Matthew Bates
“A college degree is a college degree. Companies will want you no matter what you major in.”
That’s what my freshman orientation leader told our group on the first day of college. It was August of 1998, well past the time when that statement might have been true.
We were in one of those “get to know you” circles, where we had to say our names, where we were from, and our majors. I said I was majoring in Communication, but I wasn’t sure about it because other people had already told me it was a “fake” major. That’s when he told me all college degrees were basically the same.
Wrong. So wrong. $80k worth of student loan debt wrong. Four wasted years and a trip back to grad school to get a useful degree wrong.
Kids… don’t major in a useless area in college unless you don’t need a real job when you graduate. What you major in is important. When in doubt, stick with healthcare.
Pranav Mahajan
I am a 16 year old boy who has been in the website development business for the last 7 years.
This is because my father left his job 7 years ago and started learning website design, not from any institute but on his own. My father and I learnt it together. We took help from youtube videos, online tutorials and struggled for many years.
Today we are running a web development company.
I am in class 11 and all my teachers, relatives are advising me to prepare for competitive exams such as IIT-JEE.
• They consider my web developing skills useless.
• They say it will not help me in future.
• They always insist me to look for a government job.
But in the last 7 years, I learnt various aspects of web development, spoke to various clients and designed more than 100 websites.
Yet they don’t support me.
Loy Machedo
Here are the top 7 WORST career advices I have received:
1. Study hard and you will succeed in life
Did you ever check what happened to the rank holders in your class?
2. The harder you work, the higher you will succeed in the corporate world
Wonder who gets to take big and frequent vacations – the guys at the top or at the bottom?
3. Honesty is the Best Policy
tell your boss what you think of him
4. The Boss knows Best
most of them do not
5. The most important person in your career is your customer
it’s your boss
6. Money is NOT Everything
Let me know how it feels when you find out your colleague gets paid more than you
7. If you follow your passion, you will succeed
Ever check how many passionately unemployed people are there?
Image Credit: La Roche College
Sean Kernan
They told me to follow my dream and do what I love.
I love being creative so I went into Advertising.
I thought it would be like Mad Men, I’d be at a big fancy agency, flexing my creativity, smoking cigars, hanging with babes, writing commercials for Nike/McDonalds/Underarmour.
And making tons and tons of money.
It was the opposite of all those things.
I was locked in a cubicle. Writing ads for Jingle Panties and Aunt Jo Bean Hazel’s Cookie Mix, with endless creative restrictions and endlessly small paychecks.
No babes, just lots and lots of dudes. Sausage anyone?
So I separated the two. I changed paths and pursued a career that commands the income I want. And I come here when I want to be creative.
Happy happy happy.
The “pursue your dream” advice pushes people to find a magic bullet career that’s as fun as a theme park and pays a fortune. Its fatal flaw? It tries to fit too many things in one bucket.
It isn’t realistic for most of us. We can’t all be athletes, artists and movie stars.
Pick a career. Pick a passion. Let them be separate if need be. These things can coexist.
Via Quora