Is it worth doing an arts/social science/humanities degree?

Being unemployed for 2 years is, unfortunately, down to the candidate, not the degree they have (or indeed do not have).

Internships and work experience make a great deal of difference and have done for a long while. Academics alone are not worth much in any field- there needs to be some sort of demonstrable work ethic and real-world representation of your ability to function as a team member, problem solver etc etc.

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 2

ThyNDS

12

Original post by gjd800

Being unemployed for 2 years is, unfortunately, down to the candidate, not the degree they have (or indeed do not have).

Internships and work experience make a great deal of difference and have done for a long while. Academics alone are not worth much in any field- there needs to be some sort of demonstrable work ethic and real-world representation of your ability to function as a team member, problem solver etc etc.

I agree with you. But what if universities do not offer work placements? and internships are usually 12 months long which is not an option.

I know you might say to do volunteering but when I go to job interviews they do not look satisfied. What other options would you suggest?

Reply 3

Original post by ThyNDS

I agree with you. But what if universities do not offer work placements? and internships are usually 12 months long which is not an option.

I know you might say to do volunteering but when I go to job interviews they do not look satisfied. What other options would you suggest?

Summer internships are not 12 months long, they last for the summer. Also for courses that offer placements, the university doesn't arrange the work placement - they facilitate it through the course structure but it's up to the student to usually find (sometimes the uni may have a list of placements students have previously undertaken as a reference point) and arrange these themselves. Both are true for both STEM students and non-STEM students.

This is the point gjd800 is trying to make I think - you as a student need to be actively involved in making yourself employable. You can't go in just expecting the university to make that happen for you and other people to tell you how to do it. You need to actually be finding this information out for yourself - it doesn't take a great deal of effort to find that companies offer summer internships/vacation schemes/etc in various names and forms, or what their requirements are for example (which you seem completely unaware of and haven't appeared to have looked into at all?).

That said all universities have a careers office that helps students identify and prepare for such things anyway. They won't do the work for you but can be a useful starting place to look for opportunities and can also help with e.g. CV reviews and preparing for interviews and so on.

Original post by howdy07

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Note that research has found STEM and non-STEM graduates have equivalent employment and salary outcomes within 10 years of graduation: https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/report/The_employment_trajectories_of_Science_Technology_Engineering_and_Mathematics_graduates/10234421

Reply 4

ThyNDS

12

Original post by artful_lounger

Summer internships are not 12 months long, they last for the summer. Also for courses that offer placements, the university doesn't arrange the work placement - they facilitate it through the course structure but it's up to the student to usually find (sometimes the uni may have a list of placements students have previously undertaken as a reference point) and arrange these themselves. Both are true for both STEM students and non-STEM students.

This is the point gjd800 is trying to make I think - you as a student need to be actively involved in making yourself employable. You can't go in just expecting the university to make that happen for you and other people to tell you how to do it. You need to actually be finding this information out for yourself - it doesn't take a great deal of effort to find that companies offer summer internships/vacation schemes/etc in various names and forms, or what their requirements are for example (which you seem completely unaware of and haven't appeared to have looked into at all?).

That said all universities have a careers office that helps students identify and prepare for such things anyway. They won't do the work for you but can be a useful starting place to look for opportunities and can also help with e.g. CV reviews and preparing for interviews and so on.

Note that research has found STEM and non-STEM graduates have equivalent employment and salary outcomes within 10 years of graduation: https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/report/The_employment_trajectories_of_Science_Technology_Engineering_and_Mathematics_graduates/10234421

Thanks for that. Since I do not do a STEM subject internships are not for me. I went to career advisors and that's what they said (I didn't know this before btw). So now it leaves us to volunteering which I previously mentioned that employers are not satisfied with (well at least the ones that Ive been to). But i may be wrong as lots of people who are volunteering are also getting somewhere. But thanks for your reply and great insight <3

Reply 5

Original post by ThyNDS

Thanks for that. Since I do not do a STEM subject internships are not for me. I went to career advisors and that's what they said (I didn't know this before btw). So now it leaves us to volunteering which I previously mentioned that employers are not satisfied with (well at least the ones that Ive been to). But i may be wrong as lots of people who are volunteering are also getting somewhere. But thanks for your reply and great insight <3

Internships exist outside of STEM fields...

Your "career advisors" are evidently misinformed.

Are you in the UK? Because this is mind bogglingly inaccurate.

Reply 6

ThyNDS

12

Original post by artful_lounger

Internships exist outside of STEM fields...

Your "career advisors" are evidently misinformed.

Are you in the UK? Because this is mind bogglingly inaccurate.

