a general rule - but it is a bit more complicated than that isn't it.
The people who do subjects they love and get a 3rd for instance.
What about a first in Business studies against a third in much-loved forensic science for instance. The universities have no shame at all in offering courses like this that look vocational but aren't.

It is much easier to get a job when you have a 1st class degree in a subject you really love, even if it is not directly occupational than a 3rd class degree in a subject like business studies, for example, that you chose to study because you thought it would get you a job not because you were interested in the subject.

I am all for people to do subjects they are passionately interested in, but, to be provocative, how many young people go to university for that reason? There is a lot of pressure from parents, teachers and friends to go to university. Numbers in university are very high and there is relatively little personal contact between staff and students. A young man was telling me last week that in an engineering course in a decent university there were so many students there were not enough seats in the lectures.
I don't think there are that many doing "narrow vocational" courses but there are a lot doing courses which will not be much more help than as set of decent A levels when entering the job market.

Great to read so many comments in support of 'soft' degrees, and A levels as well as going to university being about much more than getting a degree that leads to well paid work. The Arts are so important, and shouldn't be dismissed as being 'soft' subjects.

What annoys me, Lilygran, is that this specialisation starts at A level, when kids get graded on whether they have done hard subjects or soft subjects, like drama or music. Nothing soft about either of those subjects if you want to learn them properly, but not acceptable for Oxbridge or Russell group universities.
And how do those people who decide whether a subject is hard enough spend their leisure time? They go to art galleries or the theatre or opera, to be entertained by those same people that they look down on during their day jobs.

I think the trend towards more narrow vocational courses at university doesn't help. I agree with Elegran, not many people of 18 know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives. And you don't know what careers are available. Might explain why so many students want to go into 'the media'. The theory used to be that if you spent three years in higher education, the training in how to learn, how to analyse, how to find out and how to transmit what you'd learned in a comprehensible way, would enable you to move into any job. But it seems as though employers now expect universities to do very job specific training, rather than providing an education. And all the parties appear to agree!

What subject did you study for your degree Eliza?

If you still find the subject in which your took your degree is absolutely facinating and you want to spend the rest of your life doing that, then you stay in that subject.

Often, four to six years studying in one narrow field shows you that it is not something you really want to be doing all day, every day, for the next forty years or so.

But what you have learnt, besides the details of your subject, is that you are capable of focussing your attention on something and getting very familiar with it, and you have learnt how to organise your time and abilities to get the most out of the material you can study.

The degree proves to a potential employer that you have leanrt these things, and he may employ you to do a job which needs those qualities but not in the direction you were previously going.

My daughter studied biology to honours and PhD level, then did a yearlong postgraduate course in "Computing for Biology" which was mostly on using computing in analysing research data, but gave her a grounding in computing for general use too. After her second graduation, she was offered five different positions in different firms, and chose to go to IBM - nothing biological within miles. She now works for the General Registers of Scotland, on applications connected with digitising all kinds of historic Scottish records for the internet. Not what she studied to do, but a worthwhile and rewarding job.

Not everyone knows at 18 exactly where they will want to be at 30, 40 or 50.

I know a retired A&E consultant who is also a qualified barrister. He works pt on the tribunals.
My GP father, was studying for a law degree when he died.

A degree in law takes three years. To become a lawyer you then need to study for another three years and do more exams.

My god daughter's work is graduate level, she has been doing it for over 15 years and has made progress and been promoted. An understanding of law is very useful in insurance

You can train for any profession and then as you grow and mature realise that you no longer want to do it. Quite a number of comedians and actors went to university and even trained in professions, Jonathan Miller, Graham Garden and The Pub Landlord all qualified as doctors. There is at least one pop star with a PHD in astrophysics. At some time by choice or happenstance life took them into different professions

DD did a degree in acting. By the time she graduated she knew that she did not want to act as a profession but for the last 15 years she has worked in the media in a variety of technical roles, her training in drama has been very useful in almost every job she has had and it continues to be so. She is now doing an Open University degree in Physics and Engineering for the sheer fun of it. She has no idea what she will do with it, when she gets it, if anything, but in the meanwhile she is loving the work, finds it enhances her life in so many ways.

Hi Flick, I am still not convinced or understand why you would study law and then not follow that path...

I do not know what your family member actually does in the insurance company but is it a job that needed a degree?

I am still of the opinion ..why learn to be a chef then become a washer upper. why spend 8 years of your life being taught how to become a lawyer then choose a different path.

I admit that it may be an ignorant opinion but so far it has not been shifted.

I used to think that every one that had a degree was smart, but I learnt that that is not the case

You do not need to become a lawyer just because you have a degree in law and many don't. A degree does not have to be narrowly occupational and law graduates go into a wide range of other degrees. My god daughter joined an insurance company and found it a very useful degree to have.

We are training too many lawyers and many of them cannot get jobs. As has already been said, no education is ever wasted. Our GP only works part time because he is a sculptor and that is where his heart is. I should add that he is also a superb GP but one old lady did ask him how his parents felt about him 'wasting' his training

A friend of my DD did a law degree and worked in the corporate law dept of a firm of solicitors for three years after which she was made redundant. She couldn't find another job, set up a small business using her gained knowledge and is doing well. Jobs in the legal profession aren't always easy to find in these days of belt-tightening.

I think times have changed jendurham with 43% of young people going to Uni, be very careful what you study - unless you want to be unemployed or working on a call centre earning £16k.
What are the options for a law graduate:
be a solicitor (divorces, criminals or property)
Become a barrister
Corporate law
increasingly - the police
If at the age of 21 you have looked carefully at all these and none really appeals (they all have disadvantages a plenty) then don't, whatever you do, throw yourself into them and be miserable.
My cousin was a property solicitor and hated it, she is now back to her first love and is doing a PhD in English literature and loving it.
I really wish more bright young graduates would go into business - this is what the country really needs above all else if it is to thrive in the future.

Yes, but there are dozens and dozens of law graduates every year, and they all have to start from the bottom and work their way up (if they can get a foot in the door to start with!). Junior lawyers don't get paid a huge amount.