Your Choice of Major Is Already a Bet

You think you picked your major rationally, but the choice itself is a bet.

Author: Koutian Wu; GitHub: ktwu01

Think about how most people choose. They look at which majors get jobs and pay well right now, and they pick that. It sounds reasonable, but you are using today’s data to bet on a market four or more years away.

My dad trades stocks. If he misreads the cycle, he loses money, every time. The most common retail mistake is pulling out as soon as prices fall. That is wrong. A drop is sometimes the moment to buy, a structural rotation. Choosing a major works the same way. Rushing into whatever is hot and fleeing whatever is cold is just chasing highs and selling lows.

So you need strategic patience. You cannot judge the present only from the past, or the future only from the present. You have to respect the historical cycle. Every industry has one, and if you cannot read it, you will lose. If your understanding is good enough to read the cycle, you can pick a better industry, one with a better future.

That is not my main point, though.

Even if you read the cycle perfectly and land in a rising industry, will you get rich? Probably not. You are still working inside the system, and your returns and risks are tied to the industry’s beta. The industry goes up, you go up. It goes down, you go down. Where there is beta, there are drawdowns.

To get truly rich, you would have to do what hedge funds do and cancel out the beta. That is very hard. It is why hedge funds hire Ivy League graduates, geniuses, and math olympiad gold medalists.

Look at everyone running strategies to fight the market. Someone wins and someone loses. But if you are the house, you always win. Run the casino, run the exchange. You are the one selling shovels, and unless hackers get you, you do not lose.

That is why people build exchanges, why they host other people’s strategies and take fees and a cut. That is where the money is. Nothing else compares. Be the one who builds and provides the platform, like Meituan, whose commissions carry very high margins.

How do you become a platform like that? At the start, forget about monopoly. Sell one shovel, and sell it for as long as you can. Start with one, then build from there.

I am not saying working a job is bad, or that everyone has to start a company. I am saying you should know the rules of the game. Choosing a major means betting on an uncertain future with limited information. What you can do is read the cycle and pick the right industry. What matters more is stepping outside that frame and asking whether you can stop being someone the cycle pushes around and become someone who sells shovels.