I CAN'T CHOOSE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THE ARTS! help :(

I would just like to point out that I'm starting a music degree in September and since 15 have earned c. £1500 from playing at events. Tell me that I'm gonna work in McDonalds now?! Also, there is nothing wrong with working at McDonalds and if you have a problem with it, do you really deserve a job in the future? Also the course I am going to be undertaking has 85% graduate employment, which is the highest in the country for music and I assume some sciences.

Furthermore many employers favour an arts degree as it incorpartes many different transferable skills including teamwork, motivation and delegation. Some of these cannot be gained with a science degree. I am working at Asda over the summer holiday and the recruitment team said to me at interview that people involved in extra curriculars (eg music) tend to better team players and gel better with other colleagues.

I assume you were employed because you are a good musician rather than having a relevant degree.

If you are already getting paid for that, why would you then spend 3 years and accumulate tens of thousands in debt when you could carry on with what you are doing and earn money in a field you like?

Is a degree in music important to be a musician?

I'm being sponsored through University (actually, music college - Birmingham Conservatoire - to be precise) by the Army as want to go in as a musician afterwards.

Sorry, what year of study are you? Predicted 5 A's at AS? Have you already chosen your AS subjects then?

Do architecture?

Be warned: medical training isn't a walk in the park. Your exams are tough as **** due to all the stuff you have to remember, you have lectures all day (which is really hard to deal with - when you focus in lectures it takes a lot of effort to make synotpic links and paraphrase and nitpick) and your training and education could last up to a decade. You have to be really dedicated to do it.

Again, legal training isn't a walk in the park. There's a lot of reading, memorizing and studying to be done, and then jobs are extremely competitive. You may end up specialising into a field you don't enjoy in order to get lucrative work.

Graphic design is competitive too, and most designers end up making leaflets nowadays.

Really, you need to do as people on this thread have said, and look into these possible choices BEFORE YOU APPLY and see what you fancy. Weigh up the pros and cons. If you go into uni and decide you don't like it in the first year, you can change too, but it's always better to be right the first time.

I was in exactly your position about 2 years ago. I was an all-rounder at school and couldn't choose. Got A*s and As like yourself. Took graphic design at uni in the end and dropped out after 3 months because I hated it. I now work in banking for Barclays, study management, and am so much happier applying myself than I was studying. Perhaps consider a gap year? I would hate to see you make a decision (possibly the wrong one), regret it, drop out, and end up with a bunch of debt and regret like myself

Please do not just pick a course because you feel pressured to by your school/college/family/friends. A degree is not the be-all and end-all. My sixth form convinced me and my peers that I 100% had to go to uni and that there is no work out there. I can confirm that this is absolutely untrue!

I emplore you, don't just "pick one" because you feel that you have to. You should really only go to study a degree in something if it is your passion and you feel totally convinced that you would relish the opportunity to get your teeth really stuck into a particular area of study. If you're floating between several options, I would seriously ask you to consider taking some time out to think. There's no rush, when I was at uni there were people in first year with me who were anywhere between 18 and 60!

Any questions, feel free to ask me - I'm a (nearly) 20 year old uni drop out

Hi,

If I'm honest after dropping the idea of studying engineering at university, I had no idea what else to study.

I mean I could've just randomly picked chemistry, law or any other degree out of vague interest. But I still haven't decided yet.

But so far I can say that psychology is my main interest, with neuroscience as well.

Do you think I have narrowed my options by putting all my eggs in one basket?

Or should I just go on and study these if I feel like I'm genuinely interested in them?

If I wasn't studying psychology, I wouldn't go to university, but because I'm scared of not finding a job or training. I feel like I should go?
Is it really true what happened to you?

Okay, there are a few things you have to consider here.

Firstly, you should study something you are interested in, it is going to be painful if you do something because you feel like you have to and, trust me, it isn't worth it.
If not doing psychology meant not going to university and you are interested enough to do the degree, I would go! University is a fun, crazy experience where you can learn about the world a bit more as well as advancing yourself.
Don't go if you aren't actually interested in university, either take some time out and find a job or travel or something. Life has a way of working itself out and at sixth form a lot of people think university is the be all and end all and that you need to study a degree at 18 or 19, which is absolutely not true. Other people I know have done things like attending the Open University while working because university simply wasn't for them.
If the idea of university fills you with dread, you probably need a break from education.

Ahhh what a relief!!

I am sick and tired of being people saying that university is only for employment. It's very depressing and that would mean that then everyone should just study either medicine dentistry, engineering or accounting to have an almost "guarantee" of a job after your degree.

And like you said, it would be terrible to struggle through those very difficult degrees, drop out and lose out on student finance.

I think the safest thing for me to do would be apply to UCAS now, and then when I change my mind and still feel for a gap year withdraw my offers? I mean I might take another gap year if I start to feel like I am not up for studying yet.

I had this mentality too, that unless I go to university, I won't find any meaningful job without a degree?
Of course i am a bit nervous about going to university, but I do feel like a part of going is also for the experience. But I always kept that at the back of my mind, as i was worrying about career prospects so much. And honestly, a very small part of me also feels that I am being left out and that my friends have left me behind and most of them are at university now. But don't get me wrong this is not why I want to go university, it's just a small nagging feeling I have on the side.


I think I am just too scared of following what I feel is right for me, rather than follow a formulaic "pick x tough degree for career prospects, enter well paying graduate job." of course not as simplistic as that, but more along the lines for sure. Also do you think I should do a joint honours to be on the safe side?

Also, sorry for posting on this old thread. I got a warning from TSR not to resurrect zombie threads, so I'm sorry if you get a warning from them too.

Also thanks for your advise man

Haha, worry not, I don't think resurrecting one zombie is likely to cause a TSR apocalypse :P

A lot of people do say university is about employment- and for many people it is. At the end of it you are more qualified and (generally) start on the job ladder higher than you would've if you didn't have a degree. For most people I know, however, it was more of a stop gap, they didn't know what they wanted to do and wanted to further themselves while they tried to figure stuff out (also exposing themselves to university exposed them to more opportunities, jobs etc).

And I mainly plan to become a psychotherapist, write books, maybe do research if I can bear a PhD work with youth/criminals,try neuroscience and maybe more?

Would you like to write an article?

Yeah, I think that would be nice.
Alice Miller personally "inspired" me (I hate to sound cliche) since I read her books. I want to do the same thing as she done, and create as much awareness as possible about this particular topic.

By the way, I have terrible A level grades, and I heard that if your UCAS points are rubbish, your degree becomes sort of useless when it comes to applying for grad schemes (and maybe grad jobs too), is this true?
This would leave me stuck in a dead end, because I don't have the money to retake my exams again which cost like £90 per unit.

I like TSR. Different people with different problems from different countries have a nice discussion at the end of the weekend and the begin of the hard labour week.
For example. If tomorrow the person won't come to teach the students once again for any reason, I have to take his place once again and to move to another side of Moscow to teach them judicial physiatry.

Whoa!?

You're telling me you already finished your degree and are already working in your field? That's amazing man, and why would you need to go all the way to Russia?

But yeah I'm having a huge dilemma at the moment, how the hell will I even get on graduate schemes with such dreadful ucas points, I only have 120. And please understand for that long period of time I was gripped by anxiety and depression which just made it so hard to focus on what I was studying.

Dammit man, sounds like I might have to move back to the Netherlands, I can barely afford to live here
Also it's my parents who brought me here, not me, I was happy there, never had to worry about money, homelessness or anything.

Now I find myself being evicted if I don't leave the house with my mom by the 21st, luckily we found a shared, run down flat which will help us save up some money.