Ah, yeah I see what you mean. In France philosophy is (or was, I'm not sure that it is anymore) a compulsory subject in the last year of secondary school. This allowed me to see that I had an affinity for it, but still, one year was not long enough to have complete certainty, so going for a degree in philosophy seemed like a bit of a gamble at the time. (And my parents advised against it, which did have an influence.)
I wasn't very good at history by the way, and I didn't even like it in secondary school. I went for a degree in English. It's only because I transferred to the Irish system in the third year with no option other than a double honours degree that I had to take up history as well. Technically I only studied history in my third year; the head of department at the time suggested I do some catch up courses but that was somehow waived, and I did end up getting a degree in both English and history. It's kinda strange, thinking back, because I studied no history in my first year and only a couple courses in my second (Erasmus) year in Ireland. My focus was English, as I was originally expecting that I would go back to France.
Oh, and then I skipped the masters too
I'm basically a historian who hardly studied history!
