I know what I want to do!

If you’re in this category you still have some decisions to make, although the biggest decision is already behind you. You know which course to apply for, but at which university, there is a huge choice. So how are you going to select your course?

You need to do some self-reflecting, you need to set priorities as this will help you produce a short list of courses to apply to.

But first of all let’s backtrack a little, why did you select this course? Was it because it leads directly to a career e.g. you study medicine, you become a doctor; you study engineering, you become an engineer? Was it for the intrinsic academic interest? E.g. you like 19th  century literature and would you like to delve deeper into this subject even though you recognize it may not lead directly to a job as an English literature lecturer. 

Whatever your motivation for choosing the course, you need to be clear about what you are looking for. Let’s stick with the examples we’ve already identified. If you want to study engineering and have a particular interest in electrical and mechanical engineering then you will want to ensure that the courses you apply for cover these areas e.g. apply for Mechatronics engineering.

If you are fascinated by the novels of Thomas Hardy, then you need to ensure that your English literature course includes a unit on Hardy. 

But which course?

Now that we have flagged up the basics, does your course actually teach you what you want to learn? We need to examine many other factors that will determine which course to apply for.  You need to realize that the university course offers far more than just the basic academic units. You need to look at whether the course offers you what we call the ‘add-ons’, and by this we mean extras such as:

• • • • Internship/ placement/ sandwich course/ work experience
      • The opportunity to study a minor alongside your major. 
      • Exchange programs with other universities.

These are all very important factors to consider when choosing a course as you have to think ahead a little to the day when you will graduate from university and compete for a job. If you can offer the company recruiter  the academic skills plus work experience, then you’ll make yourself a more marketable and attractive proposition. It’s time to start thinking about building your CV/ résumé. Wigsbury has written a module on how to write a CV/ résumé.

Let’s look again at our engineering student. If he or she is studying engineering at a university that has a year’s work experience, maybe at a  top engineering company such as Rolls-Royce or Siemens, and then he or she has taken a minor or elective subject in business, maybe picked up a foreign language as well during the exchange year at a foreign university, then he or she will be in a much stronger position when it comes to applying for jobs.

Now let’s look at our English literature student. If he or she has an interest in 19th-century literature then he or she could consider a course that offers the opportunity to go to a foreign university to study 19th  century literature e.g. USA. This will not only broaden the student’s academic knowledge it would also allow him/her to grow as a person, growing in confidence, being adventurous, being a risk taker, experiencing a different culture. These soft skills will be important as future employers will be looking for precisely these skills.

So just to recap, you know what subject you want to study, you now have a few ideas about the add-ons that you should be looking at, but there remains one important decision: which universities to apply to? After all, it’s not just the course you apply to, there is the university as well. There is a huge variety of universities available, so you will need to set yourself some priorities in this area as well. Happily for you, Wigsbury has produced a module on university selections which will focus you on what you need to think about and look at when deciding upon which universities to apply to. 

I haven’t decided what I want to do… yet!

There are a multitude of ways to approach this decision and we’re going to examine  the most important ones. You need to start by asking yourself the fundamental questions: what do I want to get out of my university degree? What am I looking for by studying at university? Where will this lead career wise?

Some students have a very clear career goal, as we’ve already seen; they just want to be a doctor so the decision is easy: study medicine; for many students in high school the career goal is not clearly defined, you know you want to go to university and you are anxious about what sort of job or career you can get after graduating.

The first thing to realize is that apart from certain professions like doctor or engineer that  require a very specific course/ training at undergraduate level, most careers are recruiting people from a wide variety of undergraduate degrees.

Employers in many countries, particularly the USA, Canada and the UK are interested in recruiting bright young minds with soft skills and the potential that can be developed to serve the needs of the company. This is the key to understanding recruitment, however this rosy picture does come with a health warning: employers are looking to recruit students from top/ good universities and students who have a first-class degree or 2.1 degree. Plus, as we’ve already seen, students who can add extra value and already have work experience, knowledge in other fields, done exchange programs abroad, have foreign language skills, a master’s degree etc. have an advantage.

A recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, found that only 27 percent of university graduates work in a field related to their major.

I know we haven’t figured out what course you are going to study for your bachelor’s degree yet, but let us jump ahead and consider this. Most students will also study a master’s degree which does not necessarily have to be in an identical subject to your bachelor degree, although you will need to convince the university that you are academically qualified to study for that master’s degree. Employers are particularly keen to look at what you have done in your master’s degree, and where you have done it.

Having taken a look at the scenario at university and beyond, we are still left with the puzzle of what course to apply to as grade 12 is fast approaching and this is when you make your university applications.

You could take one of the following approaches:

• • • Apply for courses directly linked to a career e.g. law, architecture, engineering, medicine.
    • Applied for a course that interests you.
    • Apply for a broader course that allows you to take several subjects during your bachelor degree.
    • Apply to a US university where you do not need to nominate your major on the application form, you put together your bachelor degree when you arrive at university. Your academic advisor will help you do this.

Possible approaches…

But how do I choose which course?!

This is where you have to think about am I going to study a degree that leads directly into a career. E.g. Study medicine, become a doctor?

Or am I going to study a degree that interests me and then see what career I can enter when I graduate?

If you belong to the second category you need to do some thinking and answer the following questions:

1. 1. 1. Where do my interests lie?
      2. What are my academic strengths and weaknesses?

And then make a list of possible subjects to apply for and look to see what careers you could enter having studied those subjects.

A concrete example…

Earlier in this module we talked about English literature courses, so what can you do if you graduate in English literature? You are probably thinking teaching English in school or college….er! And you probably don’t have much more idea than that.

Do you remember we talked about soft skills as being important and employers looking for bright young minds who could be trained in whatever area the companies work in? Take a look at this. If you are an English literature graduate you will have acquired/ honed the following skills:

Strong communication skills (oral and written), text analysis, presenting ideas, team work, planning and researching, writing for different audiences, creativity, time management, organizational skills and many more.

The list that follows is a list of careers that English literature graduates from University College London have moved into:

Publishing, journalism, teaching, the civil service, local government, finance, business, the media and film, law firms, politics, international organizations, diplomatic service, surveying and many more.

As employers increasingly recognize and demand well rounded well-educated graduates, universities are responding by offering more courses that move away from the narrow confines of studying a single subject. What we are looking at is a rapidly changing labor market that requires skills and flexibility, you should be able to adapt to change. The days are long gone when you would do the same job for 40 years.

There is a high chance that you will be working in a job/ field that has not even been invented yet, hence employers’ enthusiasm for graduates with a good education and an even better array of soft skills.

Conclusion

Wigsbury has attempted to open your eyes to the huge offering of university courses available to you and help you understand where these courses could possibly lead you career wise. 

As with most things, it is best to start with you. What do you want? What are your skills and strengths? Where could these be best utilized in a university course and in a future career? If the worst comes to the worst, and you get to university and realize you’ve chosen the wrong course, you can always change.  Wigsbury has written a module on changing courses/ universities.

And finally, remember that you will not just be having one career, but several.