Ik lmao. I booked an appointment under internships and she said that I was incorrect in a nice way. Was kind of baffled ngl and so I didn't end up looking more into it

Reply 7

Joinedup

Original post by artful_lounger

Summer internships are not 12 months long, they last for the summer. Also for courses that offer placements, the university doesn't arrange the work placement - they facilitate it through the course structure but it's up to the student to usually find (sometimes the uni may have a list of placements students have previously undertaken as a reference point) and arrange these themselves. Both are true for both STEM students and non-STEM students.

This is the point gjd800 is trying to make I think - you as a student need to be actively involved in making yourself employable. You can't go in just expecting the university to make that happen for you and other people to tell you how to do it. You need to actually be finding this information out for yourself - it doesn't take a great deal of effort to find that companies offer summer internships/vacation schemes/etc in various names and forms, or what their requirements are for example (which you seem completely unaware of and haven't appeared to have looked into at all?).

That said all universities have a careers office that helps students identify and prepare for such things anyway. They won't do the work for you but can be a useful starting place to look for opportunities and can also help with e.g. CV reviews and preparing for interviews and so on.

Note that research has found STEM and non-STEM graduates have equivalent employment and salary outcomes within 10 years of graduation: https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/report/The_employment_trajectories_of_Science_Technology_Engineering_and_Mathematics_graduates/10234421

That report also says

The variation in employment destinations between STEM
graduates is, in many respects, greater than the variation
between those with STEM and non-STEM degrees. Because of
this, simply grouping subjects into STEM and non-STEM is not
particularly useful and can hide important differences between
subject groups and individual subjects.

So it's quite likely that people, i.e. politicians, have gone a little bit crazy over a cute acronym (STEM) that isn't really very useful.

The brainwashing amongst a lot of students seems to be that they can 'keep their options open' and think about applying for jobs after they graduate. Really you'll need to be spamming applications to gradschemes at supermarkets, accountants etc. in year 2 - cos there aren't that many jobs that will specifically care about a BA in politics.

Reply 8

Original post by ThyNDS

Ik lmao. I booked an appointment under internships and she said that I was incorrect in a nice way. Was kind of baffled ngl and so I didn't end up looking more into it

Well the "didn't look more into it" is on you. As noted above, you can't just expect other people to tell you what to do and hand you opportunities. The responsibility is on you to find out this information, research opportunities for internships, work experience, placements etc, and then how to set them up.

As ultimately this is one of the skills companies hiring grads are looking for - the ability to go out there and figure out how to do something without being explicitly told. As they want to be able to just say "we are at A, we need to be at B. Find out how to make that happen (+/- do it)". If you are just going to sit and wait for someone to tell you how to do something (or even to tell you to do something in the first place) then you aren't going to make yourself appear like a very appealing prospect to employers who will think they will need to micromanage your daily tasks constantly and patiently explain how to do everything for you...

Reply 9

Original post by Joinedup

That report also says

The variation in employment destinations between STEM
graduates is, in many respects, greater than the variation
between those with STEM and non-STEM degrees. Because of
this, simply grouping subjects into STEM and non-STEM is not
particularly useful and can hide important differences between
subject groups and individual subjects.

So it's quite likely that people, i.e. politicians, have gone a little bit crazy over a cute acronym (STEM) that isn't really very useful.

The brainwashing amongst a lot of students seems to be that they can 'keep their options open' and think about applying for jobs after they graduate. Really you'll need to be spamming applications to gradschemes at supermarkets, accountants etc. in year 2 - cos there aren't that many jobs that will specifically care about a BA in politics.

Most graduate jobs don't care what degree subject you did. Someone applying to PwC with a degree in politics and history and someone applying with a degree in mathematical physics have exactly the same potential to succeed assuming they have similar work experience and the same degree outcome.

Also their point is that "STEM" encompasses a broad range of degrees with variable outcomes. The fact that those in those areas and those not in those areas all had equivalent outcomes 10 years after graduating is unrelated to what is or isn't included in the definition "STEM degrees". As if you're proposing restricting that to only a couple of courses at a couple of universities it's just as meaningless.

And the brainwashing among students is convincing them that doing a STEM degree leads to superior outcomes - when that exact same research specifically stated this was not supported and this messaging should not be continued as it is misleading.

Reply 10

gjd800

Original post by ThyNDS

I agree with you. But what if universities do not offer work placements? and internships are usually 12 months long which is not an option.

I know you might say to do volunteering but when I go to job interviews they do not look satisfied. What other options would you suggest?

There are lots of internships which are 3 months (or less) and last through summer: my students do these regularly. Competition is worse ow than it used to be, I don't think things have quite recovered fully since covid, and that's a cross students.must unfortunately bear.

Volunteering can be useful but only if in relevant sectors. I will say this - it's an.unusual company that says no to free labour.

