Collapsing Careers - How the Workplace Short-changes Mothers by Joanna Grigg

Author:Joanna Grigg [Grigg, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Current Events
ISBN: 9781848396326
Publisher: Vision Paperbacks
Published: 2009-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Get educated – in the right thing

We may find our partners before – though more probably during, or after – school or university. What’s vital is that alongside our romantic quest, we get educated. The UK is behind many other developed nations in the number of young people who go through university-level education (and the government is quietly dropping its recent 50 per cent participation target) but if you want a top career in employment (rather than self-employment) it’s more or less essential that you’re one of these near-50-per-cent. As women, it’s more likely that we will go to university – and succeed there – than our male schoolmates, but what should we study when we go? There are different views on this.

Linda Hirshman says to study something that gives you the vocational leg up. 7 Forget archaeology – loving a subject isn’t enough. Get qualified in a subject that’s in demand from employers and that gives vocational skills ready to slot into a career with good earning potential. We need to look at what the top recruiters are asking for in their graduates and plump for that, or an equivalent that matches our aptitudes and will get us into a good apprenticeship with a solid employer – enough to get us onto the springboard. This thinking is borne out in the movement away from traditional, non-vocational (academic) university subjects towards those with a more vocational leaning. UK university applications to traditional subjects such as classics, music and history have fallen in recent years and those to vocational subjects such as maths, pharmacology, social work and nursing have risen. 8 When Hirshman advises us to keep away from arts-based degrees, she’s looking at successful US businesswomen: cultures and workplaces around the world vary and you need to take account of that. In the UK, blue chip employers recruit from selected universities and often don’t mind what your degree is in. If you’re studying at such a university where top recruiters visit to persuade the best students to work for them, and if you’re one of these students, then study whatever you like. Although some of these recruiters look for business studies graduates to fill their management trainee positions, many are looking for history, French or philosophy graduates with first-class degrees. It shows an aptitude in thinking, reasoning and argument as well as sufficiently high intelligence. There’s a case for saying that any old person who can get to university can study their way through a business studies module but not everyone can make the intellectual arguments that a top English degree requires. The answer is to do your research: don’t read just one article or book on the subject but get lots of work experience, call recruiters, speak to careers advisors, look and feel your way before you even apply for your university course.

Diane Baker is 60 and worked as a secretary before she married and had children, then worked part-time for her husband until their marriage failed. She says:

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