The role of future income risk
One more semester to go and then I will graduate. All the previous decisions I made in my live about my education path will have results for my income later in live. There is still uncertainty about where I will be working, what my salary will be and if I will get a job at all. My parents where both ambitious, but didn't make choices that ensured them a high salary. This affected me in the beginning, but then I chose my own path and thought about my future instead of 'having a fun career'.
In the Netherlands we have a different education system. There are three types on high school, namely VMBO, HAVO and VWO. After high school you can go to MBO, HBO or WO and where you can go is based on the high school level. I did HAVO and therefore I could go to MBO or HBO. If I wanted to go to WO, I had to do two years of VWO first to get on the same educational level. Since the level of HAVO fitted me perfectly, I chose to go to HBO. In high school I always wanted to go to the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, but it was a very hard program and they only accepted a few people every year. I tried my best, but I was rejected. This was because I wasn't creative enough, mainly because I was still very young (16). In the Netherlands it is very common to take a year of to work or to travel, so you can figure out what you want to do with your life. I saw it as a waste of time and decided to do accountancy as a major, since that was one of my best high school courses and it made good money. After a year, I found accountancy too easy and I was looking for something more challenging. Since I completed my first year in once, I had the opportunity to go to a WO study and that is what I did, because of the higher salaries and higher change for a job. I changed my major to economics and business economics with the idea to do business economics. After a year we had to decide between economics and business economics and I noticed that I had more interest in economics than business economics (marketing, accounting and finance). In my head I thought that business economics was a major where I had a better change for a job, but speaking with people around me helped me to get the insight that it didn't matter that much. The reason why I didn't wanted to do it fainted and I chose for economics. After choosing economics, I found out that economists in the Netherlands have a high salary on average and this motivated me to do good in school.
In the Netherlands is the educational system different, as I said. Besides the three levels, the schools are also very subsidized. For one year of education we have to pay a little less than 2,200 dollars. This is less than 200 dollars a month. We also get subsidized by the government to our own account and this money is around 100 dollars. This made it possible for me to pay my own education with the money I earned on my job and I didn't need to get a loan. Since the exchange program in America is more money than my normal load, I needed to save money and, therefore, I worked full time this summer at my office job at TPRA. This wasn't enough money so now I have a loan from my parents. I knew America would be expensive and I think I wouldn't have done it if I knew that my chance on a good paying job was very small.
My parents always wanted me to have fun in my job, regardless the money it will pay off. My live turned in a way that helped me with the right decisions and there was always a medium motivation for my choices because of my future income. Luckily my interest in carriers and my ambition in work helped me to make the best decisions for the future. My ambition now is in the field of data science and entrepreneurship, which is also a career with a good average salary and a good chance of getting a job. The choice of going to America as an exchange students is therefore also based on this fact that I have a high chance that I will be able to repay my parents for this studying abroad experience. So overall, I chose my major(s) because I'm interested in the subject, but the money has always been a motivation to put it through.
