This article is a message to high school students and underclassmen in college. A crucial piece of advice I never had going into college is that there are way more fields of study that society desperately needs and will pay for than just business degrees. Having a college career involving things like cancer research, making rockets, or finding environmentally friendly agriculture innovations to feed a world pushing 7.5 billion is possible when entering school. Get to know each field of study at your college well and see what the opportunities for research are instead of simply defaulting to business since its the easiest current choice for you.

The main industries in America have changed. We used to export a lot of hard goods like automobiles and other pieces of useful equipment. During this period of time our economy steadily flourished. Now we are a nation consumed in the banking sector. Now our countries top 500 companies make more stock buy backs than about any time in history while financial companies still package risky mortgages and sell them to the market. Our cities are comprised of skyscraper financial buildings where every floor has hundreds of desks where people sit for hours a day and turn the gears of the massive financial sector in America. People aren't producing anything with their hands in these buildings. Massive amounts of these people could have been making things that would change lives if they had explored other fields of study. Countless undergraduate business degree candidates soon learn that this lifestyle is not for them and become unhappy with their pick in major.

I have found many students flooding business schools across the country end up there for a few different reasons: their parents do business, they have no idea what else they want to do or they think an undergraduate business degree will land them the fattest paycheck. The market for a business degree is saturated. There is nothing that says working in business will make you more money, yet there are millions of people getting business degrees. Being the student to study how to turn trash into a sustainable fuel source or layouts for energy efficient and sustainable buildings is what is going to make money. It's different for everyone, but don't be so quick to focus your time and education money on figuring out what a bond will be worth in 30 years with a given amount of interest. I made the mistake of working towards a business degree while I was an underclassman for the simple reason that my parents did business and my family had no inclination to encourage me to study any other field. By the middle of my sophomore year, I realized undergraduate business school was not making me as smart as my BU tuition was implying. So I switched to economics and journalism, but I have always been jealous of my engineering and science friends that talk about how they are building rockets and making brilliant prosthetic limbs.

There are a ton of students currently leaving school and feeling no fulfillment working in the corporate business world and desperately want to leave. College hands you an incredible opportunity to make the impact you dream of and to better the world with what you study. Don't be afraid to take a gap year after high school to get to know yourself and what you are best at. It will save you money and headache so you don't realize you want to switch career paths as an upperclassman which would make two years of school and a lot of money almost irrelevant. There is plenty of research supporting gap years, even the Obama family is having their daughter take a gap year after high school. Our world needs sustainable innovation to thrive and survive in the future. Be a part of the innovative group of people that are going to save the planet from ourselves with the things they make.