The point of this post is to get you thinking about yourself, reflecting on your interests.
I don’t care what your parents say, if you pick a uni course that you don’t like just because the career will pay well, I guarantee you will drop out before graduating or worse yet, suffer through a job you hate for the rest of your life.
If you’re starting uni or looking to transition from a course that isn’t what you expected into something you love, this post is for you!
Table of Contents
The Core Focus
I believe uni should be about 1 thing:
Fulfilment.
Fulfilment of dreams, fulfilment of leisure, fulfilment of education.
I also believe it’s impossible to achieve fulfilment unless one truly knows themself.
With this being true, it’s straight-up stupid to enrol in a uni degree based purely on career salary. This is because you’re basically ignoring your true identity, forcing one that will never fit.
The core focus of choosing a degree should never be salary and it should never be prestige.
When choosing a degree, I beg you to think only about what you love and what you’re good at. Between the two I’m sure you can find a happy medium that’ll fit perfectly.
It’s just not worth throwing your money into a degree that you’ll never finish. Instead, you should worry about picking something that will seem easy because of how damn enjoyable it is!
Figure Out What You’re Good At
The first step to finding that degree of your dreams is to reflect on where your skills lie.
This is important because it shows you what you’ll succeed in and where you’ll be willing to put in the work.
Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean great marks. It means persistence.
What are you constantly doing? And, are you continually improving in that area? If the answer is yes, then I reckon you should consider that area.
Uni is about further learning. You aren’t expected to be an expert yet, but it does help to know a little about the subject.
Be real here. If you absolutely suck at math, a course with lots of numbers probably isn’t the best fit.
Some questions to ask yourself are:
- What did I excel in during the HSC?
- Do I research anything on my phone/computer?
- What do I do in my spare time?
- When I’m on YouTube, what do I watch?
The aim here is to come up with a foundation for studying something that you know you can see through to graduation. We’re then going to narrow that down in the next section…
Think About What You Enjoy
Alrighty, now that you have a list of the areas you’re good at, I want you to think about which of those areas you enjoy.
Have a look through the topics you’ve listed and consider which of those topics you would choose to study first, which you would choose to read about and more importantly, which ones you really didn’t like all too much.
Hopefully, this will let you cut down on topics by getting rid of anything you don’t enjoy.
The aim here is to end up with three or four different topics that you’re both good at and enjoy a lot.
Visualise A Future
Now that you have some areas that you are good at and that you enjoy, it’s time to think about the future.
Picture yourself in 5 years, what do you see?
Then picture that same self 40 years later, what does your world look like?
Based on those answers we are going to narrow down the options into actual courses.
Some answers could be:
- In 5 years I want to be wearing a suit
- I see myself working for a big company
- I want to own my own business
- When I’m older I can see myself retiring with a family and kids
- I see myself travelling for a living
- I can visualise myself working for individual clients
The list is whatever you make it, just make sure you can see something and make sure it’s true to who you really are.
For example…
When I was choosing my business degree, I thought about these four things:
- What subjects did I do really well in during high school?
- English, Maths, Business, Economics
- Of those subjects, which ones did I enjoy the most?
- Business & Economics
- What did I usually do in my spare time?
- Investing, Finance & Sport
- Where can I see myself in 5 years?
- In a suit, working in the city
And just like that, my Business Degree majoring in Finance and Economics was born.
By now you should have a similar list to what I had (with different answers of course). From that list, I want you to research possible courses by going to your favourite uni’s website and simply typing the keyword into their course search bar.
For example, if you finished with:
- Good at PDHPE
- Likes to play sport
- Pictures yourself working for your favourite team
I want you to simply type “sport” into the search bar. You’ll probably see results along the lines of Sports Science, Physiotherapy and Sport management.
Take An Online Test or Two
If the above steps haven’t gotten you very far then there is another option. This can also be good just to reinforce the options you’ve landed on already.
Go to Google and search “what uni course should I do?”
There should be multiple free, online quizzes that pop up by different universities.
One of the tests I used after finishing high school was the QUT – Match My Skills online test.
Try a few and see what answers you get. This should give you a more accurate idea of where your passions lie and what your skills are.
Make sure you write down the courses that interest you so you can compare similar courses at different unis later on!
Hopefully, you’re now equipped with some valuable options for further study that you’re both good at and enjoy a lot.
Remember, the aim is to find a course that you will love. The core focus at uni is always fulfilment and that won’t come from a course that you hate!
Now get out there and begin researching for your future self…
For an Uncle Nathan guide to your first year of uni, check out this post!
Always,
Uncle N.