Wow, what a wholly narrow-minded, and in some cases infactual, rant. In fact, pretty much everything you're saying is ignoring the point that to do research - not just in science - you need a HDR. Undergraduate degrees do not provide you with this, with the exception of honours. Once you consider that, everything should come into perspective. This is going to come across as condescending and rude, I'm sure - but considering you just insulted a lot of my friends for their choices, I think it's a little warranted. I'm sure a lot of this has been said already, but I flat out don't have the time to read your references AND all the posts - so I'm sticking to just your references, to really flesh out my points.
Speaking of, reverse order, let's start with the references:
http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/research/researchreports/gradstats/
I'm going to use the 2017 document. Graduates in psychology, science and mathematics, and social sciences, were at greater risk of being in a part-time employment position instead of full-time work. These are all fields that, once again, require a HDR to even get employment in their field. That's shit.
BUT compare to the fields that had the best employment rate - medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, rehabilitation, teacher education, AND veterinary science. All of these courses are common follow-ons from students in a science or biomedical degree. Because, once again, science and biomed are courses that are not designed to get you employed in those fields - they are designed to prepare you for the course that will. Do not believe this is me agreeing with you entirely - all I'm saying is that to get a job in science or biomed, you need more than an undergraduate science or biomed degree. Meanwhile, if you want a job in one of these more employable fields, science or biomed are the perfect choice in undergraduate degrees for graduate-level entry.
https://theconversation.com/amp/graduating-into-a-weak-job-market-why-so-many-grads-cant-find-work-45222
I must have read this article wrong, because it only seems to talk about why nobody can find a job? Next.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/a-bubble-about-to-burst-why-we-dont-need-more-maths-and-science-graduates-15007
This is such a great article, lots of pretty graphs. So, unfortunately, science is once again quite low. But you know what's not? IT. Engineering. Health. Education. Once again, the fields that directly improve when either partnered with a science degree, or when science is used for graduate entry.
By this point, you may want to argue that education only benefits from a science degree if that teacher wants to teach high level science. However,
there are plenty of studies that not only suggest we need better science and maths education in Australia, but teachers of those subjects are more likely to be hired.
https://grattan.edu.au/the-number-of-science-graduates-are-growing-but-the-jobs-are-not/
It looks like the stats for this article are the same as the one above, so I'm just going to save both of our time and move on. So, on to your own points:
I'm sure this information may suprise many of you as it's swept under the rug unless students go out of their way to research it for themselves. But going by information from grad stats as well as numerous other statistics. it's evident that a bachelor of science is awful for jobs. Not just awful but the lowest across the board, much lower than Arts.
"swept under the rug"? I'm assuming you're directly implying that Monash do this? Seeing as how every other point seems Monash specific. Because, they don't. Every time the faculty hosts a career event, they flat out state, "most science students do not get a job in science". In the last three open days, they've run two information sessions EACH DAY where they flat out state this. They're very open about the fact that most science students don't get a job in science. Science graduates are employed for their skills, not their knowledge - the maths and stats skills that follow, the ability to think analytically, and apply the scientific method. To know when someone's dressing up a pretty argument to hide the crap beneath it.
In fact, one of the most common pathways is for
physicists to get hired in finance. This isn't the only example, of course - I know people getting hired (with a science degree) as IT assistants, marketing (for Nintendo, no less), and even for the circus (and yes, the science degree was actually important for this one). Science graduates do not get jobs in research because they are not qualified for research unless they have a HDR - but they are more than qualified with plenty of employable skills.
The vast majority of science graduates have found work unrelated to any science fields they studied. Moreover the vast majority of science grads go back to commence further study in the hopes of landing a job.
Yes, where they commence study in engineering, IT, education, health, etc. All of which have great job prospects. And here's a point - what's wrong with enjoying science so much that you want to study it before transitioning into a masters of engineer, IT, education, or a health related degree? You have to do an undergraduate degree anyway, and as you say, it doesn't have to be in science or biomed - but they're a lot more applicable than, say, arts or law. Sure, you get a different type of qualification, but if it's the science and biomed you enjoy more, you're more likely to score well - and in doing so, get the score you need - to be able to enrol in these masters programs.
