Why Maths?

Why did I choose to study mathematics?
This is a question I still ask myself.
There are many other subjects much more interesting or useful, so why this one.

I don't have a big passion to the subject, as some people might have, but I still find it interesting. But again anything could be of interest for me, since I am a curious person eager to learn about everything and anything. It was certainly not my dream subject, I would have found much more interesting to study astrophysics or medicine than mathematics. I really was keen to study the science of the space, because I was always amazed when I was looking at Hubble's pictures or reading astronomy's magazines. Or I could have done a more useful subject like medicine, because I really wanted to help people and being a medic can really do so. So why maths?

An easy answer would be to say that I was good at it when I was in high school and before. This was true, but is not anymore. I found doing maths was easy before university, at least easier than some other subjects but this cannot be a reason good enough to choose to study that subject.

A possible reason would be because of the passion one of my friends had when we were in high school. Seeing him so passionate about maths, telling stories about the Riemann zeta function or the number 0, emulated my interest in the subject. I eventually would want to feel the same passion as his, which I tried to do by starting to make my own research on the subject. So I guess I can thanks him (or blame him) for getting me into the mathematics buzz. I still haven't reached the passion he has but I still have strong interest into it.

An event, that comforted me in my choice of choosing maths, was when I went to do an interview in front of business and finance professionals to be admitted in a business school in France. One of the interviewer asked me whether I had other options besides my application to that business school. I nodded and told him that I had offers to do a Bachelor in the UK in Maths and Finance. At my surprise, he encouraged me to do that course and not to come to his business school. He explained me that Financial maths would be very useful for a career in Finance and that there would be a high demand for people with those skills. When you are so young and a professional told you that, you start to believe him, so that's what I did.

I guess all those things had inclined me to decide to study maths. But the main reason was that mathematics is a subject that offers opportunities to do all kind of jobs. Since I still didn't know what I wanted to be in my life, I didn't want to be restricted to one job. I wanted to be able to still have a large choice to choose from. Although I cant be a doctor (apart if there's a mathematical formula to heal all patients in hospital), I still can do most jobs available on the markets. I still can be an astrophysicist or a more literary job, since I always think that you can be a journalist or a writer if you have the passion for it, no matter if you have the required qualification. Therefore being a graduate from a Mathematics degree doesn't stop me to be anything I want to be.

What I want is more to enjoy my life and really do what I really like and want. I don't have regret choosing Mathematics, although there might have been some better choice. But what is done is done and I have to live with it. As I said many doors can still be open to me, I just need the passion, the will and the work.