Life QotW: What's Your Major?
What was your major in college? Does your major apply to what you're doing in life now?
I did an arts degree at university with majors in English Literature and Indonesian. In choosing these subjects, I was mainly guided by my interests rather than any thought of them being useful in getting a job after I graduated. While I did eventually get a job using my Indonesian (quite amazing really), I only stayed in this role for a few years and I since have spent most of my working life in areas that are nothing to do with what I studied at university. The skills I learnt from my degree, such as researching and writing, have been useful though. Outside of work, I have used my Indonesian to travel and maintain friendships with people from Indonesia and Malaysia (even though most of them speak English better than I speak Indonesian!). I still love books and literature and recently went back to university to get my high school teaching qualification. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to work as a teacher right now (the pay is rather atrocious and I would have to start right from the bottom) but do get some opportunities to practise my teaching on my own kids and anyone else who needs a hand. I tutored a girl doing final year English last year and found that quite enjoyable and also rewarding as this girl managed to get her marks up quite considerably during the time I was tutoring her. She has since gone on to the study teaching at university herself and will be fully qualified by the end of next year and hopefully working in a school after that.
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Comments
I really want to improve my English speaking and hearing..
I made the same 'mistake' of doing a degree in what I was ineterested in without much thought about how useful it will be down the line. If I could go back I would still study what I was interested in but more in line with something that would get me into a better job. Still, I can think of worse jobs than teaching (despite the low pay).
It's interesting how many people (perhaps even most) end up doing jobs not related to their field of study.
True, AJ, although I do think the skills you learn in doing a degree can be transferrable to a whole range of different subject areas. I imagine you did a lot of statistics as part of your population studies which could be useful for the financial sector. Also makes you a more well-rounded banker. How dull would life be if we all studied things like finance for our degrees and then spent our whole working life diong the same thing. I also went back and did an MBA later on and found it good because my experience of working actually made it seem more relevant and interesting.