Students find success in unexpected areas
By: Yanika Saluja
(Green Chameleon/Unsplash)
Many people have the mentality that once you choose a field of study after high school, that’s it for you. You either succeed in that or you’re a failure.
But it’s important to understand that choosing a major is not the end of opportunities outside of it. You could start a career in a field outside of your studies and flourish.
According to a 2017 Statistics Canada article, graduates with bachelor’s degrees in nursing, engineering, education, teaching and computer and information science are the most likely to find work in their field of study compared to other graduates.
It takes a lot of courage and fearlessness to pursue a completely different subject area. But having faith in yourself is incredibly important.
Aml Sultana, a 23-year-old visual artist from Scarborough, exhibited the same courage and boldness when she decided to pursue art full time.
She’s always had a special love for art, but never thought it would be conventional to pursue it. During her senior year in high school, she felt like going to OCAD University, which was her dream school, wasn’t realistic in terms of job prospects so she opted to study business instead.
During her time at Seneca College, she began to post her paintings on Instagram. Her Arabic calligraphy pieces were popular, so she began to commission custom pieces.
According to Sultana, her first-ever mural of Kawhi Leonard painted in Ibiza Lounge, a shisha lounge in Scarborough, was what kicked off her career as an artist.
“I was like, you know what, I’ll just do it and if I mess up and it’s whatever, they can just paint over it,” said Sultana, who was still a small local artist at the time.
At the start of the pandemic, Sultana was fired from her retail job and began to focus on her art full time. This was when she felt she was doing her best artwork.
“I had to realize that painting is my job, and I need to treat it as a job, so I got better at it,” said Sultana.
After a year and a half of creating art full time, Sultana felt successful. Currently, her plate is full with designing projects – canvas projects and murals. Her Islamic faith is the root of her artistic inspiration, with Arabic calligraphy being a common aspect of her works.
“I always knew I had it, I just wasn't confident enough to pursue it full time,” said Sultana.
Her proudest work is an outdoor mural she painted at Ali Basha Café in downtown Toronto. It features abstract Arabic calligraphy and it was the biggest mural she had ever painted at the time. In the future, Sultana wants to get into graphic design.
“If you can budget a little or make some changes in your lifestyle to pursue a passion that you have, definitely do it,” said Sultana.
University of Toronto graduate Nashaba Choudhury pursued a double major in psychology and health studies, but has been working for an insurance company for the last five years.
“With my psych degree, I can only do so much, being like a psychologist or therapist or something similar to that. I didn't see myself in those roles,” said Choudhury.
After graduation, Choudhury wanted to start working right away. She didn’t want to wait until she figured out what she wanted to do, so she got a temporary job at a health and dental insurance company. The company offered her a full-time job. She later got a promotion and has been working with them since.
“I just found myself really liking it and staying with it and using the skills, but not necessarily the actual subjects that I learned in school,” said Choudhury.
Choudhury believes that what you study at university is very different from the reality of the workplace.
“Even if you do something different in the meantime before you get to your actual dream, it might teach you a lot more and set you up for the next step a lot better,” she said.
According to Anil Verma, professor emeritus of industrial relations and HR management at the University of Toronto, one of the reasons for a change in the course of study is because some young people tend to choose their majors poorly without analyzing what they want to do.
“You pick the wrong choice because your father or mother said something or something said by a friend,” said Verma.
Verma strongly believes that when we are young, we do not know all our capabilities and come across new ones with time.
“When we grow older, we discover more strengths as we step towards being our own person,” he said.
Verma himself studied engineering as his major in university even though his specialties and interests lay in mathematics. His elder brothers went into engineering, so he followed.
The two most important aspects for choosing a different career are discovering your own strengths and the opportunities in the market, according to Verma.
“Between learning your own strengths, and the opportunities available, I think you can explain most of the changes in people's careers,” said Verma.
It is not the end of one’s dreams if we choose a different path in life. Believing in ourselves, knowing what we want and trying to do it is the only way we can have our answer.
Sometimes choosing a different path after graduation isn’t just because of our urge to follow our dreams, but also because we are looking for some change. Change is good, but it is also important to carefully analyze before making decisions.