Biomed is another popular degree, some have the misconception it will lead to medicine. And the answer is not really, at least not more so than any other degree. You will need to average High distinctions at uni across the board for 3 or 4 years to even be considered for an interview this average score is called a WAM and is used for entry to uni courses.
The WAM for Med is really high. 80+ and you would still need to sit a GAMSAT And get in the highest percentile to be accepted into med anywhere. It must be noted Monash is one of the few unis to use a WAM requirement and the majority use GPA instead. I'm not familiar with this selection process so if a biomed degree has more incentives for a GPA based selection criteria please let me know.
Once again, pretty sure it's highly advertised that these are the type of scores you need to get into medicine. You can't blame universities for people ignoring them.
Now if your heart is set on graduate entry med no worries you can do it. But I recommend a backup course like optometry or something like accounting in case you don't make it, have a good backup. Because like a bachelor of science bio med has dreadful job prospects if you want to work in a field related to science, used to be better but research has been dead in Australia for a while.
Dead? Really? With companies like Telstra, CSIRO, Dulux, TPG, GSK, CSL, Orica, Rio Tinto, museums and art galleries, as well as the universities themselves? Not to mention all the governmental and industry positions that aren't direct research, but the people hired to explain that research? Once again, requires a HDR degree, and they're nowhere near dead.
And before you get an article on HDR students leaving the country to find research jobs, the explanation for doing so is actually really simple - most universities will not higher you for research if you have not moved around. Most of these students end up returning to Australia, but unfortunately these aren't stats that people care about, so I can't seem to find an article for it - as this is something that typically happens years after they finish their HDR. All anybody seems to care about is getting a job in Australia within a year - which, guess what, isn't what happens in this field. That doesn't mean it's dead or a scam, it just means it's a different pathway.
I'm going to diverge a bit and throw my 2 cents on a bachelor of pharmacy, I'd encourage you all read posts about current pharmacies and the work conditions as well as low salary which can't even keep up with inflation. While job prospects are good the career outlooks aren't good at all.
I've never done pharmacy so I won't get into the details but I'd encourage everyone to do research and get your voices heard.
Only way change will happen to make it a viable course again would be if people speak out.
I know nothing about pharmacy, so unfortunately cannot throw my two cents in. However, I'd like to point out that your first reference highlights it as a job with large employment opportunities - on top of that,
this source implies entry salaries of more than 45k. While this isn't on the high end of salaries, you can easily lead a comfortable life with this, on top of that at the higher end (88k) you get extremely close to a 6-figure salary. I've also found
other sources that are easily implying it's even better than the first, presumably because the other site was American, but I decided to assume the worst for you.
You may, of course, be basing your arguments off of
this article however note that the low of 44k is only for the intern year, with the median hitting almost 67k after the intern year. Yes, this is lower than other health professions - however, the difference is that pharmacists don't have to be hospital trained, the others do. Hospital trained pharmacists will, in general, make more. In fact, the article itself specifically cites community pharmacists as the ones with bad relative pay. That doesn't mean pharmacy is a poor career choice - it just means that if what you want is the higher pay, make sure to get employed at a hospital. If what you want is a job you can live off of and be fulfilled by, then you're fine no matter where you work.
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Once again, sorry if this came out as offensive or brash - but you really need to open your mind-view a bit about this. If your friends are upset because they didn't realise what they signed up for, I'm sorry, but the university wasn't trying to hide any of this - and in fact are very open about it at their openly advertised, and free, employability events, including the career fair, and the industry nights. On top of that, all of these statistics? Look much better the moment you have a science honours degree - the stats I can't find the source of, but I'm happy to go talk to chemistry honours coordinator who supplied me with the stats that suggested this. On top of that, to memory, it showed that science has the greatest improvement in employability, particularly in science related fields, once you had an honours degree when compared to other fields (such as arts and commerce) when those students got an honours degree.
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