Graduates expect to earn more than they do....

neas

Did engineering:

General Engineering £24,937 £24,246 47%

Which seems to be 5th or 6th on that list... i can atest i got a graduate job pretty easily as competition wasn't as furious.

Pick a hard degree, that will require you to study, will require you to work hard and have less time to have fun etc and you should be ok.

Oh and for those degrees that are hard as well, pick a degree that has easier career prospects. Social Work, Engineering, Medicine, Dentistry, chemical engineering and economics seem good ones.

I know my cousin just graduated with a 2:1 in psychology... and lets look at her statistic:

Psychology £18,173 £14,118 26%

Shes got these delusions that thats it, she has made it now... but i am pretty damn suire from pyschology graduates i knew that most didnt go into the field just management.

Maybe she would be a lucky one but she will be earning far less than 30k starting salary.

Person_one

I studied Fine Art, which is probably the least practical degree you can find. I had a job in the general art and design field where I was using my university acquired skills and knowledge within three months of graduating for 21K.

Just thought I'd throw a positive story out there, I'd hate to see the arts and humanities die out just because they aren't lucrative enough, think of all the talent that would never have been nurtured if everybody just tried to make as much money as they could. Even if arts graduates never have a 'day job' in their chosen field they can achieve a lot alongside an unrelated one in their spare time.

melancholly

neas wrote: »

I know my cousin just graduated with a 2:1 in psychology... and lets look at her statistic:

Psychology £18,173 £14,118 26%

Shes got these delusions that thats it, she has made it now... but i am pretty damn suire from pyschology graduates i knew that most didnt go into the field just management.

Maybe she would be a lucky one but she will be earning far less than 30k starting salary.

it's one of the most popular degrees in the country, so there simply won't be enough 'psychology' jobs for all the graduates. this may be an unpopular opinion and has massive generalisations, but i think it's worth making:

psychology is offered at almost every uni, where some aren't going to give many employment advantages. engineering tends to be only at more well thought of unis. this means you have a much higher average entry grade needed for engineering plus bonuses of 'better' unis. just to prove the point, i looked on UCAS and there are 128 General Engineering courses compared to 408 Psychology ones.....

also, for almost any profession in psychology that 'uses' the degree, you need postgraduate qualifications (PhD, DClinPsy, DAppEdPsy etc etc). the students who get onto these competitive courses will be, on average, 'better' students than the average psychology graduate.

i don't disagree about 'general' prospects from the degree, but i think to compare things like medicine to psychology, you need to compare prospects of people as they leave their doctorate training (which is an equivalent level) - employment rates and salary scales will be a lot more even. you'll also be comparing students of a more similar level of academic achievement.

i guessi don't think the stats can be interpreted at face value.....i also don't think a psychology degree is the kiss of death to a career. a good psychology degree from a good uni will still be useful. also, if people want to work as assistant psychologists (and thank goodness for the rest of us that plenty of people do!), then they won't be motivated by a big salary because there never will be without more qualifications.

Idiophreak

danni.yelly wrote: »

Yes ive just finished my degree and feel like it was a complete and utter waste of time.

May help to take a step back and think about whether that's really how you feel about it.

If improving your employability and getting a higher wage were the only things you hoped to get out uni, maybe you're right.

Personally, I had a right laugh at uni, met some amazing life-long friends, learnt a hell of a lot about how to get on with people, how to look after myself, how to focus - and I also got a great sense of achievement at graduation. Any of that ringing true?

The fact that it, ultimately, made getting a job fairly easy for me and earns me a decent wage, was just the icing on the cake - but that wasn't really an accident. Unlike, it seems, a lot of students, I actually looked for areas where there was high demand, decent starting salaries and good chance of growth (IT) - and studied the right degree for that job...

antrobus

melancholly wrote: »

i guess i don't think the stats can be interpreted at face value......

Yes, you have to be able to out the numbers into context.

For example, I suspect that the statistics for Medicine might show the prospects for students who have completed their six years worth of training and are now fully fledged doctors. For other professions, law and accountancy for example, graduating with a three year undergraduate degree means that you're only at about half way through the process, and the remainder of the process is conducted outside the university sector.

Reactive

melancholly wrote: »

you have a very good stipend there; the EPSRC minimum is about £13.5K, at the Engineering Doctorate centres you get about £15K and even with a CASE studentship in London, £17/18K is about the top end (but not exactly a common amount!). just wanted to add that in as you're clearly in a very small percentage of people getting that level of support and most phd students, even with chemical engineering backgrounds, won't be getting anything like that amount of money.

good luck with the phd.

