Most students pick a degree before they have a career direction. That gap is where regret starts. Here is a practical framework for setting career goals first, then working backward to the study choices that serve them.
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About 36% of graduates wish they had chosen a different major. Nine out of ten people say they regret rushing their career choice. These are not small numbers. They reflect a pattern that most students choose a degree programme first, then hope a career will follow. The productive order runs the other way around.
Setting a career direction before finalising your study choices gives every decision that follows a reason. This post covers four tools for doing that well: SMART career goals, a 1/3/5/10-year planning structure, reverse planning from a target role and a framework for adapting when things change.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks graduate employment each quarter. In early 2026, 41.5% of recent college graduates were underemployed, meaning they were working in roles that did not require a degree. Five years after graduation, 54% of graduates who had completed no internship during their studies were underemployed, compared to 41% of those who had.
A study by Gallup and the Strada Education Network surveyed over 90,000 graduates. 36% said they wished they had chosen a different major. Regret was highest among humanities and arts graduates at 48%, and social and behavioural sciences at 46%. Only 13% of computer science and mathematics graduates expressed the same regret.
The pattern behind those numbers is consistent. Students who chose programmes tied to a specific career outcome were more likely to land in roles related to their studies. Students who chose programmes based on interest, peer influence or general reputation were more likely to end up in mismatched roles, regardless of the institution they attended.
The study choice matters. The career goal that preceded it matters more.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Labour Market for Recent College Graduates | ZipRecruiter — The Most Regretted College Majors | Strada Education Foundation — Talent Disrupted
The SMART framework is widely used in professional development. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For students choosing a study path, it works best when applied to career outcomes, not just academic milestones.
A vague goal: "I want to work in business." A SMART goal: "I want to work as a financial analyst at a mid-size firm within two years of graduating, earning at least CAD 65,000."
The difference is precision. The SMART version tells you which degree programmes to compare, which universities have strong employer ties in finance, which internship roles to target, and which electives to prioritise. The vague version tells you nothing actionable.
Research from the Dominican University of California found that people who wrote down specific goals were 42% more likely to achieve them than those who did not. A separate study published in the International Journal of Mental Health Promotion found that SMART goal interventions led to greater goal attainment and higher need satisfaction than unstructured goal-setting.
For career planning, writing the SMART goal before choosing a programme is the step most students skip. It forces a level of specificity that changes what you look for in a degree.
Source: WVJC — Setting SMART Career Goals | International Journal of Mental Health Promotion — SMART Goal Intervention Research
Career planning across four time horizons gives different types of clarity. Each horizon asks a different question.
This horizon covers the immediate next steps. For a student, that means the programme you enrol in, the first internship you target, and the foundational skills you need to build. One-year goals should be highly specific and tied to concrete actions.
Three years out is typically graduation or shortly after. The goal here is the role you want to enter at that point. Research what graduates from your target programme are actually doing at the three-year mark. Use LinkedIn's alumni tool to check real outcomes, not published employment statistics. That data tells you what the programme realistically leads to.
At five years post-graduation, most professionals have moved past entry level. The five-year goal is your target position after that transition: a specific title, a sector, a level of responsibility, or a type of work. This goal narrows which entry roles are worth taking and which internships build toward the right next step.
Ten years is a direction, not a destination. The labour market changes faster than a decade. The purpose of a ten-year vision is to clarify the kind of professional you want to become, the sector you want to be in, and the lifestyle that career needs to support. That direction shapes all the shorter-term decisions below it.
MIT's Career Advising and Professional Development programme recommends building your plan from the top down: start with the long-term direction, then define what the five-year position looks like, then identify what three-year role leads there, then determine what degree and internships make the three-year goal reachable.
Source: MIT CAPD — Creating Your Five Year Plan | Citizens Bank — Career Planning: Your 1, 3, and 5 Year Strategy
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Reverse planning starts at the end. You identify a specific role you want to hold, then work backward to determine exactly what qualifications, experiences, and skills are required to be hired for it.
The most direct research method: find 20 to 30 current job postings for the role you are targeting. Read each one carefully. Note what degrees appear most frequently, which skills are listed as required versus preferred, whether professional certifications come up, and whether the postings mention specific universities or programme types. That data tells you more than any career counsellor generalisation.
From that research, you can build a reverse plan with four layers.
The target role and its hiring requirements. The degree programme most aligned with those requirements. The internship and work experience expected by the time you graduate. The electives, certifications, or extracurricular activities that build missing skills.
This approach also highlights mismatches early. A student who wants to work in healthcare management but has enrolled in a general business degree will discover quickly that the postings they are reading consistently list healthcare-specific coursework or clinical exposure. That is a useful finding at the planning stage. Finding it at graduation is far more costly.
Source: Cirkled In — Reverse Engineering Your Career Path | Precision Executive Search — Career Success via Reverse Engineering
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects that 44% of current work tasks will be automated by 2027. Entirely new categories of roles are emerging in AI, green energy, biotech, and health technology. The career landscape your goals are pointing at today will look different in five years.
A plan needs to account for that.
The goal is to build transferable foundations. A student targeting a career in data-driven marketing should focus on analytical skills, communication and domain knowledge. Those skills transfer if the specific role evolves or disappears. A student who over-specialises in a single tool or platform carries more risk when that technology is superseded.
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Review your career goals at set intervals. Once a year is a practical cadence. Ask three questions at each review. Has my target role changed significantly? Have the entry requirements shifted? Have new opportunities opened up in related areas that are worth redirecting toward?
Adapting is not abandoning the plan. It is updating the plan with better information. Students who build this review habit during their degree enter the job market with a more accurate read of where the opportunities are, rather than applying to roles based on a career picture formed two years earlier.
85% of employers in the WEF survey said they plan to invest in workforce upskilling over the next five years. The professionals most likely to benefit from that investment are those who have already demonstrated a pattern of deliberate, goal-directed learning, which is exactly what a structured career plan builds.
Source: World Economic Forum — Future of Jobs Report 2025 | Merit America — Key Takeaways from the 2025 Future of Jobs Report
The students who make the most confident study choices are the ones who have a career goal before they choose a programme. They know what they are building toward, which makes every decision along the way easier to evaluate.
EduviXor's AI Advisor, Stella, is a good first step. You can use it to map your interests and initial career direction, and it will surface programme options and pathways worth exploring. Stella gives you a starting point and something concrete to work from.
For students who want to go deeper, our consultants take time to study each case individually. They look at your academic profile, your target market, your financial situation, and the specific roles you are aiming for, then help you build a plan with real precision. That level of analysis goes well beyond what any initial assessment can surface.
If you are at the stage of choosing a programme and want to make sure the direction is right, a free discovery call with our team is the clearest next step.
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