My advice to any student considering studying at university is to select a degree that will directly lead you into a job.
For anyone studying history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, social sciences in general, and any other type of subject, such as music, drama or linguistics, please do not be offended when I tell you to either change degrees now while you can (my university let’s you switch degrees until year 3) or simply do not study the aforementioned subjects outlined if you have not already done so.
Instead, study a subject that will lead to a job.
‘But I want to study History as I performed amazingly well at it in my A-Levels and am keen on learning a little bit more about the Second World War and different perspectives from other academics and...’
Please remove the above mentality from your brain. It is irrelevant. You are good at it? You enjoy it? Well guess what. I could have a First Class Honours in Fifa or Red Dead Redemption, and cant simply wait for the latest game to come out again, but am I going to be employable with it?
The short answer is: no.
When you are 30 like me (well, on May the 29th) you will soon realise that the decision to study a useless degree such as philosophy for four years was a serious error of judgment. I place the subject of psychology into this useless list because I have first hand experience of what it is like to be unemployed with a first class honours degree. It’s pretty bad. Actually, it’s worse than being unemployed without a degree at all. However, it’s not actually surprising that I am in this situation. Luckily, I start a new job soon, but again - it’s far from where I intended that my degree would take me. Did you know many psychology graduates are working in retail? Did you also know that the only fully funded training course is clinical psychology, where the chance of getting on this is about the same as squeezing 400 rhinos into a public telephone box?
The point I am getting at here is this:
For anyone currently in education or is thinking about attending university, then please ensure that you embark on a career that is going to lead to a job afterwards. The list is not exhaustive, but social work, accountancy, law, dentistry, medicine, teaching and engineering are all examples of careers where workers will always be required.
The reason why I am unemployed is actually due to failings within different work environments. It is ironic having a first class honours in psychology to end up unemployed one year after graduation, but the reason I am in this situation is due to the area that I work in. I am a support worker who has worked in numerous caring settings and environments, and had to leave a previous employer due to their values not matching what I believed they should have been. They were exploiting staff by not paying them an honest reasonable wage, which means I personally can’t bring myself to work for a company who exploits people.
This is somewhat besides the point, but as a psychology graduate, I do find myself somewhat trapped in the system of having to work or volunteer in low paid jobs to simply make my CV stand out. If I didn’t have the goal of gaining a job in psychology then the voluntary work that I have done would have probably never happened. Volunteering simply to look good is also a bad answer, as voluntary work is supposed to come from your heart. In my case, it does come from within thankfully, as I did enjoy my time at the places I went, but it has been driven ultimately by a goal of gaining a place on a clinical psychology training programme which I have now considered to be impossible.
What am I going to do with my degree?
Well, I have enrolled on an MSc that actually has a job at the end of it. The thought of being able to apply for a job is exciting. I will then be able to finally say to friends and family that I am qualified. If I am honest, I was getting tired of the comments “is that you a qualified psychologist now”. The answer, for the 150th time, was always no. People don’t understand. What do they not understand? They don’t get that one needs a four year undergraduate degree, an MSc and a PhD probably to even gain a place on a clinical doctorate training course.
The people I feel for most are those who have done an MSc in Clinical Psychology and or Research Methods. They have pushed themselves even deeper into a dark hole that, until the government offer more resources to, has no clear way out. Undertaking an MSc in this area is like driving a train into a dark tunnel at 120mph with no lights. The passengers are every part of your being, from your ego and morals, to your values and mental health, and the sign at the entrance to the tunnel also said “there might be no end”
Look. You could end up unemployable if you go down the route I did. It’s not worth the risk. I highly encourage students to steer clear of psychology, at least until a time comes where the government allocate more resources. Take a different career please.
Just being honest