I don't know what to study after high school

What to do if you haven't chosen a degree yet

You finish secondary school and a date that until recently seemed far away appears: next year. Some classmates are already talking about faculties, entrance courses and subjects. Others have known what degree they want to study for a long time. And you may still be unable to answer a pretty basic question:

What am I going to do when I finish?

Not having a chosen degree, it's no longer just about discovering what to study. You have to decide what to do while you still don't know.
And those two decisions are not the same. You may not know what degree you want and still make a good decision for the next six or twelve months.

The mistake is believing that there are only two options, when you finish secondary school a false choice usually appears: either I start a degree immediately or I waste a year.

But between those two possibilities there are many different situations.

• You can start a degree.
• You can prepare the entrance to an option you are still evaluating.
• You can work.
• You can do a shorter training.
• You can combine study and work.
• You can dedicate a defined period to

researching alternatives before enrolling.
The important difference is not only in which alternative you choose. It is in what will change thanks to that time.
If in twelve months you will have exactly the same doubts and no new information, waiting probably won't have solved much. If that period has concrete goals, the situation is different.

“I'll enroll in something and see later”

It's a tempting way out. You choose a degree that more or less interests you, you enroll and you trust that taking it will let you discover if it was for you. Sometimes it happens, many other times not and it results in a loss of money and time.

If you start a degree solely to avoid feeling like you’ve been left behind, you may end up evaluating it with a very high expectation: that the first weeks will immediately confirm that you’ve found “your thing”.
Also, the first months of a degree don’t always represent the later professional work. A difficult introductory subject alone doesn’t prove that you chose wrong. If you’re going to try out a degree, turn that trial into something more precise.

After a reasonable period you should be able to answer new questions: am I interested in going deeper into this content?, do I want to keep going through this training?, did I discover aspects of the discipline I didn’t know about?, does what bothers me belong to a particular subject or to the degree in general?

“I’m taking a year off”

The expression can describe completely different situations.

• One person may spend a year working and discovering which responsibilities they can handle, which environments feel comfortable, and which skills they need to develop.
• Another may use it to prepare for an entrance exam.
• Another may explore different educational options, pursue vocational guidance and resolve financial or relocation constraints.
• And another may simply postpone the same decision for twelve months.

What do you want that year for?

If there is no answer, set a date much closer than “next year”. For example, define what information you need to gather during the next two months to re-evaluate your decision.
A whole year can feel abstract. Eight weeks with concrete goals are much easier to manage.

“I’ll start working until I know what to study”

Working can also be a decision, not just waiting.
A job lets you learn things that high school can hardly show you: how you respond to schedules, responsibilities, clients, coworkers, supervision, repetitive tasks, or unexpected situations.
But there is a difference between working while you decide and waiting for the job, on its own, to reveal what degree to study. It may not do so.

If you choose to work, keep your educational research open in parallel. Otherwise, the question may disappear for a while simply because your routine is already busy.
That does not mean you have to pursue a university degree. It means it is worth distinguishing between a conscious decision and a decision that inertia ended up making.

“I'll take a short course to try it out”

An introductory course can bring you closer to an activity and let you discover whether you want to keep learning. But it does not necessarily represent a complete degree or the practice of a career.
This is especially important when it comes to regulated careers: a short training, diploma, or certificate should not be confused with a qualification that legally authorizes you for certain professional activities.

Use short training to answer, for example: “Do I want to keep learning programming after an initial experience?” is a reasonable question. “Does this course prove that I should work professionally in systems?” requires much more information.

“All my friends have already chosen”

This issue deserves attention because it changes real decisions. When a group starts talking about enrollment, colleges, and degrees, not having an answer can feel strange.

Then a temptation appears: to resolve the discomfort before resolving the decision.

Signing up quickly gets you a very useful social answer. When someone asks what you are going to do, you can already say something. But having an answer for others does not mean you have resolved the question for yourself.

The opposite can also happen: you might rule out an option because no one in your group chose it, because it means moving away, because it has a less well-known path or because it does not match what your family expected. Outside opinions can provide information.

Not every doubt justifies waiting longer

There comes a point when researching more stops adding much value.
Suppose you are torn between two degrees. You have already reviewed their curricula, you know the institutions where you could study them, you understand their differences and you have talked to people connected to both.
But you keep waiting to feel total certainty.Perhaps that certainty will not appear before you start.

There are decisions that only produce information after you make them.
Taking courses, working on real problems, meeting teachers and classmates or encountering subjects you never had in high school can change your perception.

Changing degree does not mean going back to the starting point
If you start something and then change, you do not necessarily go back to the same situation you were in when you finished high school. Now you know more.

• Perhaps you discovered that you are interested in a discipline but not in its professional practice.
• That you handle certain subjects better than expected.
• That you need more practical training.
• That you want to work and study at the same time.
• That a career you imagined one way works in another. Even an experience that ends in a change can reduce uncertainty.

Before enrolling “just in case,” check the dates

Calendars exist

Enrollments, entrance courses, document submission, scholarships and other steps may have specific dates. Not having decided yet does not mean you should ignore them.
If there are two or three options you are really considering, check only the official sources of each institution and record which decisions have a deadline.

There is no need to invent urgency where none exists. But it is also not a good idea to discover in February that an option you wanted to explore closed enrollment months earlier. Dates, requirements, formats, length and degrees must be verified against each institution’s current official information.

So, what do I do when I finish high school?

“What degree am I going to choose for my future?”

“What am I going to do over the next three months to be in a better position to decide?”

Maybe the answer is to enroll in a degree you want to try out.
Maybe it's working while you research two specific options.
It could be preparing for an entrance exam, figuring out which alternatives are financially feasible, getting vocational guidance or devoting a set period to learning about programs you didn't even know existed during high school.

The difference is having a next move and a date to review it. Not having a degree chosen when you finish high school is normal. Staying indefinitely waiting for the answer to appear on its own is another thing.

Your first decision, then, doesn't have to be "what am I going to study". It can be something much more manageable: What am I going to do now in order to be able to decide better later.

Don't know what to study? Start with our career test.