Have you ever pause your life time for a second and think if you really like what you are doing(studying)? How would you choose between the major you going to study in university, the one that make more money or the one you like the most? Do you think that studying what you like, but upset others make you selfish?

It all happens in real life. There is probably no right or wrong answer for any question above, but your choice will let you know what's right and wrong in the future. I believe I'm not the only one having the hard time thinking about that.I never have the real plan of what was I going to study in college, same as what I am going to do in the future. Right after I finished high school, I heard most people were going to study Economics, Banking, Accountants...etc. They absolutely bore me. I didn't think much but to choose IT as one of my uncle-in-law is also an IT teacher. Now I realized I did think alot, but the problem is that there aren't much choice. I could have chosen Architecture, but for some reasons, I didn't.

That's it. There is absolutely no other field for me. Next, I changed to an international university which creative concept comes first, still choosing IT. There are plenty of new majors including some I never even heard of. Still, most students choose to join the boring majors (for me) at that school leaving blank places for many sound-exciting majors. Even so, there are some classes that we have to draw and design no matter what major you are in. Through those classes, I learned something really important. I learned what I really want to study. I made one of the biggest decisions in my life, to change my major. Of cause my parents aren't really happy about this. Why? They think that my new major is pretty narrow as there is no other university to offer such one, and probably I won't find, at least a more profitable job in the future. They think I should do what makes more money than what I love to do. Are they correct?

I look back to see some examples across everything I've read and learned. Yet, a book I read states that some teenagers force themselves away from learning to dance, which is what they love to do to choose other kinds of more profitable job because they think that even dancing is what they really want, they won't make much money. A teacher in the same school I'm studying makes a really interesting attitude. He walks around the school and criticize every student who does creative work like drawing and painting. Why? Because he thinks that those work are useless, and the only things that are really important are business, engineer...ect. Close-minded is the correct impression using for his and most of Cambodian idea. Just because he likes those kind of stuffs, it doesn't mean that the other kind of stuffs are useless. There are millions of jobs in the world. If everyone in the world thought like him, probably there would billions of businessmen, or engineers fighting for work around the world.

Of course everyone has his/her own favourite things to do. Everyone is unique and thinks differently. Yet most people in Cambodia are still close-minded. They don't look at things from the different point of views. You might think that black is a bad luck color. But if you think yourself as a designer, black combine with white will make the room look modernize. One of my friends told me that another teacher was offered from another company to work with salary of over 10 grand a month. Yet he still remains in my school. Then my friends and I started to discuss. Is money really important? What else can be more important than money? What about the job you love to do? Even though it doesn't make much money? A research made in US tells us that people usually work well, and more productive if they love their job.

How can you know what you really love to study and do in the future? Cambodian schooling system is the main reason to blame for this. They provide less opportunity to discover the students' real talent that hide inside each one of them. All they do is teaching math and other boring stuffs. I don't say that they are useless, but comparing to other countries, I have a feeling that I wasted my time since I started the public school. I could have learned much more than that. You might never know that you're good at Photography or perhaps, Playing music when you study in Cambodian public schools.

There is no conclusion for this topic as one might choose the future they like to see, to do what they really really love even if they have to risk the chance of becoming a millionaire, or on the other hand, might choose what makes more money, to become rich, even they know that they will have to sit in the office, and do all the boring stuffs for the rest of their lives. I always use the quote "Follow your heart" in almost every situation. However, this situation is quite difficult for almost everyone to decide which one is better, to follow your own heart ,or the hearts that raised you.

Darung.