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Why You Should Study What You Love

3rd December 2017

study love

I no longer agree with the contents of this post.

1 year later, I realise that many times studying what you love can be a waste of time, money and energy. At university age, we usually have no idea what we love. So instead of doing what you think you love, I believe you’re better off building flexible career capital which means skills, a portfolio, connections and a chance to explore as many career paths as you wish, in order to figure out what personally fits you best. For a more updated and helpful version of this post check out the Adulting page. 😉

 


This post is inspired from Danny Dalah’s awesome music video: How to Pick A College Major.

As you might have guessed, the moral behind the song/video is that you should study what you love because we’re all f*cked anyway. Although funny and with a sad element of truth to it, I thought I would explore several other reasons why you, as a university student, you should definitely study what you love in university.

The FIRST thing to note is that you should study what you love if you are willing to do two things:

  • Work hard
  • Have a Plan B

Studying what you love means working 10 times harder to achieve your goals. Yes, you may earn more with a Business degree than an Arts degree, but if you put in the work and the dedication, the money will come rolling (not to mention you’ll be enjoying it!). And I say have a Plan B simply in case Plan A doesn’t work out (plus you won’t be worrying as much). A Plan B could be studying another degree at the same time, gaining work experience, earning certificated, etc.

So if you’re in the process of choosing your degree or thinking of changing (been there done that), I want to give you a few reasons why studying what you love is your best choice in university.

 

Education is not a means to an end

Imagine what would have happened if all the great thinkers, authors and artists went to university to ‘get a secure job’ and ‘get enough income to pay the bills’. Imagine if we all just studied a secure subject and ended up in a secure job with secure paychecks? Life would get pretty boring in my opinion.

Education is so much more than a ‘means to get a job’. You don’t go to university just to receive a piece of paper at the end which might or might not get a job. You go to learn about life, to make connections, to learn about something that interests you.

Education is part of life, and college is where you get your foundations to explore as much as possible (yes even the dodgy stuff)

Many people argue that university is an investment, especially considering the huge costs, effort and time, and therefore one should hope to get the highest paid job possible. I do believe it is an investment, but the return should not be a job but an overall better life.

You put in this money, time and effort to properly explore what university offers for you, to take advantage of every opportunity. That ranges from trying different degrees, joining clubs, taking part in activities, making connections (Freshers week is a YES). You want to make most of the university life, not just the degree.

university study what you love
university life can be pretty awesome

No guaranteed job

If you still haven’t watched Danny’s video, go watch it (which one are you? I’d say I’m either the dealer Business student or the Fine Arts History one). Getting a degree gave you a stable job and income 30 years ago, but not anymore.

Not only that, but in this day and age you can enter employment with pretty much any degree (hello English teachers). I got a job as a Digital Marketing assistant and guess what? I didn’t even have a degree (I was 18 lol).

Everyone gets degrees nowadays, so getting a Business and management Bachelor’s sadly won’t make you stand out from the crowd. So you have to do extra activities, gain some work experience, earn some achievements. By doing this you can study what you love and also gain some hands on experience to show how serious you are. Or you can also use this extra experience as a Plan B if you’re not feeling confident about your degree (for example: earning the TEFL certificate to teach English).

There are well-paid people in every field, and life is really too short to ignore an opportunity to work at what you love. Do you really imagine yourself doing something you dislike for the next 40 years? Not me.

 

Your happiness

I think it’s fair to say we all agree that a high salary does not correlate with high job satisfaction. And your job satisfaction is a genuinely important factor to consider when choosing your degree: will I be happy working at this? Will I do this for long? Will I feel fulfilled? If you’re not sure, get an internship or try it part-time.

If you end up in a job doing something you enjoy, you’ll be much more productive, willing to work and trying to produce better results. I can do wayy more hours of work now that I work online. Before, the 3 hours a day at a desk job nearly killed me. I know which one I’ll be choosing for the future.

