Choosing a Major: Don't Crawl Your Life into an Excel Spreadsheet

I often encounter different students. Today at the meeting, a 10th-grade student asked me very rationally, "Ms. Maggie, what majors in Canada have high employment rates and higher salaries right now?"

Looking at his excellent report card and the list full of various high-paying industries he sent, I felt a pang of sadness. He's only 16, an age when he should be most daring to dream, but he views his future like a "cold Excel spreadsheet", every step meticulously calculated. He's not interested in anything, as if he'd do anything. Well, although this was the first time we discussed this topic, I could deeply feel his confusion.

I understand that the current environment has made many students pragmatic; survival is always the top priority. But in my 10 years of planning, I've seen too many students who initially forced themselves into certain popular majors for the sake of so-called good employment, only to completely break down in their junior year or first year of work, crying and asking me if they could start over.

Today I told him: Choosing a major, besides what you've listed, is actually choosing the lifestyle you want for the future. Canada has a high level of social tolerance. This doesn't mean you can slack off, but rather that you don't have to compromise yourself to conform to a certain kind of "success." I always like to ask a seemingly unrelated question: "Imagine a typical Friday afternoon five or ten years from now. Where would you most like to be sitting, and what would you most like to be doing?"

Would you rather be sitting in a cubicle, earning a high salary but feeling physically and mentally exhausted, or doing what you love in a slower-paced environment, even if it's not perfect?

Many people wonder how we should plan for the future. Actually, the ultimate goal of planning is never to find the safest shell to retreat into, but to find the soil where you can live most comfortably. Only in this way can we possibly witness the final, beautiful blossoming.

This is my Day 5. Today, on my way to work, I saw a particularly beautiful sky outside. Suddenly, I realized that being able to live a typical Friday according to one's own wishes is already a very happy thing.

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