How should you choose a career so you don’t end up regretting it?

There is little left for the university entrance exams (EBAU, EvAU or selectivity for the oldest in the place) and once this obstacle is overcome, hundreds of thousands of students will have to face one of the most transcendental decisions in life: choose university career.

The main problem with a wrong choice is the opportunity cost, since the lost years are not recovered. But also, many people move on because they don’t know that lost time is a sunk cost and continue to drag themselves through an unsatisfactory professional life. The ideal is make a reasoned choice to avoid regrets.

Don’t just focus on “what you like”

We live in a society in which “do what you like” is highly promoted. And this leads to professional performances that in principle should be very satisfactory but in reality are not so much. Because in life you are not happy only because of a job you like, but there are other variables, such as stability, money or health.

An area that falls within “what you like” but that only provides temporary contracts and ridiculous salaries demoralizes and very quickly. Therefore, I would only recommend this route to someone who comes from a wealthy family who knows that they have a large safety net to reinvent themselves or simply live on other sources of income.

Note that there are also careers “liked” with good job opportunities but also unsatisfactory on a personal levelFor example, there are jobs that require long hours or guards, and this prevents many people from leading a comfortable life.

Nor go for the career that pays the most money

The opposite option is to go for the career with the greatest job opportunities, but it is not the best idea either. Something that does not satisfy individually is very hard to bear.. And work is something that is done many hours a year.

Therefore choosing only for money is not the best of ideas. Especially when the ranking changes radically in not so long. An example is the fashion of doing Physiotherapy at the end of the 90s, because there was supposed to be a lot of demand. The fashion was such that it was the highest cut-off grade in many universities. And yet in the latest job placement surveys of university students they gave ridiculous salaries, one of the lowest.

Find a balance

The solution to this dilemma is easy to explain but difficult to implement, like almost everything important in life. Career choice should be a combination of four things: something that is enjoyable to do, something that you are good at, something that is in some demand by society, and something that allows you to lead the lifestyle you want. If we manage to combine the three things, the choice will be good: it will provide satisfaction, we will be valued as professionals, it will pay well and we will be able to lead the life we ​​want.

I say that it is easier to explain than to implement because at 17-18 years old it is not clear everything we know how to do well and nor if we really like something because of the bombastic name of a career. Society’s demand can be studied, but of course, these things change as we have seen with Physiotherapy. Knowing the lifestyle that a career allows is not easy, but you have to ask yourself if working long hours is pleasant, if working outdoors or inside an office, if we want to have guards, rigid or flexible hours or if we want to travel . All this is difficult to know, but there are sectors (officials, health, etc.) where the conditions are known by doing a little research.

In the end, it must be clear that if the decision has been wrong, it is best to make a change and not dwelling on a choice that was made when you were still very young. This flexibility is also very useful in other aspects of life.