My twin and I are close enough that most people who know us assume we think about things the same way, but when it came to choosing our university degrees we approached the decision from almost opposite starting points and ended up in genuinely different places both during our studies and in the early career years that followed. Sharing what both experiences actually looked like feels more honest and more useful than anything either of us could say about our own choice in isolation.
How we each approached the decision
I researched highest paying degrees extensively before committing to anything. I pulled salary data, looked at employment rates within six months of graduation, compared starting salary trajectories across different fields, and made my final decision based heavily on what the numbers said about which degree paths produced the strongest financial outcomes for graduates entering the current job market.
My sister approached the decision almost entirely from the opposite direction. She chose based on what genuinely interested her without doing much research into highest paying degrees or employment outcomes and felt that passion for a subject would eventually translate into success regardless of what the salary data said about that particular field.
Neither of us tried to convince the other to change their approach. We were curious enough about the difference to want to actually see how both paths played out rather than arguing about which philosophy was correct before either of us had any real evidence.
What my experience looked like following the data
I ended up in an engineering specialization that consistently appeared near the top of highest paying degrees research and my experience during the degree was genuinely difficult in ways I had not fully anticipated. The coursework was demanding in a way that required sustained effort regardless of how I felt about the material on any given day, and there were periods during my second and third years where I was working very hard on things I found more challenging than engaging.
The employment side of my experience matched what the highest paying degrees data had predicted fairly closely. I received my first job offer before graduation, the starting salary was competitive, and the trajectory of opportunities available to me in my first two years of working has been consistent with what the research suggested I could expect.
What my sister's experience looked like following her interest
Her degree in a creative field she genuinely loved was a completely different kind of experience. She describes her university years as the most intellectually alive she has ever felt and the work she produced during that period reflected a level of genuine engagement that she believes would not have been possible if she had chosen something purely for financial reasons.
The employment side has been more complicated. Her field has genuine talent and the opportunities that have come to her reflect that, but the financial trajectory has been slower and less predictable than mine and she has had periods of uncertainty about work that I have not experienced in the same way.
What we both think about each other's choices now
This is the part I find most interesting to reflect on two years into our respective careers. I sometimes genuinely envy the quality of engagement my sister had with her studies and the creative satisfaction she gets from work that she would choose even without the financial component. There are days in my career where the work is competent and well compensated but not particularly meaningful in the way her work clearly is to her.
She sometimes envies the financial predictability I have and the reduced anxiety about whether the next opportunity will appear. Highest paying degrees data translated into real outcomes for me and those outcomes provide a kind of stability that has genuine value she acknowledges honestly.
What we have both concluded from comparing our experiences
Neither of us thinks the other made a mistake exactly, which is perhaps the most honest conclusion available after two years of actual evidence. The highest paying degrees research I relied on produced the financial outcomes it predicted but did not capture everything relevant to a satisfying career. My sister's interest driven approach produced genuine engagement and creative satisfaction but did not fully account for the financial uncertainty that followed.
What we both wish we had understood better before deciding is that these approaches are not actually mutually exclusive in the way we each treated them. Looking for overlap between genuine interest and highest paying degrees fields rather than treating financial data and personal interest as separate considerations that could not both inform the same decision might have led both of us somewhere better than either pure approach produced.
What I would tell someone currently making this decision
Do not ignore highest paying degrees data the way my sister did but do not treat it as the only relevant input the way I did either. The financial outcomes matter and the research is worth taking seriously. But the quality of your daily engagement with your work matters over a thirty year career in ways that a starting salary comparison cannot capture and finding fields where both considerations point in a compatible direction is worth the additional research time that requires.