Hi Kally,

It’s so good to be in touch with you. Many of your articles are amazing and inspiring. I often forward your articles to my friends.

I have a problem that I need your help in. I am in my second year of my business studies and I don’t think I am interested in pursuing this course anymore.

The issue here is that I am on a scholarship and if I quit my studies, I will have to endure a hefty fine. And if I don’t quit my studies, I will have to work in the financial center that sponsored my studies. Something I really have zero interest in. 

You always advocate us to pursue our passion and our dreams. I really want to do that but I don’t have any idea what my dreams are. From young, I never stayed with any hobbies of mine. I dabbled in arts, sports and music but nothing really made me stayed long enough to be an expert in those areas. 

I don’t know if I should stay and endure the rest of my studies plus another 5 years in the financial center or should I quit while I’m young and try my hand in something else. I have spoken to my parents and they are very supportive in whatever decisions I make regarding this but my mom felt that I should at least try to accomplish getting my studies completed. 

What do you think? Hopefully, I get to hear from you soon. 

Sincerely,
Robert D

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Dear Robert, 

Always good to hear from a fan of MiddleMe! Thank you for your email and let’s get down to your problem. 

You seem to be very clear that studying business is not something you want to do. The key is to figure out what exactly you want to do before moving on to the next phase.

Many people may advice you to dabble in a bit of everything. But to make a hasty decision to quit your studies, even if your parents are supportive, seems to me a huge risk if you don’t already know which direction you want to leap. 

If you definitely know what you like to do in the next 5 years, sure, I’d say go ahead and pursue your interest rather than to tie yourself down in a course and drain your time away. If not, the next step you need to do is to think hard on where you like to see yourself in the near future.

Once you have that direction firmly in mind, grab it with both hands and don’t look back on regrets. 

To help you to do that, you can ask for an extension of your course so you can take a year away from your studies to figure this out. You can always go back to completing your studies if by then, you are still not heading anywhere. 

During that year, you can choose to pursue whatever comes to mind: travel, start a business, learn a new craft etc. Even if you ended up returning to school, you know you have given your all in trying everything you can.

Maybe it’s not the right time or you haven’t come across the right opportunity but at least, by not totally quitting your studies gives you a safety net to fall back on. 

Doing business studies isn’t that bad as compared to inflexible course structure some degree have like Law, Engineering or Medical. After all, whatever you pursue in future will require some sort of business sense and you will benefit from the things you learned in class.

Take for example, if you ended up with photography, you’ll need to learn how to sell your art to interested parties or even going into e-commerce to market your talent. So take that into consideration. 

With my advice above, I do wish you all the best in making the right call. Life is too short on regrets so make sure you don’t have any. 

Regards,
Kally@MiddleMe.net

For more education articles, you may find these helpful:

Readers’ Advice: Education Direction

Which Degree Is Best for Me?

5 Helpful Pieces of Career Advice for College Students

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