Cold Feet? (I have some news)

I think most university students at one point of their student life wonder whether they are doing the right degree and wonder if it is something that they are willing to spend the rest of their life doing. A great proportion of students I have come across in university have switched their degree/major at least once. I would be lying if I said that I never had second thoughts about whether I was completely happy with my degree.

In high school, all I knew was that I always wanted to work in business/commerce. At the time, my idea of accounting was working in a tall skyscraper in the city, being dressed in corporate wear and heels and dealing with money. Sort of. Of course, I gained a greater understanding of the discipline when it came time to decide what it was that I really wanted to do. . My Dad was an accountant, many of my relatives were accountants and because of the fairly good job prospects and job stability, it appeared to be the reasonable decision. So I went with accounting. I loved my first year of commerce, and surprisingly, I also loved the accounting units. I also really enjoyed and connected with marketing and principles of management.

I also enjoyed second year overall. As an elective I chose Organisational Behaviour which I found interesting but I later learnt was just not my thing. When I entered my third year, I came to terms that my life as a student was coming to an end. I realised that I didn't really want to leave. Not yet. Like I hadn't experienced all there was to experience in university. Something was missing (sounds cliched but true).

Later, doing Consumer Behaviour (my second elective), I reconnected with Marketing. I remembered how much I enjoyed learning about it back in first year and everything just seemed to make sense to me. I wasn't too sure if it was worth taking the risk because I wasn't sure if I could create a viable future with marketing. I knew I still wanted to be an accountant, and continue with CA or CPA. So for a while, I debated back and forth about whether I should major in both accounting and marketing, and what implications this would have.

I wondered if it was worth investing extra time and thousands more for something that was purely for my own personal interest. I looked further into it and discovered that all I needed was to complete only 5 required marketing units to graduate with a second major in accounting. I would be able to finish this easily in an extra semester and not a year as I had previously thought.

But even though it was only an extra semester, this still meant that I would not be able to apply for all the graduate programs that I had been preparing myself for. I would have to wait an additional year. My life would be pushed back by an entire year. This was a big deal. Or at least I thought it was. I made a friend this semester  who was taking 3 units a semester and would graduate next year too. And I thought to myself, 'what is one semester, out of the rest of your life?'. The only expectation of graduating this year was put on by myself. It didn't matter to anyone else if I graduated later. Graduating a semester later didn't make me a failure. It meant that I was willing to make a choice for myself. After all, life is not a race.

So there it is. I am staying back another semester at Macquarie University so I can graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Accounting and Marketing. Notice that it's not a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Professional Accounting and Marketing, That is because it doesn't exist. This means I could probably graduate this year if I really wanted to because I would just need to complete the required units for both accounting and marketing BUT because I intend on being an accountant and moving on to CPA/CA next, I will be completing all the Professional Accounting units with the addition of the required marketing units.