Nina To/ The Cougar
After four years of college, one year of professional work experience and $40,000 worth of student debt, my older sister finally did what she always wanted to do. She left the field of engineering to pursue a career as a marriage counselor.
This was a classic case of parental pressure. My sister, Veronika, never wanted to be a civil engineer. Throughout college, Veronika dragged her feet through a degree she didn’t want. It got to the point that she created an Instagram account bashing the profession with memes, but arguing with her parents was no use. It was a steady career, and that was that.
When she graduated, she gave engineering a fair shot and got a full-time job. After 13 months of enduring her personal hell, she got laid off, and the expected thing happened: she wanted to change careers. She took off on a month-long trip to Europe to destress and joined the disappointing-her-parents club with her younger sister, the English major (me).
Childhood dreams have some merit
Feeling forced into a career or major that doesn’t suit you is common. Whether through parental influence, the pressure of making money or both, students’ personal interests often take a backseat to so-called practicality.
It’s a far cry from the days of childhood, when everyone and everything encouraged children to follow their dreams. This past week, I was binging 2010s Nickelodeon theme songs when I discovered the surprising wisdom of their bullheaded positivity. Blasting “Big Time Rush” on the highway, I was struck by how much bigger the world of a child is compared to that of an adult.
Even though adults have more freedom to act on their desires, they tend to lack creativity. Kindergarten classrooms are full of future movie stars, astronauts, NBA athletes and superheroes while college graduates seek prospective thrills as “investment banker” and “administrative assistants.”
Adult life becomes a game of Monopoly. All the advice about living life to the fullest gives way to retirement accounts, salaries and prestige. Following your dreams is seen as unrealistic and trite, unless your dream job happens to be practical or you have a rich family backing you.
But how practical is it to waste years of your life doing something you dread? My sister went a long way, but she also went the wrong way, and the saddest part is that she knew she was going in the wrong direction. It was fear that held her back, not ignorance.
Boring isn’t always bad
Don’t get me wrong; steady, “boring” careers are a perfectly respectable choice. In a survey asking Gen Z workers what they would do if they could change their education path, only 12% said they would choose a creative, passion-driven degree, compared to 22% who said they would choose a higher-paying field.
Therefore, choosing a career isn’t a simple matter of just following one’s passions. There are drivers for satisfaction other than one’s own interests, like the drive to support one’s family.
If job security, fancy vacations in the Netherlands or flexible, low-effort work is your dream, that is the one you should chase. One can be perfectly happy doing a dull job and exercising their fun muscles at home. What matters is that you do what you want to do, not what you think you should want or what other people say you should want. SpongeBob loves being a fry cook. He doesn’t need to be anything else.
Being realistic while also being brave
Purely by statistics, it’s highly unlikely that everyone in the aforementioned kindergarten class will be talented, lucky, intelligent and wealthy enough to land the highly competitive position that children often aim for. There’s also the small matter that some goals are just impossible; my little sister will never be a horse, no matter how much she wants to. Grit alone doesn’t guarantee a spot at the top.
But if you can grit your teeth and bear doing a job you hate, why not grit your teeth and fight for the job you would love, or at least enjoy? No one is coming to stop you except yourself. While it might be risky or difficult, somebody has to be the next Supreme Court Justice or bestselling author, and it’s not impossible that that someone is you. You cannot automatically reject yourself from things you haven’t even attempted yet. Happy endings cannot happen without some kind of beginning.
Today, my sister is putting together a grad school application for a master’s in psychology. She has absolutely zero background experience, and she’ll have to start taking classes this summer to catch up on the bachelor’s in psychology she could have had. But as I look at her excitedly taking back-to-school photos at 24, I can’t help thinking she made the right choice.
opinion@thedailycougar.com
