Non-law first degrees: which, if any, is the best buy?

Many people are thinking
about their choice of degree
at a fairly tender age ...

I've just been reading an interesting little piece on the UKSC Blog (UKSC being "UK Supreme Court") on whether it's better to enter legal practice with a law degree or without one. In some areas, getting started is well-nigh impossible without a strong non-law basis. For example, anyone wishing to practise as a patent attorney is pretty well incapacitated without a degree-level science background.  The only people who don't need to know anything about science and technology to make their way in the field of patents are, in the UK anyway, the judiciary, who can sit as Chancery judges in patent cases and indeed hear appeals as far as the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court without any possessing any specific or general scientific base.  This lack of scientific education is shared by most members of the Court of Justice of the European Union, but that's another story.

What I'm thinking about right now is this: both academic and practical legal education goes out of date pretty quickly; that's why continuing legal education is so important.  Science and technology change too, but within the IP community there is less need to force practitioners to retrain regularly: the nature of their work and the separate need for expert witnesses sees to that.  But in terms of getting a foothold in one of the IP professions and then climbing the ladder, what sort of non-law first degree works best? Does one opt for a white-hot new technology in a rapidly evolving field, where everything is new but practical applications may be uncertain or unknown? Or perhaps a mature technology is best, where things are more stable in terms of markets for products and processes and there's a regular flow of incremental innovation? Or again, something more mathematical, as a better means of cultivating analytical habits of thought?

It would be good to hear from readers as to which non-law degree they reckon to be a "best buy" for the next generations of IP practitioners.