Choosing the right career

When a high school student is about to finish their three-year stint at senior high, he or she must choose a suitable career. Sometimes a student chooses the wrong career and this, of course, becomes a nuisance not only to the student, but also to the parents because a university education is quite expensive, especially for a fixed-salary man.

A man who lives on the same street as me, and who ekes out a living in the retail trade, one day when cutting my hair said that when his daughter decided to study to become a dentist about six years ago, he had a hard time gathering Rp 8 million for the school entrance fee. Fortunately, she has chosen the right career and she settled down in a small city in West Java with her husband, who happens also to be a dentist.

A former colleague of mine, who spent 10 years at a state university to study to become a dentist, worked at my Japanese trading company before moving to Seattle, the United States, where he now earns his living as an assistant mechanic in a automobile repair shop. I believe that if a student takes an unusually long time to finish their studies, then they are not suited to their chosen career.

When a senior manager from my Tokyo head office heard that my colleague was a dentist, he could hardly believe his ears. Such thing never happens in Japan, according to him. In other words, a dentist would never get a job in a trading company.

An acquaintance of mine, a physician, also took a very long time to finish his studies. When he could not move to a higher class in Jakarta, he went to Surabaya to enter a school of medicine (also a state university) and when he succeeded in moving to a higher class, he came back to Jakarta to continue his studies. Although he is now a qualified physician, he is not a busy one, so I draw the conclusion he chose the wrong career.

In this context, I was told that there is a pediatrician who works until 2 a.m. and parents have to make an appointment one month in advance. This doctor has undoubtedly chosen the right career.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta