A FEW weeks ago, I met a student from a United States Ivy League university who was doing a postgraduate degree in quantum chemistry.
He told me that at least half his course mates planned to work in banks when they graduated.
This struck me as curious - that people who had sufficient interest and talent to pursue one subject up to the postgraduate level would want to ditch it all to work in an unrelated field.
What swayed them?
The obvious answer would be: money. At the rate the banking and finance sector is growing, especially in Singapore, pay cheques dangled by banks currently overshadow most other sectors.
Put it this way: A job in banking and finance is probably a person's most realistic chance of earning a five-figure salary within a few years of graduation.
It is not all that surprising then that recent employment studies put banking and finance as the career of choice for Singaporean graduates in the past year.
An online survey by career services provider JobsFactory puts business studies as the favourite among A-level students. Some 42.2per cent of the 2,400 respondents picked this and management.
Arts and social sciences was next with 30.8per cent, with engineering trailing with 30.3per cent.
A separate online poll of over 2,800 graduates by the same firm found that seven of the top 10 companies these job-seekers wanted to work for were banks.
In a sense, it's the sort of buzz that other occupations attracted previously. There was the engineering/IT trend in the 1990s, then the life sciences boom before the current banking wave.
But there is one important difference between a boom in banking and its predecessors: accessibility.
And I wonder if it's all good news. As far as I can tell, the banking trend is an inclusive one.
Nearly anyone with nearly any degree can find some sort of job to apply for within the banking industry.
This low entry barrier therefore allows banking - unlike engineering or the life sciences - to more easily 'cannibalise' other sectors.
During the engineering boom, bank employees holding general or other degrees could not leave their jobs to become engineers.
But it's not too difficult for an engineer to make the transition to a job in banking.
The effects on the engineering sector have been particularly stark. Manpower Ministry figures show that engineering positions made up more than half of the top 10 job vacancies last year.
Among steps to boost its ranks, the Government announced a $76million initiative on Tuesday to train 2,000 precision engineers.
That, though, is not a problem for the job-seeker to worry about.
On that level, the fundamental questions would be: Are you going into a job for the right reasons? Is money the primary motivation?
Considering how many people from different fields are now flocking to banking, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion.
Indeed, for those with an interest in banking, it's a wonderful time to get involved.
But for those who don't, is it wise to just follow the money?
I've always held that you need at least a bit of passion for what you are doing to be able to sustain it in the long run.
As Mr Mark Sparrow, country manager for recruitment agency Hudson, put it: 'You have to remember that you will be spending almost half your life in your job.'
A recent poll of 723 executives by Hudson showed that banking and finance workers had the hardest time staying put. Nearly half of those in that sector leave their companies within two years - twice the proportion of job-hoppers recorded in the manufacturing sector.
Now, it's hard to say how many jumped because they got a better offer in another bank, but there must be some who simply grew tired of the job.
But it is what happens to those who leave that concerns polytechnic lecturer Chong Ching Liang, 40.
Noting that many poly students were abandoning their diplomas for entry-level bank jobs, he said: 'There's a great impatience to start making money. They are putting aside their qualifications and going into the sales line.'
He worries that should they leave that job, the edge that their diplomas gave them would be lost.
'Three years after you leave poly, your knowledge in your field is obsolete. If you are not careful, your resume will look terrible.'
Having myself jumped on a hot field of study at a time when engineering was the thing to do, I speak from experience when I say that going with what is in vogue or what promises money is no way to choose a job or degree.
Swayed by the sheer number of my friends signing up for engineering - and the belief that it would lead to a secure well-paying job - I too enrolled in a computer engineering programme.
It became clear quite early that I wasn't cut out for it. After making it through, I walked away from the field and never looked back.
Unless you are sure banking and finance is for you, maybe it's better to stick to what you like. Money shouldn't be everything. You don't need a PhD in quantum chemistry to work that out.