But when I say happiness I don’t only mean your job satisfaction, I also mean your happiness at university. What will matter for the rest of your life is whether you had an inspiring, exciting and life-changing time at university, not the practicality of your degree. And studying something that truly interests you will only improve the experience.

study food study what you love
love food? maybe there’s a degree in it…

The combination

What you love and what you’re good at can be two different things (beer pong does not count). Ideally, we want a job that combines both, and that’s actually easier than you think. Can’t find one? Invent. Over at Nerd Fitness, Steve Kamb wanted to write about fitness but include all the ‘nerdy stuff’ in it too. He did a great job of it.

I’m good at translating, and I enjoy writing fiction. Job idea: translating novels. I enjoy and am good at other things. What about you? What combinations do you think you could find? There are many job possibilities out there, you just have to try them out and see what works best for you (blogger is a great one too).

 

Remember that it’s never too late

People change careers at 30, 40 and 50. Remember that you will always have the option to change if you see what you are doing is not a viable option. Another reason why you should use university as an opportunity to explore: to expand your options.

I started my degree with Accounting w/ Law because I knew I wanted to understand how people kept track of their money. I’m one semester in and I realise I really can’t do this for an entire year, so I’m changing course to International Business. My dream is to have my own business and I’m thinking that a degree in Business is a good start (without the drug dealing, of course).

Remind yourself that you want life to be happy and fulfilling. So don’t be scared/hesitant to keep looking for the vocation which will bring you the highest degree of satisfaction.

steve jobs study what you love
from the mouth of a genius

Here at Financially Mint one of my goals is to show students and young adults how to take control of their money through good money habits, the right mentality and other tips. Another of my goals is to show students that life is not all about work. Life is not all about the 9 to 5 grind, about earning money just to pay the bills and complaining about your boss.

I want to show fellow twenty something year olds how they can take control of their money so they have the space to focus on what really matters: life. In the personal finance world, this is called financial independence or financial freedom: being able to do what you enjoy and not purely because of the money (although it will always play a small part).

A lot of awesome millennial personal finance bloggers talk about their lives changing at the ages of 30/40 as they fixed their finances, changed jobs, and pursued financial independence. But what if you could reach financial independence right out of university? What if you could focus the rest of your life doing what you enjoy, exploring the world and pursuing your ‘passion’? It’s not impossible and it’s not just a dream. In fact, you can get started now: by choosing a degree that you love.

 

 

A little side note: Danny made some AWESOME haikus about personal finance in college for me, and I thought it would be a cool idea to post them around my social media. There are 10 in total, and I’m going to be giving a cool $5 Amazon voucher to the first person who can find the 10 and email them all to me (it will be over the course of several days).

Here’s the first one!

If you can read this,

You can likely teach English,

Go forth and profit.

 

 

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Financially Mint is on another break! ☕ I will Financially Mint is on another break! ☕

I will be living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the next few months, and then hopefully heading to Australia. 
My plans for the next year:

I'm putting the career testing theory into practice. My next career test is working for an NGO here in Kuala Lumpur. This week will be my first week. I will be working with sex trafficking survivors and I've also been asked to do some financial education presentations to help the staff.

After that the plan is to move to Melbourne, Australia, and do my next career test: consulting. If that doesn't work out I will try another career test which may be more achievable: business development in a startup. Thanks to the amazing career books that I've read, I'm pretty confident I can get an interesting job. We'll see how it rolls. 🏀

How am I funding this? I'm very excited to say that I've managed to grow my part-time freelancing income to a full-time income that can sustain me in South East Asia (I would need to work full-time in Europe). I'm calling myself a 'Freelance FinTech Writer'. Rent is crazy cheap (like 300€/month) and it's literally cheaper to eat out than cook. I'm still able to save 15% of my income. 🎉🎉 The increase in clients and pay has been thanks to all the effort I put into Financially Mint, and to some crazy cold emailing and networking in the past few months. 
After some thought, I concluded that learning mark-up language (HTML + CSS) was a more efficient use of my time than writing blog posts and working on FM... so I am now taking a break to learn some basic coding and decide what to do next.

I will still be podcasting and taking part in the FI community on Twitter and everywhere else... so I'll still be seeing you around 😉

To our success 🎉🎉
Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄 Let's sa Only 30% of jobs are posted online. 🙄

Let's say you've got a list of career paths to test. You've figured out a direction, you know which sector you want to work in and you've got some cool companies in mind.

