During a small talk, I asked my boss, who owns a beauty salon and a job agency:
“What did you study when you were at university?”
I was 99.99% sure she was going to say a business-related degree.
“I actually studied chemistry, and I never used my degree ever again.”
Chemistry? You mean the study of atoms, molecules, and cellular processes helped her open a place that provides beauty treatments and an agency that helps people find jobs? It was far from the answer I was expecting. However, I thought for a long time about the risks of choosing the wrong degree, and my boss’s career path made me realize: choosing the wrong degree can be beneficial, but at an expensive cost.
According to a 2025 Statistics Canada study, 37.6% of Canadian bachelor graduates did not feel their jobs were closely related to their field of study. The match was much lower with international student graduates at just 66.2%. The question is, why do so many people end up with degrees they don’t use?
Many undergraduates enter university with very little information about their degrees. Some are uncertain about whether they are interested in their degree, and others simply follow what others are doing. Many of us choose a program at 18 with little idea of who we will be at 25. The constant questions to ourselves of, “What do I actually like?” or “Do I see myself enjoying this in 5 years?” help certain people, such as my boss, use their degrees as a discrete tool of self-discovery. Thus, you gain resilience and clarity about yourself: the friction you went through of realizing you took the wrong path gives you the adaptability to switch careers or start a business.
Furthermore, a mismatched degree gives you transferable skills that you can apply anywhere, including to yourself. Take my boss’s career path: how did her chemistry degree contribute to the start of her businesses? The concepts of matter and its properties certainly did not help much; it was the skills and the work ethic she gained from studying science that truly helped her. Chemistry teaches you to test ideas, handle evidence, and work through problems methodically, and those habits transfer naturally to running a salon or an agency. You can use the skills you gain in your degree to invest in yourself.
It is no surprise, however, that a mismatched degree comes with a price, a costly one. The most obvious one is student debt, which is why most students fear choosing the wrong degree. If you realize halfway through university that you hate your program, switching can force you to spend thousands of extra dollars on additional semesters and take on more student loans, hindering your path to financial independence. A degree can open doors, but the student walking through them may already owe for the key.
Moreover, many graduates treat their degrees as lifelong contracts. Realizing you made a mistake after spending years of hard work can overwhelm you with a sense of failure, anxiety about the future, and guilt over wasted money and time. A lot of students feel discouraged about having made the wrong choice and end up sabotaging their own dreams and goals.
Nevertheless, picking a college degree is a risky investment that can give you great returns or losses, depending on how you view things. Do you see a mismatched degree as a door for learning and self-discovery, or do you see it more as a burden of lost time and money?
