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Valuable degrees

People keep talking about valuable degrees and I don’t know how to tell if one is. For example would statistics be valuable? Or environmental science?

Reply 1

Please define what you mean by 'valuable'?

Reply 2

Original post
by McGinger
Please define what you mean by 'valuable'?


Lots of job opportunities, well paid jobs etc
Original post
by Coraa23
Lots of job opportunities, well paid jobs etc


All degrees in principle have lots of job opportunities. Whether or not the students are able or willing to convert those into a job is another matter - sometimes through no fault of their own (nor their degree), and sometimes due to their own limitations.

Salary is a variable factor and not the only thing you should consider. Earning 100k+ a year but having to work in the London office 6 days a week 12+ hours a day is actually not going to be a great effective hourly wage and your quality of life is going to be zero, not to mention your disposable income after rent etc. A job with a lower salary in an area with much lower cost of living and which offers far better work life balance is going to enable you to live the comfortable life you believe can only be bought with a high salary.

Honestly if your only reasons for choosing a degree at all are job opportunities and salary I would suggest just go directly into the work force after school, or do an apprenticeship (degree or otherwise), because the extra years of earning and experience are going to make more difference than a degree if your primary goals are career and salary focused. If you aren't interested in uni for the intellectual development then I don't think you're going to get out of it what you are hoping to.

Reply 4

Original post
by artful_lounger
All degrees in principle have lots of job opportunities. Whether or not the students are able or willing to convert those into a job is another matter - sometimes through no fault of their own (nor their degree), and sometimes due to their own limitations.
Salary is a variable factor and not the only thing you should consider. Earning 100k+ a year but having to work in the London office 6 days a week 12+ hours a day is actually not going to be a great effective hourly wage and your quality of life is going to be zero, not to mention your disposable income after rent etc. A job with a lower salary in an area with much lower cost of living and which offers far better work life balance is going to enable you to live the comfortable life you believe can only be bought with a high salary.
Honestly if your only reasons for choosing a degree at all are job opportunities and salary I would suggest just go directly into the work force after school, or do an apprenticeship (degree or otherwise), because the extra years of earning and experience are going to make more difference than a degree if your primary goals are career and salary focused. If you aren't interested in uni for the intellectual development then I don't think you're going to get out of it what you are hoping to.


That’s a good point with the salary, I’ll need to take that into consideration.

I do want to go to uni for the experience and education but given how much time and money I’ll be dedicating to it I would like to know there will be paths for me to take afterwards
Original post
by Coraa23
That’s a good point with the salary, I’ll need to take that into consideration.

I do want to go to uni for the experience and education but given how much time and money I’ll be dedicating to it I would like to know there will be paths for me to take afterwards


TSR ate my reply so in short: There will inevitably be opportunities granted the world does not suddenly end in nuclear apocalypse.

If you're a UK/home fees student, normally you will only be making payments on the loans you take out if you are earning a good salary anyway (as you only make repayments over the threshold), so you're not really "dedicating money" to it in an overt sense if you don't get a good salary in the end regardless. If you don't consider the threshold salaries as a good starting graduate salary then that is essentially an issue of your own in having skewed perspectives on what a good (or even realistic) salary actually is.

If you're an international student then realistically very few careers will ever justify the eye-watering fees, regardless of uni (and realistically most countries have universities that are comparable to the majority of UK universities anyway), and you are probably only able to afford them if either a) your country is paying them through a scholarship or loan scheme or b) you or your family are independently wealthy already. So actually financial considerations are almost immaterial really - it's a loss no matter what generally so what matters actually is only the intellectual development and other "soft" benefits you gain while at university.

Fundamentally I think if one's mindset is pursuing university as an investment which they expect returns on, they should not go to university. Because it's not actually a good financial investment! Even if they are paying for the whole thing out of pocket, that individual would probably get a better financial return on investment through a typical financial portfolio of investments instead.

What university is an investment in is your own intellectual, social, and cultural development, and I would contend it's actually a very high value investment in terms of returns, if you approach it as that. If you don't think those things are worth investing in then as stated - university probably not the thing to invest time and/or money in!
I would also add: the above is not to say you (or anyone else) should not go to university, nor that I don't understand why you're asking what you're asking. My point is though that you're basically asking the wrong questions about choosing to go to university or not, and that if your principal goal is financial then you really aren't going to make the most of your time at uni anyway right now and you'd be better off putting it off and going later than going now. Whether that's after a gap year working, or after starting a career then deciding you want to do something different, or something between or else entirely.

The bottom line is as much as TSR likes to quibble about this and look at statistics around salaries in a vacuum, your degree subject is not really going to make or break your ability to earn. For a concrete example, consider the ever continuing obsession with computer science as a purportedly "good" "high value" degree. The reality is the labour market around the associated development and "tech" jobs is pretty bad and has been for quite a while, and while a small proportion earn oodles of money at FAANG or one of these new AI startups or some silicon valley "disruptor", the vast majority do not and will not ever go into those jobs. The gap between "highly skilled" and "low skilled" jobs for CS graduates in terms of income is one of the highest, and reflects this sharp difference in the types of jobs graduates from that same degree field can get.

