Dear Abby,
I recently got offered a job doing HR at a big company, and I also got accepted to grad school. The job has little to do with what I actually want to do in life but pays well, whereas grad school is what I want to do but I will be in huge debt and my profession isn’t going to pay well afterwards either. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to ask my friends because most of them don’t even have one option.
From,
Don’t Know Which Way to Go
Dear Don’t Know Which Way to Go,
Well, you’re not exactly in-between a rock and a hard place, but I get the dilemma. Although none of us feel bad for you (and kind of want to throw something at you), I understand how hard it must be to turn down the money. Besides that, it also must be tough to turn down a locked-down career/opportunity for something that might or might not happen far off in the future. Getting more schooling in is fantastic, but a lot of people never actually end up using what they spent all those extra years and all that extra money on after they finish, which is scary. It’s intimidating to think that something that you follow through with might not work out for you, and might not even be all that you imagined. That also happens a lot; people thinking a certain career is what they want and then they get to school and realize that they hate it. I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I would do. I would go with my heart and chase down that dream. We’re young, and this is the time to take chances. Don’t settle for a job that you don’t want because you’re too scared of the debt or what may or may not happen. If it doesn’t work out you’ll never have to wonder what might have been (while you’re miserable at your entry-level job).