Why did I choose to study at the university?

In the upper secondary school I did not choose a vocationally-oriented program, like for example nurturance, since I was not sure of which type of profession I wanted to engage on. Some people have knowledge of “a job of their dreams” even as a child, “when I grow up I am going to be a doctor, a police etc”. Unfortunately this was not the case for me; such an insight would surely have simplified the difficult question about the career choice. But because of this lack of insight I wanted to keep all options open, so the choice fell on the natural sciences program.

After upper secondary school I was weary of school and studies, therefore I started to explore my opportunities and I soon found out that the accessible jobs were not especially attractive. Without any work experience, or experience of life for that matter, you can probably, with some luck, get an employment as a cleaner or a salesman, for example. No offence to these professions, but I had other ambitions. My low opinions of these jobs are no prejudices, after the upper secondary school I worked as a cleaner and I also tried a sales work. Therefore I knew for a fact that these types of employments did not suit me.

Having received these experiences I decided it was time to start studying again. In comparison to the available jobs, school did not seem so bad any longer and I knew that in today’s society it is necessary to have some sort of education or work experience to get a proper and enjoyable employment. I had no idea which sort of work that would suit me and since the possible options could not be counted on the fingers of one hand it was a difficult question. The fact that you are supposed to spend about forty years working did not really make the decision easier; it sooner increased the decision agony.

Education does not only give a increased chance to a work, during the studies you also meet a lot of people and get new friends, so this choice may affect your entire life in many ways. All these thoughts and musings did not really lead up to anything substantial so I put all these matters aside and focused on the things I knew. At this time I had recently moved to Karlstad together with my boyfriend. We had got hold of a really nice apartment and this town was a pleasant place to live in. Furthermore, my boyfriend had got a good job here and because of these reasons I started looking in a catalog over the educations at Karlstad University. There I found a graduate engineer education which seemed to be appropriate for me since I always had liked math and technology. I applied and I was admitted. This is pretty much the story behind why I choose to study at the university.