If you’re a young person or a career changer hoping to succeed in the business world, you might have a few things in mind that you want to do in order to launch that career: get a degree, take part in an internship, network. However, if you don’t already have a particular passion for or interest in some area of business, one of your hardest decisions might be figuring out what you should major in now and specialize in later. Below are a few questions to ask yourself to help you decide.

How Much Money Can You Spend?

Cost is usually a factor in the school you’ll choose to attend. While most schools with business departments have the usual array of majors, such as accounting, management and marketing, some may have more specialized majors and others might have a particularly good program in a particular area that interests you. If you want to study something like digital marketing or entrepreneurship, not every college will offer these as majors.

It’s good to keep cost in mind, but you shouldn’t let it stop from attending the college that will really be the right one for your career path since you may be able to get funding from other sources, such as scholarships and grants. Another option is student loans. At the Marketplace by Navient, you can find personalized rates for student loans that may help you get a better repayment plan.

Are You People or Data Driven?

A successful business career will require that you be good at both of these things to some extent, but if you really excel in one area or another, that could help point you to a potential area of specialization. If you’re all about people, sales might be the right fit for you; if you’d rather deal with numbers, you might be very happy in accounting. Human resources and management are other areas that may be particularly good for the people oriented while the data lovers might enjoy working with management information systems or in finance.

However, while assessing your tendencies in these areas, there’s one important thing to keep in mind. Don’t lock yourself into one pathway because you assume that you’re a certain way or have a certain set of qualities or preferences. It can be easy to miss opportunities when you think of yourself as someone who doesn’t do well in a certain environment. Be sure that you’re always challenging yourself and your assumptions. If you’re still looking for a major even after taking this into consideration, you can always turn to your professors or your career center for advice. In addition, you might think about majoring in business administration or general business to give you a broad set of skills and knowledge.

Does Money or Balance Matter More?

Another thing to consider is whether you are more interested in making as much money as possible or if you want a work/life balance. Of course, you may think both, but deciding which matters more to you will help you make decisions both about what to study in the first place as well as about your entire career trajectory. Any type of job can mean stress and long hours if you’re in certain types of workplaces, but even with the rise of remote work environments there are definitely areas in business where you can expect to live to work rather than the other way around.

To some extent, this will be a matter of degrees rather than specific profession. If your aim is to become the CEO of a top multinational corporation, you’re probably choosing money over balance; you could become the CEO of a much smaller, local company, perhaps even your own, and make far less but enjoy your family and hobbies more. You may also want to look specifically for workplaces with family friendly policies if work/life balance is important to you. If it’s all about the money, a more competitive environment that offers cash bonuses and other benefits to high achievers might suit you better.

Do You Need an MBA?

When you are wondering if an MBA is worth it think about where you are at in terms of your current education and career. If you’re just wrapping up your undergraduate degree, the answer is probably no because you’ll get a lot more out of an MBA program with some work experience under your belt. In fact, this is a requirement for admission to many programs. However, you should keep this question in mind for the longer term although you may not know the answer to it at the time that you graduate.

An MBA is more necessary in certain business sectors than other. You’ll get a better sense of the convention in yours once you’re out of school and working. In some cases, your company might pay for your MBA. However, they might also opt for a different kind of certification, such as enrolling you in an executive training program. Certain professions also have specific requirements attached; such the education required to become a CPA.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.