• Rena Stephanus

The greatest decision you may ever have to make is your career choice. Deciding what course to enroll into at any tertiary institute is not as easy as people think. Deciding what it is you want to study in university is actually a big deal; the course you decide to enroll in is what you plan to do for the rest of your life.

I have come across several students who would admit that they do not connect with what they are studying/ studied at university and felt miserable about it. There are several factors which influence the decisions of these students, it’s either economic constraints or pressure from people, who are mostly close relatives.

When I was in junior primary, our teachers would frequently ask this question “what do you want to become when you grow up?” and my younger self would confidently say “TEACHER!” now to my knowledge a teacher was this cool source of inspiration, simply because this was the only inspirational figure I was exposed to. I can still remember my grade four teacher, firstly she always looked lavishing and I wanted to be her, and to be her I needed to be a teacher.

A couple of years later I found myself sitting with unfilled university forms, indecisive of what I needed to study. I was surrounded by so many people who believed what was the right course for me to enroll into. February drew close, I just completed my grade 12 and I am still not enrolled into any university, at this point I am ready to enroll into anything even if it had to do with insects.

The confusion got me enrolled into law school because well I had just finished a season of watching Suits and who does not love Harvey Specter, I am officially a law student, the prestige that came with it, but deep down I did not feel complete. It was as if sense crawled up into my head, and I was fortunate enough to deregister myself from law school, a few days after enrolling.

It is never too late to deregister from the course you are doing, normally most people grasp that they are not happy with the course they are doing a year into the course. You can then deregister from the specific course with the university and start up fresh again by registering your favored course the following year.

There are also some circumstances whereby you get students who for instance are doing a Bachelor’s degree and only in the third year they come to the realization that they are actually not happy with their course. My advice to you is that you complete that Bachelor’s degree simply because you have made it that far, grab your qualification and enroll again into the course your heart yearns for.

The pleasure that comes with studying what you love is unmatched.  This alone is the force that drives you to complete your course of studying and also encourages you to acquire more knowledge on that specific course.

Before taking upon this big step, ask yourself is it really what you want to do, is this the industry you would want to be exposed to for the rest of my life?

The goal is that you reach the level of self –actualization, one is never truly fulfilled if you are doing something that is not synchronized with your soul.


Follow Rena on Instagram: @renastephanus

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