All is not lost if your first career path does not pan out the way you envisioned. There is an entire world out there with opportunities, waiting for you.
There are multiple reasons why a student chooses his first career path. There are influences from parents and friends. There are various aspirations, various ideas and various beliefs, which may or may not change over time.
Then, you think of a particular career in a given way, and it can happen that it feels a lot different than what you thought of it. In such a situation, you might have to completely change the direction of your career, which may seem disastrous at first but can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
There are loads of examples of people who had glittering careers in fields other than the one in which they studied in.
Star NBA player Shaquille O'Neal has an estimated net worth of 400 US million dollars. He first dropped out of his bachelor's degree at Louisiana State University to have a crack at basketball. He ultimately completed the degree in 2000 and then did an online MBA from the University of Phoenix in 2005.
The CEO of Bloomberg LP Michael Bloomberg, who has a net worth of 5.2 billion US dollars, is one of the most well-known American businessmen. He has a degree in Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. Post that, he did his MBA from Harvard Business School and the rest is history.
Cindy Crawford was one of the highest-paid models in the world at one point. She did her graduation as a valedictorian (the student with the highest ranking) and also won an academic scholarship to study Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University. However, she dropped out of the course midway to pursue her modelling career and ultimately became a supermodel. Crawford was named the highest-paid model across the globe by Forbes in 1995.
An example from India, the chairperson and CEO of Pepsico Indra Nooyi is among the most powerful women in the world. The Indian American businesswoman received a salary of 26.4 million US Dollars in 2016. She has a bachelor's degree in physics, chemistry and mathematics which she did from Madras University.
These examples are more than enough for an individual to understand that your first career choice is not your last and that you can always switch fields to see what works for you.
