What should you study to make money?


There is a big debate about whether you should study what you love or study what you think will make you money. The jury is out on this one because surely if you study what you love you will make money doing it? Yes, maybe you will. However, in South Africa there are some strong opinions on what to study to maximise your earning potential. There are some degrees that will just earn you more money than others. There are some degrees that are so sought after, they will see you travelling all over the world. The degree that is considered the one with the highest earning potential is a qualification on engineering.

But not everyone wants to be an engineer

Engineering is not an easy subject to study. In fact, enrolling to study engineering is not easy either. You need to have taken the right subjects in school and you need to have received excellent marks for those subjects too. So if you don’t want to be an engineer then what else can you study that will land you in the pound seat? Well you can, of course, study something within the medical field but you’ll need to really clock up your hours before you start really earning. Public sector doctors earn fairly well but you need to specialise or end up in private practice to really reap the rewards of seven years of hard graft. You could also look to law as that should see you sitting pretty too. However, as with engineering you need to have taken very specific subjects in school, earn incredible marks and you need to have known for a while that you want to do these degrees. They’re not easy and there’s a large portion of students who begin studying one course only to bail out and start something new.

You can get a degree even if don’t really know what you want to do

If you are unsure of what to study but you are ambitious enough to know you need to do something worthwhile for money in the bank then you might consider a bachelor’s degree. This means that once you have the degree you can easily study smaller courses that are complementary or that steer you in your specific direction of interest.

Many new students will enroll in a bachelor’s degree because they are unsure of what they really want to do. However, they know where their strengths lie. There are many different types of bachelor’s degrees but the two primary degrees ,that most students enroll for, are the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Science. A Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) will typically focus on the study of humanities and all social sciences, whereas a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) will focus on all scientific and technical fields. In these degrees you can choose your subjects and map out a direction for your studies to go. These two degrees won’t necessarily place you in a job that’s immediately going to earn you big bucks but they will strongly underpin any career path you decide on.

Consider doing an add-on course to increase your earning potential

Sometimes it’s even the complementary courses that will see you maximising your earning potential. For instance, studying sales and marketing courses as an add-on to your B.A. is a winning combination. Sales and marketing courses, even those completed through distance learning, are extremely valuable as it could be argued that all business works off the basic premise of buying and selling and advertising to gain more customers. Understanding the fundamentals of sales and marketing is great, having a qualification in this subject matter is even better. Any employer who is ambitious about their business and keen on growth will value an employe who can understand the importance of making sales and having a sound marketing strategy.

Find a company with a future that includes you

Startups abound globally right now. Africa, as an example, is a continent focused on the idea that entrepreneurship will curb poverty.  There are so many success stories from all over the world about founders of startups who had an entrepreneurial vision and succeeded in making it reality. Now you might not be interested in setting up your own thing fresh out of university but the chances of you landing a job with a startup are high. The more value you can add to the company the more reward you’ll reap.

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