Some people believe that college students should consider only their own talents and interests when choosing a field of study. Others believe that college students should base their choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field.Writ

“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life” is a very famous said by Confucius, and one of the most used ones in term of advising people about their future. And while the saying holds some true to it, there are very different circumstances between the time and place where Confucius lived and the when and where the student will. In the next paragraphs I will explain why I aling more with the belief that we should base our choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field.

First, while it is true that our talents and skills help us develop better in certain subjects and jobs, there is also true that some helpful and useful knowledge and abilities can be learnt through the way. There is a lot of people that are naturally bad for mathematics, nonetheless they study hard and practice until they master the theory and ability to solve mathematics problems.

Second, as I mentioned before, doing what we love and living out of it is the ideal case. But unfortunately, we don’t always have the opportunity to develop in a field we love. Or sometimes we don’t even know what it is that we love to do. In these cases, it is important to be conscious enough to understand that the present economy is bad, even for some of the good careers. Another issue one has to consider is that living is expensive. Everything cost, and the prices are not exactly coming down; bills, food, rent, gasoline, entertainment, and if you are married and have children this becomes even a bigger issue.

Some people could easily follow their interests and choose their dream career, even if there is a huge lack of jobs in that field, but mostly if they are already rich or have inherited a lot of money. Realistically, not much people can have such luck, and even those people have to realize that with bad investments, money goes away. So, for the most of us, we have to take care of not going into careers with bad rates of employement, either because they are saturated or simply because there are not many jobs, or at least, well-paid jobs.

Personally, I was in the group of people that did not know exactly what to do with his life. I knew what type of abilities I had and some subjects that I liked more than other, but never had a passion about a particular career. So, I began looking and asking for advice, and went with the option that would apparently lead me to a good job with a good payment. Fortunately, not only this resulted to be true, and I can afford living with what I earn in my job, but I also ended up really liking my career by the end of College.

To summarize, while there are certain advantages to follow up our dreams, and the ideal situation would be to live out of what you love doing, the reality of our economy have a bigger weight when looking for a decent job with a decent pay. Taking into account the availability of jobs, their pay and the expenses we have should help us decide along with our interests the best option for our future.