Again, don't worry. It's not a life sentence! I stopped working full-time in accounting/finance four years ago and studied something completely different - horse hoof care! Now I'm self employed as a natural hoof care provider, plus I do 2 days a week of contract accounting, which lets me earn some money in the relatively easy manner of sitting in front of a computer screen in an air-conditioned office (MUCH easier than working on horses' feet in 40 degree heat!!). Plus, I'm one of those people who actually gets a kick out of making numbers balance. Complex spreadsheets make me rub my hands with glee.

When I taught 2nd year Corporate Accounting at a university for one semester (I was covering for someone who was on long service leave), on one hand I was very enthusiastic about it as a good grounding for many careers, and on another I felt like saying "Aren't you people interested in anything else? Go study something that you really love!"

There are some real pluses to having a practical degree like Accounting, a major one being able to earn a good salary in a wide range of industries. I worked for several multinational corporations in both city and country locations, a merchant bank, an chartered accounting firm doing insolvency and two universities, and now earn a useful side income which has let me pursue something I'm more interested in. Plenty of people who have accounting degrees never work in accounting at all. There are a lot of options!