More than a quarter of final-year physics and maths undergraduates and a third of final-year geography undergraduates in the United Kingdom had no idea what kind of career they wanted when they entered university, according to new research from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
The survey of more than 7,000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students at undergraduate and postgraduate level also showed that less than a third of final-year PhD students have a definite career in mind.
Other key findings include:
• Fewer than half of final-year physics undergraduates definitely want to pursue a career related to their degree — the second lowest figure across all STEM subjects in the survey
• Almost half of final-year PhD students across all subjects are not sure they want to pursue a career related to their research
One of the report’s authors, Robin Mellors-Bourne from the Careers Research & Advisory Centre, says that the research highlighted weaknesses in the careers advice and information on offer to students before they go to university. “Very few students choose their subject with a career in mind,” he says.
Mellors-Bourne says schools and colleges focus on promoting university as a good thing in and of itself, and don’t give enough information about potential careers. This leaves students with a lack of broad labour-market knowledge. “I think that’s particularly true of physics,” he told Naturejobs.
He says that while students shouldn’t feel compelled to make highly rational career decisions before university, more forward planning is needed: “It’s quite useful for parents or students to have some inkling of the sorts of careers that naturally would be opened up [by doing a degree].”
Institute of Physics careers manager Vishanti Fox says that the skills learnt during a physics degree are highly valued by a wide range of employers, but she agrees that students considering the subject need more information about potential careers. “Careers advice to school students and undergraduates is an area that can always be improved,” she says. “We are working with schools, universities, businesses and Government to make sure students know the options open to them with qualifications in physics.”
Mellors-Bourne says forensic science is a prime example of the dangers of ignoring career prospects when choosing a course. He estimates that because of interest from students there are now around 100 forensic science degree courses available in the UK, but only around 50 jobs become available each year, leading to a “horrendous oversupply” of forensic science graduates. “I don’t think any of them entered [their degree] realising that they probably wouldn’t get a job at the end,” he says.
What’s your reaction to the report? If you’re a student, do you feel as though you have access to enough careers advice? If you’re working as a scientist, what’s your experience of career planning?
I am less than six months away from finishing my Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry at Tel Aviv University and I haven’t planned my career, at all. Here in Israel most of my colleagues share my position: we get to the end of the degree without knowing where we are going to be next year this same date. So I can definitely relate to some of the points stated in this article.
However I don’t think this is completely a bad idea. The more you plan your future the more you limit yourself to one direction. So if you get the best education and preparation you can but leave all the doors open, then you might exploit your potential to the fullest. For instance, you might discover along the way plenty of qualities you didn’t know you had and you may want to detour your career in order to use all these qualities.
The best thing my advisor gives everyone in our group is the notion that the scientific world is multidisciplinary and that we should prepare for it accordingly. All of us work on every aspect of our projects from beginning to end, from sample preparation and its measurement to data processing. Thus, by the end of the degree we find ourselves qualified for more than one area.
Personally, I feel it is better not to plan every single aspect of our lives. From the moment we start our undergraduate degree, there are different stages awaiting us until we get to the Ph.D. or even post-doc. It is not surprising most students let themselves be carried by the profession, reassuring ourselves at every stage that they are the best they can be, and then moving on to the next stage.
I agree with Debora: I don’t think it’s all that bad that students don’t have a career in mind. How can you possibly know for certain what you want to do with your life when you apply for university at age 17? I started out in Chemistry with the honest intention of becoming an evironmental scientist, and I ended up running a website for biologists – but I never had to backtrack. It just followed naturally from the choices I made during my degrees.
Forensic science may not be the best example here, because that is quite a specialized area. If you only train to be a forensic scientist through a specialized undergraduate degree, then you will indeed feel the pinch of the job market at the end of that track.
Unless you have a vocation in mind such as wanting to be a Doctor, then I agree a lot of graduates don’t really know what they want to do. I put this down to lack of relevant career advice. I found this survey carried out by the Graduate Recruitment bureau to be extremely enlightening. Asking 135 graduates “Who gave you the best careers advice?” 36% said a website, and 27% said a friend gave them their best career advice. Surely graduates should be getting relevant career advice from the proper sources?
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