Have I actually messed up?

[Softkittywarmkitty123]

Hi all, I was fairly confident about my decision up until recently but my DP has made me doubt myself.

I'm currently at university and working part time in a finance company. I'm very ambitious and my aspirations are high. I love working with money so I have my heart set on a banking career or possibly accounting.

Up until recently, I was studying a finance degree. I'm okay in the sense that I can pass the tests if I work insanely hard but it became too much too quickly. I really struggle to understand the complex equations and ended up with migraines for days after lectures. Really not ideal.

There were other subjects that I was much stronger at so I have changed to an HR Management degree combined with Entrepreneurship. So far I am much happier with it and a lot less stressed :)

My DP isn't quite as pleased. He feels that I am setting myself up for a shit life with a "mediocre" degree and that I am now wasting my time doing this. My logic was that I'd rather have the potiential to achieve a first class honours in a subject I enjoy over a general pass in a "smart" course. I've said that if I really struggle to find employment with the degree I'm now doing I can always do a postgrad in something more finance related but he says this is not the point.

AIBU??

The 'entrepreneurship' element isn't very believable I'm afraid. Being an entrepreneur is more of an inbuilt mindset and attitude than a learning experience. Not sure what this is going to give you....

Unfortunately wherever it is from a lot of people are snobbish as hell about degrees with Business/Management in the title. They're not much better about ones with accounting. This is especially true in finance IMO; I work in a specialist and very technical area where we do those derivative calculations and the vast majority of my colleagues have degrees in maths, computational science, engineering, physics, a couple of economists. That's not to say you won't be able to get anywhere with it, and working PT in finance while you do your degree will help hugely, but be prepared for the attitudes.

That said, I'm not convinced that finding the maths of derivatives tough would mean you couldn't cope with accounting as they're pretty different (studied both). Does your university not offer courses which cover accounting without the derivatives? In mine the derivative courses were quite specific and distinct from the accountancy.

Business management degrees are quantitative, and modelling heavy and most importantly can be applied straight after graduation in a real non-grad role hence their popularity with recruiters - I am just in my second year of business management but have been directly able to use the knowledge I’ve learned to build and roll out process in a proper role (not necessarily a grad scheme). The courses also tend to be Microsoft Office heavy and so building 1000 page packs in 2 hours (which I had to do as part of my previous role) also becomes far, far easier.

None of the people I know who work at big four firms have finance degrees. One has a geography degree (Cambridge) another has a physics masters from Southampton. There is still a sense that you do a good solid academic degree first, and then professional exams, rather than something like management. You can still go on to take professional exams after, but even with a finance degree, if you're going to interviews and talking about specialising in HR, that will be a question mark for those companies. If you're struggling with the maths now, a finance career doesn't sound a good choice. You can still be ambitious though, there are HR jobs in banks for example, and HR people get paid very very in major companies if you work your way up.