If you've ready graduated you're possibly going to have to aim lower and do some different, less prestigious jobs to gain a bit of experience.

Reply 11

Joinedup

Original post by artful_lounger

Most graduate jobs don't care what degree subject you did. Someone applying to PwC with a degree in politics and history and someone applying with a degree in mathematical physics have exactly the same potential to succeed assuming they have similar work experience and the same degree outcome.

Also their point is that "STEM" encompasses a broad range of degrees with variable outcomes. The fact that those in those areas and those not in those areas all had equivalent outcomes 10 years after graduating is unrelated to what is or isn't included in the definition "STEM degrees". As if you're proposing restricting that to only a couple of courses at a couple of universities it's just as meaningless.

And the brainwashing among students is convincing them that doing a STEM degree leads to superior outcomes - when that exact same research specifically stated this was not supported and this messaging should not be continued as it is misleading.

Seems like the authors are rather pushing back on using 'STEM' to group degrees... they've been tasked with producing recommendations that look at the world through a STEM / non-STEM prism, but they seem to think that looking at it in terms of STEM / non-STEM is part of the problem.

What is classified as STEM is pretty arbitrary. In appendix 2 we see that Medicine and Dentistry are counted as STEM in this report.

Getting admitted to a medicine course means you're virtually guaranteed a high status job when you graduate (high status jobs is one of the main studied outcomes) - taking the decision to put medicine into a box called STEM doesn't seem like it would make the outcomes for compsci or biology better *, but it would make the box (STEM) that compsci and biology are contained in better than if it wasn't there... but at the end of the day students are asked to pick a course, not a box. 'this course has been put in a fairly arbitrary box with some courses that virtually guarantee high status employment' is not really useful information to give to students.
why would it be meaningless to look at the contents of the box?

The power to decide what the categories are, what should go into those categories and getting everyone else to accept your categories (cute acronym seems to help here more than it probably should... see also BRIC, PIGS) is not to be underestimated IMO

•

see fig 5 for how unemployment 6 months after graduation for compsci compares to history or language

Reply 12

Original post by Joinedup

Seems like the authors are rather pushing back on using 'STEM' to group degrees... they've been tasked with producing recommendations that look at the world through a STEM / non-STEM prism, but they seem to think that looking at it in terms of STEM / non-STEM is part of the problem.

What is classified as STEM is pretty arbitrary. In appendix 2 we see that Medicine and Dentistry are counted as STEM in this report.

Getting admitted to a medicine course means you're virtually guaranteed a high status job when you graduate (high status jobs is one of the main studied outcomes) - taking the decision to put medicine into a box called STEM doesn't seem like it would make the outcomes for compsci or biology better *, but it would make the box (STEM) that compsci and biology are contained in better than if it wasn't there... but at the end of the day students are asked to pick a course, not a box. 'this course has been put in a fairly arbitrary box with some courses that virtually guarantee high status employment' is not really useful information to give to students.
why would it be meaningless to look at the contents of the box?

The power to decide what the categories are, what should go into those categories and getting everyone else to accept your categories (cute acronym seems to help here more than it probably should... see also BRIC, PIGS) is not to be underestimated IMO

•

see fig 5 for how unemployment 6 months after graduation for compsci compares to history or language

Rather than ignoring the other 5 findings in their recommendations section, perhaps you should read those too? As one such finding is specifically "STEM and non-STEM graduates have little variation in employment outcomes". Other notable findings are that significant numbers of highly skilled STEM workers do not have a STEM degree at all. Also their observation that some STEM fields have poorer outcomes relative to other subjects (STEM and non-STEM) is not novel and the government commissioned multiple inquiries into the poor graduate outcomes for CS, environmental sciences, and bioscience graduates.

Moreover, your claims actually reinforce this as if you remove medicine and dentistry from the equation your newly defined STEM category will have even worse outcomes - because nobody in their right mind is going to group medicine and dentistry with humanities and social sciences subjects for the purposes of comparing graduate outcomes. Also bioscience graduates having poorer graduate outcomes relative to other areas - STEM and non-STEM also reinforces the point that the OP can well study a non-STEM degree and have better employment outcomes even potentially than a STEM student.

Also since the entire premise of this thread is about whether the OP should study an arts/social sciences/humanities subject which are very clearly considered "non-STEM subjects" and defining "STEM subjects" to be the complement is perfectly reasonable, I think your quibbling over whether medicine is a STEM degree is both unhelpful and not relevant. If you want to debate whether medicine and dentistry are STEM subjects I would invite you to make a new thread. Because the point of my sharing this and the discussion at hand which you are blithely ignoring is that graduates from what are clearly non-STEM subjects have a sustained negative reputation, particularly on TSR, with regards to graduate employment, but that research shows this is false.

Reply 13

Joinedup