You Don't Need A Five-Year Plan To Start Uni (And Here's Why)

Whether you have a career in mind or you're still figuring it out, choosing a degree doesn't mean deciding your whole future at once. 

This article is presented in partnership with The University of Melbourne. 

Careers don't always follow a straight line. Interests change, new opportunities emerge, and the world of work keeps evolving around you. Research suggests today's workers will move through six or seven different careers across their lifetime, not just six or seven jobs. So the pressure to lock in one path before you've even started uni doesn't just feel intense, it's kind of outdated. 

That's the thinking behind the Melbourne Curriculum at the University of Melbourne, a degree structure built around developing adaptable, transferable skills that can carry you through career number one, three and four.

Start with what interests you. 

At Melbourne, you can choose from seven bachelor degrees that follow this structure: Arts, Biomedicine, Commerce, Design, Fine Arts, Music and Science. Together they cover more than 100 different study areas, giving you plenty of scope to find what really interests you. 

Your major becomes the main focus of your degree, though you don't necessarily have to decide on it straight away. Depending on your course, you can start narrowing in during first year or explore different subjects before choosing your direction. Some courses even give you the option of completing a double major. 

It's a different approach to the "double degree," a structure that's fairly unique to Australia and tends to lock students into a tightly mapped-out plan from day one. The Melbourne Curriculum takes the opposite view: whether you start with a clear plan or a few different possibilities in mind, you get room to discover new interests while still building knowledge and skills for your future. 

Explore beyond your degree. 

University is a chance to dig into the passions you already have, and it can introduce you to subjects, ideas and career possibilities you haven't encountered before. 

One of the standout features of the Melbourne Curriculum is breadth, subjects that let you study outside your main discipline. Studying science but curious about marketing or politics? Go for it. 

It's an opportunity to look at problems from different angles and build skills beyond your main area of expertise, things like critical thinking, problem-solving and communication that apply across almost any role or industry. 

Build towards a career, your way. 

This flexibility doesn't mean putting your career on hold. You can choose subjects and majors that build towards a specific goal from the beginning. 

Finishing high school with a clear career in mind? A Graduate Degree Package can provide a combined offer for an undergraduate degree and a specialised professional graduate degree before you even start at Melbourne. 

If you're heading into uni without a five-year plan though, that's not a red flag. Now is the time to explore, test out ideas and find out what you're actually interested in, without having to commit to it forever.  

Create a path that's uniquely yours through the Melbourne curriculum.