Would it be sinful not to take advantage of the opportunities I have

Assalamu Alaikum

As long as your earnings are halal, you can work instead of go to school. Everything happens under Allah's will. Your successes and failures are all by Allah's permission.

Now I'm assuming you're still in high school, right? Unfortunately, this is the stage of life where you will not be able to figure everything out. You might get a job, but realize that it's a dead-end job. You might go to school, but never figure out what you want to do. So what you can do is figure out where your passion lies, and what you're good at. If you don't know what those are yet, then you have to have more life experiences, so go volunteer, talk to leaders in the community, shadow different types of occupations, talk to an adviser etc. Basically, you have to have a goal in mind and that's what will help you paint your pathway towards it. So maybe you will end up doing both. So say you were interested in starting a business. You might start working to make some seed money, but you also may want to take some courses to expand your knowledge in that area.

Lastly (but really it should be first) you can and should always make du'a that allah grant you success in everything you do, to guide you and make it easy on you. You should pray istikhara when you can't make a decision between two halal things (ie. studying vs working).

format_quote Originally Posted by .alhamdulillah.

I'm actually about to be done with college and graduate with a biology degree inshallah. I could continue with it to go onto healthcare but I could also just find some like you said, dead end job....

I'm just trying to see if that would be wrong. Because obviously we rely on Allah to provide for us, but we have to do the work too... and if we don't we can't blame Allah. But can I blame myself if I still work, just not a good job, and end up losing it or struggling, or was that just the will of Allah anyways.

It's not wrong because you don't know what's in store for your future. Your job could lead you to something better, allahu a'lem. Either way you're putting work towards something with the intention to help your family. You will always have the opportunity to go back to school whenever you want. Why you would want to choose a dead-end job over a more promising occupation, however, is beyond me, so that's something you have to reflect on. If you just need a break from school, you can get that break and go back with a clear mind. You will always have your degree as backup, so you really have no excuse to allow yourself to fail with a college education and a roof over your head.

format_quote Originally Posted by .alhamdulillah.

Also with istikhara, I thought you were first supposed to make a decision and then do it, and see how it unfolds. I didn't know you can do it for multiple options?

Istikhara's purpose is guidance. You're making du'a to Allah to guide you towards that which is better for your iman and akhira. Usually if you can't decide between two things, or perhaps you have decided but you're not 100% sure about whether something is good or not, you can make istikhara so that Allah may ease the better path for you.

So for example, if a woman has a suitor and she's unsure about whether to accept the proposal, she makes istikhara. Certain events may happen afterwards that make it difficult for her to accept the proposal (such as discovering that he's not a good person/she has doubts about him/too many problems making it hard to make marriage happen), or certain events may happen that facilitate the process of marriage (such as both families getting along, a feeling of serenity, everything happening as planned, etc).

But istikhara is only for asking about matters which are halal. So you can't, for example, make istikhara about whether or not you should date a girl, or drink beer. lol