Risk

Throughout my college career, there were several decisions I made to manage my life track and to plan for my future as an adult. Even before setting foot on this campus, I made the all-important decision of attending this university over the other three I had been admitted to. While the University of Illinois was not the most prestigious university I was accepted to, I decided to attend due to the proximity from my house in the suburbs of Chicago and the scholarship I received which significantly reduced my cost of attendance. I made the decision because of the looming debt that I would have accumulated going to a more expensive school and since I was in charge of paying for my own education, I hade to be conscious of the bills I would be paying after college. My brother, who graduated from Elmhurst College in 2004, stressed to me the importance of limiting the amount of student loans that I took out due to the adjustable interest rates and the likelihood that I would be deferring my payments until after college. Loan payments coupled with future rent, grocery and possible car payments can easily drain a bank account and be very detrimental towards the savings I could be accumulating in the early part of my career after college.

Risk avoided doesn’t always involve a tangible financial decision, which is something I discovered at the end of my sophomore year. After struggling for two years in the engineering college being unhappy with my classes and myself, I came to the decision that it was time for a change in my career path and my major. I realized that at the end of the day that if I truly hated what I was studying and had no extracurricular interest in what I could be doing after college, then the money I made would not be worth the internal unhappiness. After a summer spent researching possible other majors that interested me, I decided on economics due to the broadness of the major and its ties to the world of business. While the opening salary out of college for an economics major is not as high as an aerospace engineer, I valued the freedom that economics gave me in relation to the job market. An economics degree with a business minor gave me the possibility to pursue jobs in data analytics, financial planning, business administration and even accounting (even though I do not ever see myself as an accountant).  I considered this decision both for now and for the future; ever since the switch I have enjoyed my time in college much more than when I was an engineer. The constant stress I was under before caused me to gain weight, lose sleep and even go through bouts of depression. Also switching out of engineering ended up lowering my tuition for the year, so it was a financial and emotional win for myself.


My brother’s experience in the job market will not be exactly comparable to my experience but he did teach me that settling for a job is not the way to go about it. My brother received a degree in music education and taught guitar at several different places before landing at his current job. After countless years of saving, hum and his wife decided to open their own music school in Chicago. He told me that he turned down a tenured job at a private school in Chicago as a music instructor because of the kids he was teaching and the overall environment of the school. While he had some trouble at first attracting customers and setting up the correct programs, six years later he has finally reached the success he had dreamed of. Sometimes it takes time, but eventually you do end up at a job you truly enjoy and is fiscally sound.

Comments

  1. Janet Yellen Econ 490 fall 2017December 13, 2017 at 3:43 PM

    I also switched out of engineering and transferred into economics. I found that the risk of spending more time in engineering forcing myself to like it would just lead me to switching my major later on and needing to spend another semester causing more debt. I picked engineering because I loved calculus in high school. However, after coming here and taking more advanced chemistry and physics classes I realized it was not was I expected I was going to be doing. I decided data analysis was more my speed which led me to economics.

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