Most of the CASE studentships I looked at last year were worth £17k/year. Most of the EngD programmes I looked at were £18-20k/year. All were outside London. But yes, you're right, the vast majority of students end up on £13.5k/year.

I'd like to add though, that it's relatively easy to get funding for a PhD in the physical sciences/engineering, in fact it's very easy compared to getting a graduate job. That in itself is something to think about.

I applied to about a dozen graduate positions (technical & directly related to my degree), for all but one I was rejected without interview. It was only at that point that I started looking into postgraduate study.

Reactive

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Graduates - don't you just love 'em!

English is not my native language. :j I'm Swiss German. Thanks for pointing my mistake out! How should I have said it?

gadgetmind

brummierebel wrote: »

Part of the problem is stories like the following run by the BBC which appear to claim the average graduate starting salary is £25,000.

We pay that for engineering roles "oop north" and TBH struggle to find enough good people.

But no, we don't employ people with psychology degrees. :-)

melancholly

gadgetmind wrote: »

We pay that for engineering roles "oop north" and TBH struggle to find enough good people.

But no, we don't employ people with psychology degrees. :-)

well, a 'good' psychology graduate should have skills that are very employable (and clearly not every graduate will be a 'good' graduate, but that aside!).

firstly, strong statistical skills to understand data and relationships. secondly, the ability to collect together data from different sources and look at different arguements (critical evaluation) to come up with their own conclusion with justifications. thirdly, the ability to bridge theory with real world relevance. fourthly, strong essay writing skills so good verbal communication. fifthly, experience of independent research project so all skills associated with that (time keeping, planning, recruitment, analysis etc etc). plus i'm sure more that i just don't know about and would think of in more time!

a lot of people think psychology is all about body language and group hugs..... it isn't!

when done well (big caveat!), it is a degree that should teach independent thinking as well as numerical, verbal and written skills. it certainly could be seen to have advantages over subjects where it is all about learning by rote, rather than having to weigh up options and make conclusions.

there are plenty of degrees that get stick from people who are largely unaware of the course content. i think psychology is one of those. if a psychology graduate puts together a good CV with justified skills, it would be short sighted to dismiss them out of hand due to prejudice of the degree topic that isn't really well founded. it's like saying that english graduates aren't much use as all they've done is read some books or maths students aren't any use as they've played with some algebra..

plus Hugh Hefner and Jon Stewart have psychology degrees.... apparently after one the world is your oyster

(btw - i'm sure a similar post could be written about lots of subjects that can be considered as a bit 'easy' and not too worthwhile, but this is what came up in this thread. i'd defend plenty of other subjects in the same way - not all, but plenty!)

Reactive

melancholly wrote: »

well, a 'good' psychology graduate should have skills that are very employable (and clearly not every graduate will be a 'good' graduate, but that aside!).

firstly, strong statistical skills to understand data and relationships. secondly, the ability to collect together data from different sources and look at different arguements (critical evaluation) to come up with their own conclusion with justifications. thirdly, the ability to bridge theory with real world relevance. fourthly, strong essay writing skills so good verbal communication. fifthly, experience of independent research project so all skills associated with that (time keeping, planning, recruitment, analysis etc etc). plus i'm sure more that i just don't know about and would think of in more time!

a lot of people think psychology is all about body language and group hugs..... it isn't!

when done well (big caveat!), it is a degree that should teach independent thinking as well as numerical, verbal and written skills. it certainly could be seen to have advantages over subjects where it is all about learning by rote, rather than having to weigh up options and make conclusions.

there are plenty of degrees that get stick from people who are largely unaware of the course content. i think psychology is one of those. if a psychology graduate puts together a good CV with justified skills, it would be short sighted to dismiss them out of hand due to prejudice of the degree topic that isn't really well founded. it's like saying that english graduates aren't much use as all they've done is read some books or maths students aren't any use as they've played with some algebra..

plus Hugh Hefner and Jon Stewart have psychology degrees.... apparently after one the world is your oyster

(btw - i'm sure a similar post could be written about lots of subjects that can be considered as a bit 'easy' and not too worthwhile, but this is what came up in this thread. i'd defend plenty of other subjects in the same way - not all, but plenty!)

[FONT=&quot]Do you have a university degree? If so, is it in psychology?[/FONT]