A Student's Story:When is Education Self-Indulgent

I think, much as with Year 13 essay questions, we should discuss, and obviously I'll do so by reference to my own academic endeavours.

While I may well be selfish in other areas of my life, it did not cross my mind that further study could be considered so. Yes, I do have two previous degrees - one in media arts and one in law.
I have diligently paid back the vast bulk of my student loan, which was modest in the first place, thanks to working all through both degrees.

So the New Zealand taxpayer is not going to suffer at my hands, whether or not I require a loan for this year's study. After all, I have been a taxpayer myself for the last 14 years. I don't think I could be called a professional student by even the meanest of calculations.
I am not taking any dewy-eyed 18-year-old's university place. It's a graduate diploma - you need an undergraduate degree in another discipline to apply -  so I am not snatching it from the hands of some hopeful teen, unless he or she is some sort of prodigy, in which case I do not think they would need me to step aside to get a university place.

I have been a journalist for 11 years, five of them at Stuff. While working in journalism, I also did a law degree. About three-quarters of the way through law, I realised I did not want to practise in the field.

Perhaps I should not have completed my final year knowing this but it seemed foolish to abandon the degree at that point. Law expanded my knowledge on a variety of topics and I do not regret studying it.

The choice to study psychology is not a spur-of-the-moment whim because my life has hit a dead end and I don't know where to go next. I have been planning towards it for a year and the only question was if it would be this year or 2013.

Everything slotted into place for this year, so here I am. I do not consider my time in Sydney a failed experiment - I enjoyed it and discovered that Wellington is a great little city in ways I couldn't appreciate before I left.

So, is there a certain number of years I should complete in a career before being allowed to change? Is it wishy washy to not to take up a career that I trained in, given I knew I would not be happy?
Surely there's no rule that insists you must stick to all your decisions, even if they lead to results you were not expecting?

Picked from stuff.co.nz