Confused and freaking out

I've to hand in my application in about 2 weeks but I still can't seem to decide what I want to study. What I love are languages, but my parents aren't the type who'd let me study them because they think anything not medicine/law/'decent' job is not an option especially if the future is unclear. I get why they're worried and I'm confused myself. I want to study languages but I also want to study it as a combined thing or sth. Just don't know what's out there that fits the category. Do you guys have any idea? Any advice, seriously?
Please.

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Reply 1

Origami Bullets

Languages have plenty of good career options attached to them, so I would suggest that you first option should be to research this, and use this to convince your parents that you're making a good decision. 70% of graduate jobs are open to people with any degree subject, and employers say that they value languages.

You might also like to point out to your parents that the market is currently saturated with law graduates who cannot get a training contract / pupillage, and who therefore cannot work as solicitors / barristers. They then find themselves doing relatively low level work, often as a paralegal, or sometimes in something completely unrelated.

If you don't want to do law / medicine, then if you were to start such a degree course, you'd very rapidly discover that you have no motivation to study. That leads to bad grades, which in turn leads to worse career opportunities (far worse than they would ever have been with a decent grade in an MFL!)

Do you have any idea what you might like to do as a career?

Reply 2

Paralove

Enjoyment > everything.

I've applied for languages! French and Spanish ab initio! I personally think employment prospects are better in that languages will ALWAYS be needed, you can never have too many multi-lingual people, plus you can move abroad for work - so really, if you do two languages like I am, you automatically open up the door to many more jobs and careers than a law or medicine graduate, as lack of language ability will rule them out of jobs abroad!

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Reply 3

elia

**** what your parents think, do what makes you happy.

Reply 4

gr8wizard10

I see where your parents are coming from, the traditional academic subjects where there's the connotation of being rich and successful. You need to explain to them in the current world this isn't the case . Med/Law are highly competitive career options and the top-end job's are very tough to get into (for Law anyway).

If you want to do Languages and think you will excel, I would recommend you find a way to explain the benefits to your parents and express your enthusiasm. Don't disregard them completely but try to reason with them and maybe derive a potential career plan assuming it's the vocational aspect they are concerned about. Also Languages combined with something else would probably enhance the degree prospect if you specialise in a certain field of work or subject.

Reply 5

cathrg26

You can earn a lot and do a lot with language degrees, they're very useful for careers like law (you'll have to do a transition year as well I think). I would do some more research around this area. Don't let your parents or anyone else push you into studying something you don't enjoy. University is a big commitment, the lecturers will not chase you/push you to do work, it will have to come from self-motivation, something very hard to have if you hate what you're doing. Apply post-A if you still don't know what to study, don't rush your decision, you still have until January - just ask your college to wait a bit.

Reply 6

PrinCkhera

Original post by Origami Bullets

I thought about doing sth which could allow me to visit different countries and allow me to communicate and understand all the different cultures, which is why I've started to also show an interest in anthropology next to languages, because I think it's pretty difficult to understand different people/cultures without knowing their language, soi really want to study languages because they'd allow me to understand different cultures and stuff (my explanation is kind of... But it's what I want but I'm not sure whether it's a good idea)

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Reply 7

Origami Bullets

Original post by PrinCkhera

If you want to study cultures too, and you like a particular region, how about a subject like East Asian Studies or MiddleEastern Studies or European Studies?

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Reply 8

tomj45

Original post by PrinCkhera

Study what you love. It's a massive debt to accumulate so how much of a waste is it if you don't even enjoy what it is you'll be studying? Furthermore, there are countless reports of employers looking for prospective employees with a language because it is so under-subscribed. I could go on all day but I would never say that studying a language could be considered "the easy option" with "no job prospects"

This was in the news just last week. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25003828