Who graduated college a bit later than normal?

[cmrocks]

I took a few years off after highschool to work and try to figure out what I wanted to do. I'm now 20 and only in my first year of university which makes me a bit older than most of my classmates. If I stick here, I'll be on track to graduate in a few years. The problem is that lately I've been wanting to change majors. I'm in geophysics right now and I enjoy it but I don't know if it's my calling. I took a few economics courses this year and I loved them. Normally, I would just transfer into the economics department here but it's a really small faculty and space is very limited. I've been thinking of transfering schools so I could take what I want.

The problem with all of this is that every transfer seems to add time to how long it's going to take me to graduate. I have fairly good job security through my Dad's company that he owns but I still don't want to close the doors to other employers. Will being 25 and just out of school close a lot of doors for me if I'm competeing against 22 year olds who are at the same place as I am?

 

[Pennglock]

Being 25 vs 22 isn't going to close any doors. Most recruiters wouldn't even notice. If anything, use your real-world experience as a selling point. The main thing is to get your 'story' down. Dont come across as the guy who's aimlessly floating. Infuse the story with some purpose, even if you didn't happen to have any at the time.

 

[globetrotter]

being 25 and having done nothing will close a lot of doors. being 25 and haivng done some stuff will open doors.
fundementally, I didn't learn anything in university.

what I did from 18-25, set me up in terms of skills for the rest of my life. even though I don't use any of it, I leveraged it into a career.

don't waste your time, but don't feel pushed into anything that isn't a good fit.

 

[vc2000]

Most people allow a 19 year old to decide what career they will follow for the rest of their lives. I did and I was miserable until I went from law to venture capital with a detour of starting my own business. When I was 19 I didn't even know that venture capital existed. Good for you for taking a few years off to find what you wanted to do. You'll be fine. With medical improvements you might live until you are 120+ so a couple years isn't a big deal.

 

[skalogre]

I will agree with prior posters that experience makes a much greater difference than how young you are when you graduate.

 

[Augustus Medici]

Also keep in mind that recruiters cannot legally ask you how old you are in the interview anyway. All they will know is the year you graduated college (it is rare for anybody to ask you when you graduated high school; I've been through several interviews and have never even been asked about my academics prior to college). Thus, whether you're 25 or 22, it doesn't matter at all. Experience is equally weighted with academics; in some fields, it may even have more weight.

 

[Mr. Checks]

It's a non-issue. You decided to go to college after working to pay your own way... admirable (or whatever story you came up with).

They'll care what you did in college, not before.

You shouldn't lose any credits transferring unless you took nothing but stuff in your first major (which is not the normal way).

I'd question whether I'd be staying at any school that wouldn't let me transfer into as general a major as econ.

 

[cmrocks]

Thanks guys,

The school I'm in, UBC, has a pretty high ranked economics department. I think it's 22nd in the world or something. I think that's the reason that you can't just transfer in. You need to be in the arts faculty and then take a bunch of required courses, including intro economics courses, calculus, english etc. After that, you have to apply to become a major in economics seperately. I don't want to risk switching faculties and then not being accepted. My grades are pretty good (in the mid 80s) but I think I'm still about 4-5% lower than required for acceptance to the econ major program.

That's good to hear that it doesn't really matter how old you are. Studying economics is something I really want to do in life but I've been holding back on it for fear of not being accepted and because I don't want to keep changing my mind. I actually applied at two other schools in Canada (McGill and UofA) this morning after making that post. It doesn't cost that much to apply and I figure that I might as well leave the doors open for next fall.

Thanks again.

 

[eg1]

You're going to work until you are 70 anyway, so what does it matter if you graduate at 22 or 25?

More personally, I switched majors in 2nd year, and completed my undergrad in 4 years anyway before going on to complete two grad degrees. My brother did not complete an undergrad degree until he was in his early 30's and he is doing OK. You will be just fine!

