Graduates Switch Tracks: When Passion Isn't Enough to Meet Reality

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Not all degrees lead to jobs that align with them. Amid economic realities, many university graduates find themselves veering in directions they never planned. This is not due to a loss of direction, but rather the demands of life forcing adaptation. The choice to switch tracks is slowly becoming a common story that is rarely heard aloud, but is truly felt. As of October 2025, only about 64.64% of workers are employed in roles aligned with their education. Meanwhile, 22.36% are considered overeducated, and about 13% are undereducated. In fact, around 35.36% of workers are not in positions matching the level of education they pursued. Nadia Murti (30) is one portrait of this phenomenon. Nadia’s path was never truly straight like the line she imagined while still in university. She once followed what was considered an “ideal” path, pursuing a degree in early childhood education and then entering a career aligned with her knowledge. However, like many other stories that are rarely voiced loudly, that path slowly changed direction. Not out of mere desire, but because of realities that forced understanding. The 30-year-old woman began her journey quite promisingly. That experience gave her much preparation, not just academically, but also life skills. “Through that experience, I learned about time management, analysing problems, solving problems, being brave to express opinions, and being brave to create new innovations,” she said when contacted on Wednesday (15/4/2026). However, the realities of the working world do not always align with expectations. After completing her assistantship period, Nadia tried working as a teacher at a private kindergarten. She arrived with simple hopes, at least a decent income to survive. That hope was not fully realised. The salary she received was far from her expectations, even not reaching the standard she had imagined beforehand. Moreover, she also had to spend personal funds for classroom learning needs. “I’m not ungrateful. But with a salary below the minimum wage as a teacher (at that time), I sometimes still had to invest my own money to create learning media for children. So, the salary wasn’t enough for living expenses,” she said. From there was born the decision to build a business in a field completely different from her educational background. “What made me switch to my current field is that I married a husband who shares the same vision, mission, and goals,” she said. No half-measures, they chose to run three business lines at once: furniture, animal feed supply, and layer chicken farming. Nevertheless, the career direction change was not without disappointment. Nadia admits that initially she felt lost. However, she then viewed that experience from a different perspective. “Honestly, at first I was really disappointed and very sad. But I reached a point where I finally thought, ‘okay, maybe this field doesn’t need me, but there’s a possibility that another field does need my knowledge’,” she said. For Nadia, the decision to switch paths did not immediately make the knowledge she studied irrelevant. Instead, she saw a common thread that could still be applied.