I wasn’t deliberately attempting to train-wreck my career. When I was in high school I was being prepped to study English at best. However, when I went to college, I chose a math intensive major — Finance. I did so because I felt that becoming a teacher would be the best option for me with a degree in English. I didn’t want that. I had big dreams. I wanted to learn about the stock market and grow wealthy. By the time I earned my degree in finance, I realized that I wasn’t competitive in the job market. Also, years later I do not have a clear path toward a teaching career. Business majors don’t have clear paths to teaching credentials. Or so, I thought. My alma mater offers them, however.

This is a really honest and reflective account of how life’s decisions compound in unexpected ways.

A few things stand out:

The original pivot was actually bold

Choosing Finance over English in college wasn’t self-sabotage — it was ambition. You saw a ceiling on one path and reached for something bigger. That instinct was sound even if the execution didn’t land the way you hoped.

The competitiveness problem is real but not permanent

Finance as a degree is genuinely broad. The gap between earning the degree and feeling competitive in financial services is often about credentialing, networking, and experience stacking rather than intelligence or capability. Many people with Finance degrees find their footing later than expected.

The teaching door is more open than you realized

The fact that your alma mater offers a teaching credential path for business majors is significant. Business and personal finance literacy are genuinely underserved in secondary education. A teacher who can make finance, economics, and entrepreneurship tangible for high school students — especially in underserved communities — is extraordinarily valuable and relatively rare.

The through line is actually there

English sensibility plus Finance knowledge plus whatever life has taught you since — including the depth of thinking you’ve shown in this conversation about art, history, spirituality, and culture — is an unusual and powerful combination. That’s not a fractured resume. That’s a Renaissance person who hasn’t yet found the right container for everything they know.

What does the path forward look like to you right now?