Should I study Midwifery after a degree?

I don't think you need to make a decision just yet; organise work experience in maternity to get an idea of what midwifery is like and whether it suits you firstly. It's a difficult career and many people get in and find that it doesn't live up to their expectations and give up - the experience thing is essential it will help you make up your mind as to whether this is really for you.

If midwifery is not for you you can carry on with your plans to go and do psychology or physics no harm done. If you decide it's something you'd like to pursue then to be perfectly honest with you I wouldn't waste the money on doing a degree first but that's just me - even one year in a degree you don't intend to complete will be a lot of money. It depends on how much you're really into it - if you went to uni and reapplied for midwifery during your first year would you be happy to continue on the degree in phys/psych if you didn't get in? Would you do midwifery after? In that case would it be worth all the time and money?

If you find that you're really interested in midwifery and that you want to go ahead with it you could firstly try clearing; I can't quite remember what unis were in clearing last year but I think Notts and Surrey were so you may get lucky this year and find a good one in there.

Then it's up to you - you could go to uni for one year and then change but obviously you'd have to consider the points I made above, as well as leaving any good friends you make on the course etc.

Work experience really is key it will hopefully allow you to make your mind up and come to the right decision.

Good luck

Hi Hun, thought I'd reply as I was in a similar situation at 18. I applied for psychology in college because I was good at it and thought it would be a good degree no matter what I decided to go into as it gives you a wide range of skills and covers maths English and science!! Also it's very relevant to healthcare related degrees. I knew by the end of college I actually wanted to be a midwife and I tried transferring to midwifery once I started Uni - I had an interview but didn't get a place so I decided to finish my degree and apply again as a degree will look really good - especially a science one! So that's what I did I applied in September 2013 and secured a place at my first choice two months later ... I'm currently in the third year of my psychology degree so will graduate in June then start with midwifery in September.

People ask me sometimes how come you didn't just apply for midwifery why did you waste your time with psychology? But I don't see it as wasted time. It gave me a whole lot of skills and proved to me I could handle degree level work. It also have me time to gain a variety of midwifery (and other) experiences and time to make sure it's what I definitely wanted to do. It also allowed me to have a proper student experience so I felt like I wasn't missing out, because midwifery is very intense and you won't get to experience the proper student life!

So ultimately it's your decision- but it will only benefit you to do a degree first however if you definitely know midwifery if for you there's no harm in trying to do that straight away hope this helps xxx


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Thank you so much for your reply, its great to have found someone who was in the same situation! Its also reassuring to hear that you don't feel your first degree was a waste as that's what I was concerned about. I was wondering if you managed to get the NHS funding for midwifery even though you had a degree already? Im not sure Im ready to make the jump between courses at the moment but it would be good to know for after graduation. Thanks so much again for taking the time to reply!