Students need to make decisions on the basis of what the common outcome is - which for CS for most is probably closer to "sysadmin for regional firm" than "software engineer at google". The same principle applies to any degree, and the reality is most of them are going to have jobs and salaries that are not unattainable with often many different degree options, or even without doing a degree. A job and a salary is not a unique outcome of a degree, nor is even a "good" salary (by which I mean an actual good salary based on the real world outcomes are, not what school-leaver me thought was a good salary). Learning things which you have not have the opportunity to learn and probably won't again have the opportunity to formally study is one of the key unique outcomes of a degree.

Reply 7

I just want to say one thing. Do not do a job for the money (or a degree which has a narrow field), you will HATE your job!

With respect to "vauable" degrees, not really such a thing. My degree is in Biomedical Science, meaning I am tailored more to working in a medical laboratory (my degree is IBMS accredited meaning more towards medical labs than medical research i.e. I actually use patient samples for research).

Downside to my degree, it is HIGHLY saturated (more people with the degree than positoins available) and I admit, I lucked out with the pandemic as it set me up to help me get my job which garantuees legal registration. I would say a VERY good portion of people doing my degree will likely not get their registration because for every job out there, there is likely 100 applicants.

Every degree has its ups and downs, so remember this when making decisions... sorry If I've been a bit vague but in all honesty, there is no answer to your question!
(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 8

Original post
by artful_lounger
I would also add: the above is not to say you (or anyone else) should not go to university, nor that I don't understand why you're asking what you're asking. My point is though that you're basically asking the wrong questions about choosing to go to university or not, and that if your principal goal is financial then you really aren't going to make the most of your time at uni anyway right now and you'd be better off putting it off and going later than going now. Whether that's after a gap year working, or after starting a career then deciding you want to do something different, or something between or else entirely.

The bottom line is as much as TSR likes to quibble about this and look at statistics around salaries in a vacuum, your degree subject is not really going to make or break your ability to earn. For a concrete example, consider the ever continuing obsession with computer science as a purportedly "good" "high value" degree. The reality is the labour market around the associated development and "tech" jobs is pretty bad and has been for quite a while, and while a small proportion earn oodles of money at FAANG or one of these new AI startups or some silicon valley "disruptor", the vast majority do not and will not ever go into those jobs. The gap between "highly skilled" and "low skilled" jobs for CS graduates in terms of income is one of the highest, and reflects this sharp difference in the types of jobs graduates from that same degree field can get.

Students need to make decisions on the basis of what the common outcome is - which for CS for most is probably closer to "sysadmin for regional firm" than "software engineer at google". The same principle applies to any degree, and the reality is most of them are going to have jobs and salaries that are not unattainable with often many different degree options, or even without doing a degree. A job and a salary is not a unique outcome of a degree, nor is even a "good" salary (by which I mean an actual good salary based on the real world outcomes are, not what school-leaver me thought was a good salary). Learning things which you have not have the opportunity to learn and probably won't again have the opportunity to formally study is one of the key unique outcomes of a degree.


Spot on.

Reddit is even worse for this (and it’s a game for Russian roulette as to whether I get downvoted or not for mentioning that degree subject/rankings do not matter that much for employment with the exception of law/finance).

Redditors (especially on the main UK university and UK jobs subreddit) simply view getting a degree as means to being automatically entitled to getting a high paid or SWE job when that’s not necessarily what the average grad outside of the Reddit/TSR bubble is aiming for nor is necessarily able to achieve. Your average Joe is likely a white collar worker earning £30K-£50K/60K a year gross max (£50K-£60K a year is honestly being generous especially outside of London). Not that you shouldn’t be aiming as high as possible but it’s important to have some level of realism and to not remain entitled/simply blame the cooked job market because your goal didn’t happen.

I also notice on said subreddit having such aims and failing to achieve them will never be the fault of the students (unless they are international), it’s simply a case of “the job market is cooked (CS)”. Compare that to other degrees (outside of Law and potentially male dominated STEM because I see the same response as CS) and the response is usually: “what university did you go to?”, “why that degree?”, “are you qualified for the job?”, “should’ve been more realistic with your choice mate”, “let me see your CV” etc ignoring that these questions apply to law and CS too, CS the most ironically.

Yes money is important but that needs to be paired with some realism especially if you’re lucky enough to come from a more well off background or have parents support you.

OP you need to pick a subject that you’ll enjoy or look at career paths that genuinely interest you and look at what the degree requirements are. Don’t fall into the Reddit/TSR of solely focusing on getting a high paid (e.g Finance) or respected (e.g. teaching despite the not so great salary) job and then simply as a result basing your degree choice on that.

The only answer to OP’s question (at on the salary bit and not flexibility) in my opinion is medicine but even med graduates are starting to struggle to get jobs these days and FY1 pay is simply crap.

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