Reply to I'm telling my kids to go to the UK for undergrad

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

From the Law Society of the UK.

Here are some examples of friends who changed majors at US universities. If you assure me that each of these changes is possible at a UK university, I will stand down

Engineering to Math and Scandinavian Studies
Chemistry to English literature
Biochemistry to Biology
Biology to American History
Political Science to Economics
Physics to physics with an English literature minor
[/quote]

The fact that you can switch from engineering to scandinavian studies tells you how shallow the US undergrad courses are. This is for dilettantes, not a serious education.

I studied history for my undergraduate degree. I became an economist, my friends who studied the subject became lawyers, journalists, producers, script writers, academics. I know people who studied medicine that now work in the City or media. So your statement that you need to choose a career path at 17 is simply incorrect. The purpose of your undergraduate degree is to give you a solid foundation in an area of study, to teach you how to research, to think, and to express your ideas. The subject is irrelevant in the vast majority of cases.[/quote]

I agree with you that for many professions, the undergraduate degree's subject is not particularly important. In subjects that require math and lab skills that build on each other, this would be less true. However, it is this flexibility that I think is lacking in the UK. My friend who majored in engineering had taken many of the early prerequisites for a math major, since there is some overlap. He was therefore easily able to switch. He did this at UC Berkeley, not a university known for its "shallow" education. He added Scandinavian studies as a minor. He went on to do a PhD in math at a top program.In the UK, he would only have been able to make that switch if the A levels required were the same and both fields issued offers of similar grades at A level.

I'm particularly interested in how you became an economist with a history degree. I too am an economist. To apply to a US PhD program in economics, you need math at least through mu!ltivariate calculus, preferably differential equations. You also need some statistics on your transcript. In the US, with 4 year degrees and much broader degree require!ents, it's relatively easy to fulfill these requirements while majoring in something other than economics. In the UK, with three year degrees and most of your coursework in your major field, how did you pull this off? Especially if you hadn't done Maths and Further Maths at A-level?[/quote]

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