 

[tiecollector]

I stayed for an extra quarter. Now, I graduated 3 or 4 years ago, which is the entire time I was in college, and it seems like nothing. In school, life was in terms of days and weeks, now, it is in terms of months and it goes by much quicker now.

Don't worry about your age, 25 is still young. My advice is to get side projects going in college and get experience while you are in there. I know many of my friends focused on grades and they still can't do crap compared to what I could do while in college.

 

[Huntsman]

I graduated in the age bracket you are discussing. I think that getting a job, for me, was considerably easier, as my deportment was more appropriate to the task at hand. I, also, hated the 'loss' in transfers.

The only real PIA is the feeling that you should be getting on with it. Perhaps delays career, and kids and the rest by a few years. But if you can get or are past that it's great. I didn't.

Regards,
Huntsman

 

[cmrocks]

Thanks guys,

It's good to hear all this.

I'm getting a degree in geophysics right now and it's going to end up being fairly limiting I think. The reason that I'm taking this right now is because my Dad owns a drilling company and does diamond exploration so I have a lot of contacts in that business. Geophysicists are in high demand so that's what I decided to take. I was hoping to also try getting my CFA designation and maybe something like an MBA down the road. I'm more interested in the business end of exploration rather than the scientific end of it. I'm sure a degree in economics would help me out for what I want to do just as much, if not more than my current degree. Right now, the only thing holding me back from changing is the fact that I don't think I can get into the economics program at my current university since space is limited.

The other big reason that I want to change into economics is that I'm desperate to get out of this country. I like Canada and everything; I think it's a great country and a great place to live; but, I just want to see more of the world. There are so many potential places to end up so why should I be content to just stay where I currently am? To me, it just seems kind of silly not to even try living somewhere else. I might come back after a few years and realize that Canada is where I belong. On the other hand, I'm hoping that I can find my calling in another country that is completely different than my own. I think studying in another country would be one of the best ways to experience that too.

There are a lot of universities, all around the world, that will accept students on exchange for economics. There are hardly any universities who are accepting exchange students for geophysics. It's actually almost impossible to go on exchange in my current program. Getting registration as a professional geophysicist in the future requires that I take a very specific set of courses that only UBC and two other universities in Canada even offer.

I guess I'm kind of getting off-track and just rambling on; I'm sorry about that. It just sometimes helps to type down what I'm thinking. There are so many knowledgable people on this board, maybe who have been through the whole shcool thing, that I just feel more comfortable coming here for advice first. What do you guys think, am I maybe dreaming a bit too much right now or is what I'm after entirely possible?

 

[eg1]

The wider you can make your personal horizon, the better. If anything, I have been guilty of excessive parochialism and conservatism -- if you have a yen to see the world, do it! You can always "run home" later if you don't like what you see.

Having said that, the relative rarity of the geophysics degree will probably make you more in demand than something as ubiquitous as economics. And drilling/exploration is a truly global activity, no? And one in which Canadian expertise is probably well respected, so you may want to use it as your ticket abroad and then go the CFA/MBA route. My other brother is an engineer who eventually went back to school for the latter and now works in finance. Horses for courses ...

 

[Toiletduck]

I bumbled through 3 universities in my first 2 years of college. I started off as an electrical engineering major and ended up w/ a degree in economics. I did what I wanted to do.

My rationale was that I did not personally see any use in a major in EE. I wanted to go into a more, entrepreneurial, managerial, or financial type field and I reckoned I would get more/better pertinent training/learning out of an economics major.

Age shouldn't be a problem at all, at 25. Many students all over the world have to go into military service and end up graduating around 26 or so. If I was to interview someone, the only "age" factor I would be looking at was what kind of mindset/level of maturity they had....and vs what kind of job it was for.

Do you know what kind of field you want to work in? You could always try to double major or major/minor to cover both your bases.

 

[eg1]

Originally Posted by Toiletduck

My rationale was that I did not personally see any use in a major in EE. .

Ah, but you can't have gEEk without EE ...