But then what? How do you get an internship in the company you really want to work for? How do you get a job in that specific NGO? How do you get them to notice you? 🤔

In FM's latest post I share a strategy that I am still testing but seems to work - copied from a book titled 'Designing your Life' by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans:

The strategy: Conducting 'Life Design' Interviews. .
A Life Design Interview is basically meeting the person that has your 'dream career' for coffee. ☕

You find someone who is working at the company you want to work for, in the sector you want to work for or simply has a position you're interested in, and you reach out to them (LinkedIn helps). You ask about their story, their position, how they got to where they are and their advice to people starting out. 
This is what I've been doing for the past month in Edinburgh, and of the 40 people I contacted, I met 8 of them for coffee, my goal to simply learn about their story.

With an added bonus: Trust. ✅

Not only did I learn stuff about working in a startup, or as a content writer or working in an NGO, but I also built a trusted connection. It's those connections that help you find the hidden jobs, the dream careers and the best opportunities.

Check out FM's latest post for a proper run down on Life Design interviews. 💪 (Last week we organised the FI Europe podcast retreat! An amazing 4 days doing speeches, masterminds, debates, boat trips, beach and surfing. Post on this coming soon 🔥)
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #careerbuilding #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #fieurope #lifedesign #interviews
Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads Investing in yourself now will return bucket loads in the future. 🔮

I talk a lot about this on Financially Mint - how taking the time to build career capital and explore career paths will allow you to find a career of best personal fit, which will then make you the money you need.

But it is true that I am personally at the very start of this journey, and so can't offer many examples of this working. 🤷‍♀️ Well today, this changes as I interview the Financial Gladiator, who did exactly that.

He went to university to study business in Poland, and finished his masters in Australia. In the meantime, he was doing internships, making connections, building skills and beefing up his portfolio. 
He says it himself: ' I always looked to add experience and skills to my repertoire rather than dollars' 💸.
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7 internships later in several different countries and industries and a lot of hustling, moving around and learning about what career fitted him best, FG ended up in a job that paid him a six figure salary. This kept on snowballing, and in his early thirties he hit a salary of over $500,000. .
That goes to show how much investing in yourself can return in the future.
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$500,000 annual salary doesn't need to be your goal, but it still goes to show that you'll make the bulk of your money after investing in your own career. 📈

A great interview filled with actionable career advice and FG's complete story, check out FM's latest blog post! (Edinburgh castle 🔥)
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #studentmoney #studenthacks #studentlife #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #careerbuilding #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #work
Most of us don't know what we want to do in our tw Most of us don't know what we want to do in our twenties 🤷‍♀️. And that's absolutely normal.

But that's why we don't want to be committing to one thing - who know what you might want to do in 5 years? 🧐

Instead of committing, why not be exploring, investigating and testing career paths. But how can you do this cleverly without being a typical 'millennial-career-hopper'? By building career capital at the same time.

This means that every career test you do will help you build skills, connections and a more solid portfolio. If you have no idea where to start, here are some examples of jobs/activities that can help you build career capital:

1. Working for a growing organisation with a growing performance: this could be consulting, a startup - anywhere with a good mentor and team 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦
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2. Graduate studies - for those who want to work in research, a think tank, etc.
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3. Building a valuable and transferable skill - skills such as writing, programming, designing, data science, etc will always be useful in the future 💻
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4. Creating content - you don't always need a shiny piece of paper or a medal to show that you've done something. Creating your own thing can be just as useful.
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And much more amazing career advice... in FM's latest blog post 🤓
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(I’m running out of pictures to post so here’s one of a beautiful evening in Edinburgh) .
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#financiallymint #budget #budgeting #personalfinance #savinghacks #makemoney #savemoney #money #studentmoney #studenthacks #studentlife #shoestringbudget #moneyhacks #moneysavinghacks #financialeducation #financialfreedom #adulting #savingtricks #earnmoney #lifeadvice #counsel #careeradvice #retirement #investing #peoplemanagement #skillbuilding #career #selfimprovement #inspiring #work
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