I’m starting university this autumn & these are my main options. Reasons:
~ Accounting: guaranteed job from my boyfriend (businessman) to gain experience. Stable, monotonous, office job - which I like. I like routine. Comfy earning potential.
~ Foreign languages: I love language learning. Can get into the advanced group for German since I already know it well. In demand languages. Good earning potential & opportunities.
~ Physiotherapy: stable job, comfy salary. Relatively routine & chill.
I would do the languages as a minor or double major.
Where do you see your life going?
Accountability is a bet on a stable routine. You’ll go to work, earn money, go home, spend money. A lot of people are happy with this.
Languages could take you many directions, with endless opportunities to climb into various international organizations and take on a broad range of tasks. If you’re willing to work hard, learn other skills, and move around, you could have a very interesting life. If you want to stay where you are, options are likely to be more limited.
Physiotherapy offers maybe a middle ground. You won’t climb as much, but there’s work, and you can move around if you want to, even though work will not require it. You can have a routine in life, but one that is maybe easier to break free from if you want to.
As you like the idea of a stable monotonous office job,maybe accounting is perfect for you. Personally I need something that pushes me around a bit - I’m terrified of staying in one place far too long.
At this moment probably the accounting route.
I wouldn’t be comfortable aligning my career goals that way. Just because my boyfriend offered a job at the end of the tunnel. Love can be fickle.
If you have a passion for languages and would enjoy that more I’d consider that first.
But OP these are 3 drastically different career paths and it seems you might not have a strong grasp on what you’d like to do.
Getting into something for the money exclusively can lead you down an uncomfortable rabbit hole. So you need to ask yourself how you feel about doing these roles for another 20+ years.
So ask yourself how much time and money you’re willing to invest in a career path that could change. It’s not impossible to go back to school and try something else later on in life. But life has a way of locking you in.
Conversely, not having money also sucks and should be considered
I’d go for languages, they’re cool and you can do lots of stuff with them. I followed my passion too and it turned out great for me. It’s not just about the subject of your study, but also about the people you meet at uni. The contacts can then help you to get an interesting job. And you’ll find friends that are nerdy the same way as you!
Accounting 100% if it were me. You can study language privately and an accounting degree will give you some stability if you decide to pursue physiotherapy later on
Completely agree. Although I have known a few people who went for accounting because of the reasons OP gave and absolutely HATED it. So it’s important to make sure you can actually handle it as a day job
Having accounting training is beneficial even if you hate accounting. Even if you only get through the first year and decide to switch, having that initial training means you know what’s what later in life when dealing with accountants and auditors.
Plus, it’s useful to be able to manage your own personal finances.
I did accounting because you can do that for any company, it’s such a flexible career. I’ve done jobs that were mostly IT and jobs that were mostly numbers in Excel, for different companies in different industries and have never had to work anywhere I think is evil, nor at any location with a long commute.
So if you enjoy that sort of work, accounting is a good degree. Technically my concentration was accounting systems, but right now I am doing more just accounting with a really good group of people.
Accounting. The advice given to me when I went to college was “major in something ‘practical’ and minor in what you love”. I think that was good advice. That way you end up with in-demand skills and a solid fallback, but by doing minors and extra certificates, you get to spend time learning things you’re passionate about, and you can demonstrate to future employers that you are well-rounded and adaptable.
If it were me, I’d major in accounting or physiotherapy and, if possible, minor in a language (probably Mandarin).
I’m sure you’ll have enough electives for a language minor if you’re dedicated to it, but sometimes there are other fun courses that you want to take more, like abnormal psych or some cool topic in literature or an intro computer science course.
If you don’t like what you’re studying, don’t be afraid to change your major. It’s not the end of the world and you’ll probably be happier.
My country doesn’t offer minors. 😒
Ah. I guess electives are just for fun then? Do they even have them? I hope they do, since my electives were some of the most fun I had at university (because I hated my major).
There aren’t really any “electives”. Even all the “optional” courses are related to your specialisation & you’re required to take them (a certain number of them).
Aw, that’s not great. :( I’m sure you can still have a good time though.
There are probably some “day in the life” YouTube videos from people in the professions you’re interested in if you’re into that kind of thing.
I have a huge passion for Chinese. At the same time I still pursued a career in IT. The reason being that just learning a language won’t open any doors, you need marketable skills as well that employers value. I’d recommend studying for it on your own time or during an extended time off from work. Either way, it takes an enormous amount of hours to get to a proficiency which will have a positive effect in your career. In much less time you’ll be able to learn something else and probably have a higher chance of being employed and also earning more.
Nonetheless, learning a language is incredibly enriching.
I suck at languages so im not sure asking me is good for you. Im also not a super hands on person so I guess I would go accounting but mmm. Seems a bit to boring. In the us you can have minor or minors to go with your major and I have sometimes thought if I was to do it over I should have been a math major an then grabbed like an accounting or finance minor and a cs minor.
Accounting. Based on recent experience job-hunting, it’s in high demand.
It depends on how you want to approach college. Career is one aspect of college. You should focus on your interests and strengths.
