This is NOT the kind of post I make in the mornings but I must because of the several conversations I have had with youth lately.
Some of you may have been told – choose a course that pays. Some of you may have had it impressed on you by parents or guardians because they are the ones paying the fees. BUT in all these – your role is the most crucial. It’s your hardwork, it’s your life, it’s your destiny, it’s your future!! So choose wisely what you study. BUT HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?
I suggest 3 things to keep in mind when selecting a course to study. Please please please – this is not something you want to spend 4-10 years of your life studying, then realise “Oh I don’t like it” and then become miserable on a daily basis doing what you hate – so please be wise, put in the effort, do the work involved and decide wisely. Some didn’t get this opportunity.
#1 – KNOW THYSELF
It’s interesting how God/Nature created us. Everything we were created with was intended to make life much easy for us. It is WE who ignore the signals life endows us with. Every human is created uniquely. There are things that become a part of you over the years because you learnt them – that’s not what I am talking about. I am talking about things that are NATURAL to you. Take time to observe, research and study yourself. Yes. Write them down. Everything unique about you. Your height, body shape, sharpness of your ear, emotional preferences, dispensation towards people, strongest body parts, things you’re most drawn to, your creativity, analytical nature, how your brain works, talkativeness, natural assertiveness, the things you love and hate passionately etc. One thing will begin to be clear – you are more WIRED better for some career paths than others. You will start having a general idea as to whether you are more geared towards careers requiring physical form, oral engagement, rigidity, creativity, thinking, humanness, etc etc – Broad strokes. But at least you will begin to know what you are NOT wired for.
#2 – FIELD OF STUDY
Get practical. Read on the various fields of study there are and some of the subject specialisations you can find under each. Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Formal Sciences and Applied Sciences. Why this advice? You see, we tend to be a very copious society. We are most tempted to do what we’ve seen others do, hardly exploring other things out there best suited to us – you may be missing out on opportunities perfectly suited to your natural abilities. Go through these short descriptions of courses and list down a few that are in line with your natural tendencies in #1 above and which you are strongly drawn to. Once you have a list of say 5-10 areas of study that excite you, research some more on them in a bit more detail. You should be able to narrow down to 5. Repeat the process if necessary and DON’T feel you need to study just one thing – it is possible to study multiple things at once. Don’t limit your abilities. If our local educational system does not cover some of the courses you are seriously considering, then it may make sense to consider the closest courses to it locally and perhaps explore additional external online courses to make up. Start from this link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines
#3 – NOW QUERY THE FUTURE 
The last thing to consider in choosing a course of study is – “What does the future hold for me in that line of study?” The question is basically to help you estimate if what you want to study today, will still be of relevance after you graduate, applicable practically in the Ghanaian setting or whatever country you find yourself in, whether the industry will find your skills useful or you could apply it as an entrepreneur locally; It means researching on the industry you are likely to end up in. It is possible in doing that research, that you find out that from the way a certain industry is going, your course may be redundant later, or that the industry needs specialists in certain areas that no courses currently exist for. If so, it means you could position yourself by doing two or more separate courses to satisfy that future skill need. It’s really all about choosing courses that position you as an IN-DEMAND SKILL by the time you graduate.
The combined effect of these 3 actions, is to ensure that you choose a course that utilises your natural strengths, which you enjoy, and which puts you in-demand when you graduate or which allows you to effectively go into enterprise if you so choose.
CHOOSE WISELY. SHAME IS BETTER THAN REGRETS!!
ALL THE VERY BEST!!!
rjbaidoo 