Table: would you do it all again?

Many people look back on their time at university as the best days of their life, but a surprising number would take a different degree if they could choose again.

A survey of graduates three years on from leaving higher education indicates that more than a third wish that they had opted for a different course. In some subjects, more than half regretted their choice.

The study, published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA, www.hesa.ac.uk ), underlines the need for close scrutiny of both the content of your chosen course and the prospects for employment afterwards. Not surprisingly, the results are closely linked to graduates' satisfaction with their early career experiences.

Medical and dental students, almost all of whom go into their chosen profession, are the least likely to regret their choice of degree, although nearly one in five does. However arduous the training, they are happy to have achieved their goal and were earning reasonable salaries, with the prospect of much higher pay.

Less predictably - in view of the frequent claims of low morale among teachers - education graduates are the next most satisfied. Nearly eight out of ten would make the same choice again and almost nine out of ten were satisfied with the first three years of their career. Indeed, education was the only subject where more than half of those responding to the survey declared themselves to be “very satisfied” at work.

Most of those in the education category in the table below are teaching at primary schools, rather than comprehensives, having completed a BEd degree. As with the medics and dentists, they were committed to their future from the outset, and those who took the one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education - the usual route into secondary-school teaching - were even more satisfied.

At the other end of the scale, more than half of those who took media studies and other subjects in the category of mass communications and documentation regret it. Although only 2 per cent of them were unemployed, 40 per cent (the highest proportion for any group) said they were in jobs that did not require a degree.

Until now, the employment rates quoted for different subjects and universities have all measured activity six months after graduation, when many graduates are travelling, beginning postgraduate courses or casting around for a career through internships or temporary employment. But, although relatively small-scale, involving 16,000 people who graduated in 2003, the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education longitudinal survey covers a period when most have settled into a career.

The sample was too small to produce figures for each subject, so they are grouped together in 19 areas.

Catherine Benfield, the HESA official responsible for the project, says the results tallied with those in the Government's much larger Labour Force Survey and were seen as sufficiently reliable for the exercise to be repeated next year. “There has been a feeling for some time that six months after graduation is too soon to be the only measure of destinations and this exercise adds to our understanding.”

Fewer than half of the respondents had been in jobs requiring a degree throughout the entire three years since leaving university but 75 per cent had a graduate job by the time of the survey. Only 2 per cent were still unemployed, compared with 7 per cent six months after graduation, with an additional 2 per cent “not available for employment”.

Surprisingly, maths graduates were shown to be the most likely to have had a job not requiring a degree, more than a third having been in this position at some time in the three years. Even so, only one in 10 was less than satisfied with their career - one of the lowest proportions in any subject - and the proportion regretting their choice of degree was lower than average for all subjects.

Computer science, agriculture and social studies are the other areas where more than four out of ten graduates said they would be likely, or very likely, to choose a different subject. The findings for these subjects suggest that graduates' attitudes are not all about success in the jobs market because in all three areas, those responding were relatively satisfied with their career.

Agriculture is particularly puzzling because, while 41 per cent would choose a different subject, more than 90 per cent are shown to be happy with their career. Only architects, builders and planners are more satisfied - and they are among the most content with their choice of course.

Even in computing, where applications have been dropping and 45 per cent said they would be likely to choose a different subject, 87 per cent were satisfied with their career. Social studies covers a variety of degrees, from economics to sociology, so it may be that some respondents feel that a slightly different emphasis would have interested them more.

Computing graduates (jointly, with those in the creative arts) are, it seems, the most inclined to wish they had chosen a different university. Almost a third felt this way, compared with a national average of just over one in five.

As with the subject questions, most graduates would not make a different choice if they had their time again, but enough had regrets for the survey to underline the importance of serious research at the application stage.

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