Ask the expert: Keep options open

By MARIE WILSON

Q. What's the best complementary subject to study alongside business?

I am asking this question on behalf of my son, who is in the 7th form.

He is an academic high achiever, very entrepreneurial and keen on business and a career in management for big international corporations.

He would like to do a double degree at Auckland University next year. His first choice is a BCom, but he is unsure about what his second degree should be.

What is the most practical and logical combination second degree for him to take, given his talent and ambition? What do global companies look for in young graduates?

A. That really depends on what areas are his strengths, and what types of activities he enjoys.

I'm a bit worried by the emphasis on 7th form and first-year undergraduate students having to identify their career path and majors when they have such limited experience on which to make those choices - many students feel locked into these early career choices.

Career researchers are indicating that most future job choices don't even exist yet and that we will change careers many times over the course of our working lives.

So, he can make choices now, but I hope he also feels able to change those choices if they don't seem to be working for him in the next year or so.

With that in mind, I would suggest that topics which your son finds genuinely interesting are a good point from which to start. It's much easier to study topics that are fundamentally interesting to him and that tap into his natural abilities.

The first year of the BCom is a fixed set of courses across the business school and he'll have very little choice there, so his other degree should add strengths and choice to the BCom array.

University is an opportunity to study broadly, and there is a wider range of options on offer than he is likely to have considered before.

Have a careful look through all the options and see what combinations might make sense in terms of both degrees and subjects. I'm in favour of keeping options open in study to allow students to find areas that work well for them.

Generally I advise students to balance their early studies between courses that develop their language abilities and analytical thinking, with those that keep up their numerical and logic skills, as it is common to find students who have emphasised one side of their development at the expense of the other.

Almost any combination of offerings will work if they develop a broad set of skills and an ability to continue to learn.

Your son's employability at the end will depend less on his choice of second degree and more on the fact that he has completed the broader conjoint degree, and that his skill set is that much broader as a result.

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