Useless subjects, few jobs

I wonder whether the attempt to raise popular awareness and understanding of engineering through the Year of Engineering Success (THES, September 13) will halt the sharp decline in the number of students needed.

As a recently retired academic I still get frantic appeals from my old psychology students for help when faced with a career in Pizza Hut as the only alternative to one of the new counselling courses; at the same time as I see that any new university (Lincoln is the latest) can set up a course in the subject.

The problem is that the more practically useless a subject is, the less jobs it will provide, the more its students will be driven to become academics, the better it will be taught, and the more students it will attract. When law and accountancy were flourishing as professions 15 years ago, the teaching was dreadful and it was hard to recruit good students; now that there are few jobs for such graduates, the teaching is often first-rate. As long as there is a demand for bridges, roads and aeroplanes, engineering teaching will be awful and students unwise enough to choose the subject will soon add to the 30 per cent drop-out rate to which your article refers.

SIMON CAREY London NW3