With the second year of my degree comes the pressure to start making decisions about my future career. After a matter of days of being back on campus, I was inundated with emails inviting me to the various careers fairs organised very helpfully by the University on behalf of their promising students. My friend has written her own response for our student newspaper, which you can check out here.
I never really knew (and still don’t) what I wanted to be when I grew up. There were so many options: author, actress, police woman, editor, neurologist, detective, journalist, marine biologist – these being just some of the many careers I’ve daydreamed about throughout my life. And so when it came to choosing my degree, I went with what I was best at and enjoyed the most – English. An arts degree, I thought, would give me a wide range of careers options for the future, despite the wincing looks and comments of “Not very practical, is it?” I got – and still get – from people when I told them what I would be studying.
However, from what my friends and I found at the careers fairs, I seem to have been sadly wrong about this. I decided to really get my act together this year and to start thinking seriously about my options for the future, rather than daydreaming about accepting my Oscar or becoming a world-renowned, risk-taking journalist. So my friends and I made the journey from our student house onto campus, where we were ushered into a conference room filled with an array of stalls representing different companies and organisations, like a really dull fairground for ambitious people.
But after circling the room, we soon found that the only stalls directed
at English students were companies offering teaching experience or law, echoing that one question that haunts those studying my degree: “So, you want to become a teacher?”
The dichotomy between arts/humanities students and science students is apparent at most universities, often coming in the form of teasing that those studying for a BSc are doing the “real” degree. Whilst this is mostly lighthearted (apart from when arguments about buying books ensue), it was discouraging to see that this attitude has leaked into the more serious world of careers, and though there was plenty on offer for those interested in law firms, banking or teaching, the whole fair seemed pointless for anyone studying for an arts degree, so much so that my friend wrote an article about it in our student paper.
My university is currently in the top ten for English Literature in the UK, so it seems odd that the careers fair didn’t reflect the various and diverse careers available in the subject after graduating. I know my degree isn’t as “practical” as those which point to a particular career path, such as Law or Medicine, but this isn’t a good enough reason for the under-representation of arts-related careers. I would be wrong to say that arts degrees were the only ones under represented – those wishing to go into the field of scientific research would also have found next to nothing on offer.
If we want young people to think seriously about their careers options and ensure they find employment or an alternative such as further study, we need to ensure that they are exposed to a wide and unbiased range of possibilities. In 2014, The Independent stated that there were 18,000 graduates still unemployed six months after finishing their degree and from the limited choices available at the careers fair, I’m starting to see why.
Consider this a call to all universities to expose all of your students to as many career opportunities as possible. We are the future, after all.
Beth Thomas 