Alice Todd didn’t expect to find herself camping on Dorset heathland surveying flora and pollination when she first filled in her university application form. She applied to study zoology but just missed the grades, and then found a course in ecology and wildlife conservation through clearing.
“I’d never heard of a course in wildlife conservation until I saw it in clearing. It’s turned out much better because I’m really enjoying it,” says Todd, 19, who is working with the National Trust this summer after the first year of her BSc degree at Bournemouth University.
The initial disappointment has given way to relief that she has found a passion for a subject that will provide a lifetime interest and a rewarding career. It was the same for English literature applicant Ramat Tejani, who discovered international business at the University of Hertfordshire while leafing through clearing vacancies on a shopping centre bench because she didn’t want to go home to her parents without first having secured a university offer.
“I didn’t know such courses existed, and I got to spend an incredible year in the United States as well,” says Tejani who now works as a marketing communications specialist.
Clearing is now far more than a last-chance saloon for students who missed their grades. Applicants make up one in eight of the UK’s full-time undergraduate admissions. A record 64,300 students found places through clearing last year, of whom 15,000 were new applicants who had not previously registered with Ucas.
And the lifting of the student numbers cap last year – along with the introduction of the “adjustment” system, which allows students to trade up to a different course or university if their grades exceed their firm choice offer – gives more students the opportunity to consider new, and sometimes surprising, opportunities.
When A-level results are published on Thursday, applicants will find some exciting new courses and modern twists on traditional subjects on offer.
To attract students and satisfy the demands of 21st-century employers, universities are putting far more emphasis on student satisfaction and work-ready skills. Vocational subjects scorned as “Mickey Mouse” degrees less than a decade ago now have some of the best graduate employment rates.
Birmingham’s applied golf management BSc has 100% of its students in jobs six months after graduation, as does the BA Hons in animation and visual effects at Sheffield Hallam University. And employers are actively seeking out graduates from Bournemouth University’s retail degree, says Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research, a graduate recruitment research company.
Joint degrees are offering work-related combinations such as psychology and business at Aston or drama and business studies at Loughborough. And the UK’s first insurance degree – developed by the University of Chichester and brokers Be Wiser – is being launched next month. Students work for the company with a starting salary of £18,000 and get time off and their fees paid to study at Peter Symonds College in Winchester for the BA Hons degree.
Meanwhile, many universities are moving towards cross-disciplinary courses with more joint honours and integrated study or work abroad.
Liberal arts and science has slipped across the Atlantic from the US and is springing up at universities across the UK, including Birmingham and Surrey. The degrees offer students the opportunity to mix and match different subjects rather than specialising in one or two. Students at University College London, for example, can take a minimum of three courses ranging from creative writing, qualitative thinking or law in action to engineering design, energy systems and methodologies of drawing.
University of Surrey student Laura Richter says she chose its liberal arts and science degree because she wanted to carry on with several subjects. “I liked psychology, languages and humanities, and I didn’t want to choose one and then find two years down the line it wasn’t for me,” she says. “Everyone gets together from the different modules, and we bring our different skills and approaches to problems and scenarios.” Her main subjects are psychology and modern languages.
New subjects can often be found in clearing before they become better known and established. Bristol, for example, is offering places for its suite of four-year “innovation” integrated undergraduate and master’s degrees – which include computer science with innovation, film and television with innovation, and history with innovation – being launched this September. The innovation part of the degree course covers enterprise, venture creation and entrepreneurship.
So what do employers think about these new courses? For 70% of graduate jobs, it doesn’t matter, says Birchall. In fact, some employers are seeking graduates who follow less traditional routes. “The big law firms keep half their places open to people who study subjects other than law because they want people with diverse experience. So it may be that students stand just as good a chance, or even better, by doing well in a subject they really enjoy rather than one they think will impress employers,” he says.
The reputation of an institution is important, but some lower down the university rankings are respected by employers for their excellence in different sectors, he adds .
Richter has found employers are open-minded about her degree choice. When she was applying for a psychology work placement this year, she found employers did not know about liberal arts degrees but were “intrigued to find out more about them”.
Gareth Hughes, the research lead for student wellbeing at the University of Derby, says he sees parents who are worried when their children want to study subjects such as pop music or music technology – but both courses have good employment prospects.
Today’s universities are trying to meet employers’ needs through innovative courses but they are also preparing young people for jobs in the future that we cannot foresee, he says. “A degree isn’t a job training programme. If you engage with it, then a degree in any subject will give you the same set of skills and build you up as a person.”
The problem for universities branching out into this brave new world of innovative degrees is that parents and teachers – the people who teenagers turn to for advice – are likely to favour what they know and trust. Even Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of Ucas, admits that she may have given the wrong advice a few years ago when her three children were applying.
“I remember just wanting my kids to choose something ‘normal’ at a university I recognised, so I could relax,” she says. “Now I’d tell parents to resist this urge and allow your children to make their choices for a 21st-century future.”
Unusual options – from cartoons to Klingon
Looking for something a little out of the ordinary? Try one of these courses:
Artist blacksmithing BA Hereford College of Arts
Bagpiping – traditional music BMus The National Piping Centre, Glasgow
Brewing and distilling BSc Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
Cartoon and comic arts BA Staffordshire University
Contemporary circus and physical performance FdA Bath Spa University
Educational studies BA Durham University. (The first UK degree to offer a Harry Potter module.)
Ethical hacking and network security BSc Abertay University, Coventry University, Glasgow Caledonian University
International spa management BSc University of Derby
Visitor attraction and resort management FdA Staffordshire University
Viking and Old Norse studies BA UCL
Further afield …
A few of the more exotic modules that have been offered to students at colleges in North America:
The many faces of Harry Potter University of Western Ontario
Invented languages: Klingon and beyond University of Texas at Austin
Zombies in popular culture Columbia College, Chicago
The Simpsons and philosophy UC Berkeley
Politicising Beyoncé Rutgers University, New Jersey
Compiled by Laurie Chen
