i am entering sophmore year in college. i wanted to be a financial planner, but the math is beyond me. i have no idea what i want to be, now.

Hi Jonah! I studied finance myself, and one thing I would advise you to think about is the math you do in school is not the same thing you will be doing in your regular job. I am not saying there is no math involved in being a financial planner, but there are no tests and you will have all the resources in the world to help you. If you think financial planner is the career for you then maybe you should consider sticking out the math.

On the flip side, although it may be more difficult, you can become a financial advisor without a finance degree. You could try a business major that is less math focused which would still be applicable, but not as challenging such as marketing, management, sales, and many more. I would recommend looking at those other options if financial advising is your passion.

Lastly, if you are considering switching your major and ideal career, I would research careers right away and start shadowing others to figure out what else interests you.

Honestly, the math in college is much more difficult than the math at work. The important part is understanding concepts. It does help to be well practiced in basic math, so you can multiply and divide financial ratios and recognize obvious errors versus reasonable results. Anything more complex is handled by computers.
Communication skills are extremely important in financial planning, whether it is for individuals or companies. If you have that, you can probably get over the math hurdle.

I advise that you go where your heart is. Hire a tutor to help you get over the hurdle of Math. You will have to help with the math. There are who thought they could never do math, but once they get help see improvement. I tutored in Math in the past and witnessed it first hand. You can do it with help.

Jonah,

I would start by answering, in great detail, the question: Why did you want to be a financial advisor? That will tell you a lot about yourself, and start you looking at other possible ways to put your interests to use.

I have worked with a few financial advisors, as well as a CPA to do my taxes, and they ALL simply plug numbers into a computer. It does require an "understanding" of what the computer did, and the ability to discuss the results with the client, but they never did the math. If I ask a "what if" question, they change the variables and re-run the program.

It might simply be that you need to find a way to understand the math. You might need to find your own way to learn. Professors don't always present the information in a way that you can make sense out of it. Maybe you need to draw little diagrams to go with it. If you REALLY want to be a financial advisor, I challenge you to find a way to get beyond this hurdle. Quitting is the easy way out.

If you've truly already tried, then, I agree, it is time to move on. But still answer the question I posed at the beginning. It will help you with your self-analysis of where to go from here!