"You'll be prepared for the coursework by what you were already doing."

"Oh. Well, I think most of what I'd learn would be, like, self-directed studying anyway. I could major in econ and minor in math."

"Sure. Although you don't want to load up so much that by the time it's no longer feasible to bide your time in college you don't have anything marketable."

"Hm, yeah, fair enough. I'm not even sure I'd go with either of those, though."

"Oh?"

"Well, I'd only be picking them for being fun, if I found something actually useful that was not going to consume all my magic time I might go with that instead."

"Like what, though?"

"Comp sci is more useful than general math, and I have no idea what the usefulness of applied math even is but it's probably also less than that. Engineering might also be more useful and touch on those areas, but not sure about the time-consuming part."

"Honestly, anything would probably be time-consuming if you took it seriously."

"Mmm, I suppose, but if it's something I'm already good at it'll be less time consuming even then."

"Depends if you're benchmarking yourself against the other students or not. If you're good at something you can profitably sink more time into it."

"Sure, but I already have something I can very profitably sink time into."

"Yep. Being magic: it's pretty cool."

"It really is. Lots of nice perks."

"Alex was so glad it didn't turn out that he got it and not me, he thinks I would have micromanaged him past tolerance."

"...well, I can't say it's not a plausible scenario."

"On the contrary, I would have made sure of exactly what his tolerance was and stayed within it."

He giggles. "I stand corrected, that's an even more plausible scenario."

She nuzzles him.

Awwww. He closes his eyes and sighs contentedly. "In any case, if I find a more useful internship day after tomorrow this might become moot."

"Yup. There could be all kinds of things. Maybe you can run away and join the circus."

"...as the amazing gendershifting... something? What noun would I use here? I suppose I could be a bearded lady..."

"I don't think you'd benefit from a beard," Isabella remarks.

"I quite agree, but I'm not about to become an elementalist so I'm not sure what a circus could want me for."

"It wasn't a serious suggestion, pet."