Challenging the Income Risk

At the age of twenty, “401(k)” and “retirement funds” do not pass in normal conversation quite often. However, the reality of the situation for many college undergraduates now is that “the real world” and real financials are just around the corner.

My senior year of high school actually consisted of quite a bit of thinking about this matter. Between deciding in state or out of state schools and what major/career path to pursue, I began panicking and overanalyzing every part of what could be my life. The first choice I decided to tackle was what major/career. Coming from a family of engineers and computer science majors, my parents had already been steering me in the direction of physical sciences. From science camps to AP Chemistry, science had already been built into my background and something I felt I could handle. However, while I had memorized over fifty organic molecules and the entire periodic table of elements, I didn’t feel any sort of passion about a single one of them. Friends told me to pursue what I liked, others told me job security was everything. But the thing was, my other option seemed so different, business. It was the classic business verses science debate that went through my head. But when push came to shove, I decided to take the income risk reducing path and pursue Chemistry. I figured, with my chemist father and my prior knowledge in the subject, I could learn to develop a niche for it and be successful. So on I moved to the school choice.

        

If it hadn’t had been for my brother, who went to school at UIUC seven years before me, UIUC wouldn’t have even been an option for me. My school choices had consisted of in state second tier schools and city schools within the state. However, once my brother insisted I at least apply and visit UIUC, there were much larger factors to weigh and decisions to make. The in state schools had many advantages, significantly lower costs, proximity to home, friendly faces from high school, and demographic benefits. However, simply put, it would be like going to school at home. Over seventy five percent of my high school had dispersed to those same schools and would result in the same niches. So while my parents continued to tell me that it was my choice and that they would support me financially whichever way I chose, I guiltily choose the out of state and high tuition school. The chance for a new demographic with all new people on this new chapter of my life was something that I couldn’t resist, even if it increased my debt amount and income risk.

        

One year into my schooling at UIUC though, I made yet another choice that would affect my income risk. I decided to transfer into economics, which seemed like a happy medium for me, a social science with quantitative structure. However, I knew that the job search would be more strenuous and the pay would start out smaller. Regardless, sitting here, three semesters away from graduation, I don’t look back in regret.

In the end I choose to make the choice I thought would be smarter and cause me to be more successful in life in the long run, whether it be financially related or not.