Can I get help in stream selection?
Hey everyone, I'm 15 from India and at a major crossroads. I have to pick my academic stream in the next few weeks and it essentially locks in my career direction. I want perspectives from people globally because I feel like I'm only hearing the same advice from people around me.
**Quick context for non-Indians:**
In India, after 10th grade you pick a stream — Science with Biology (leads to medicine), Science with Math (leads to engineering/CS), or Commerce (leads to business/finance/CA). This decision heavily influences what career you can pursue. It's a bigger deal here than in most countries.
**What I've actually tried:**
Basic Python. That's it honestly. Everything else is just research and imagination so far.
**What genuinely interests me:**
- Coding — the freedom, building things, working from anywhere
- Finance — the idea of managing company finances, understanding how money actually works at scale
- I consider Medicine too as its valued a lot
**My actual goals (not just career goals — life goals):**
- Help my parents financially in my early 20s
- Have real financial freedom by 25-27
- Travel and actually live my 20s, not spend them entirely studying
- Eventually build something — a business, agency, product, anything
**The three paths I'm weighing:**
**CS/Engineering degree** — 4 year computer science degree, build coding skills alongside, freelance during college, get a job or go independent by 22-23. Probably the most aligned with coding interest.
**Chartered Accountancy (CA)** — India's equivalent of CPA roughly. 4-5 year process, brutal exams (3-5% pass rate historically), but if you clear it you have a very high floor salary and can build your own firm. The idea of combining CA with coding/automation skills genuinely excites me.
**Medicine (MBBS)** — Respect the security it offers but I'm 23 before I earn anything real and 27-28 before serious money. I'm scared of losing my entire youth to studying.
**What I genuinely want to know:**
- For people in CS/software — when did you actually start making real money and what did the early years look like?
- For anyone in finance/accounting — does the day-to-day work actually stay interesting or does it get dry fast?
- Is the "learn to code and freelance" dream as real as it looks from the outside or is it mostly survivorship bias?
- How did you balance building a career with actually living your life in your late teens and early 20s?
- If you were 15 again knowing what you know now, what would you pick?
I'm not looking for "follow your passion" advice. I want real, honest, even brutal perspectives from people who've actually lived these paths.