When we were children, many of us had these lofty goals of what we wanted to accomplish in life; we had goals of being anything from a race car driver, to a doctor, to the next president.
However, we realized once we graduated high school that many of the dreams we had once fathomed were no longer possible. There were high school graduates who went into the workforce, those who went into military, those who went to college or university, and then those who I have not accounted for in the above list. Those of us moving on to college found ourselves a little overwhelmed when asked to pick a major from a list.
Upon first glance at the list, we do the best we can to pick something that we will be interested in still after four years but would still provide for us financially (after all, how else are we supposed to pay off our thousands and thousands of dollars from student loan debt?). So, when quite a large number of students change their major at least once by the time they graduate, there are some hoops we are required to jump through.
For some, especially me, the most difficult hoop to jump through was telling my parents. I started my freshman year as a mechanical engineering major. During my second semester I changed to sociology, and at the beginning of my second year I added psychology, too. When I told my father (a month after I had made the switch out of fear of what he would say or do), all he saw was the immense drop in annual salary from mechanical engineering to sociology post-graduation.
I knew I would face a small amount of disappointment and even disproval from my father at the switch. I spent a full month terrified to tell my father about it ... terrified about what he would say to me, terrified that he would see me as lesser or weak or silly, terrified that he would withdraw the money for my schooling because he saw my new major as unworthy of funding.
But here's what he didn't see before the change: the mental break downs over silly engineering assignments, the anxiety, the stress, and the emotional break downs.
And here's what he didn't see when I made the change: the joy in learning eye-opening theories, the new-found passion I have for making a social change, the excitement I get when talking about disdiadokinesis and the biologization of race. He doesn't see the hours I willingly put in to my new majors in order to learn and do the best I can.
My father sees the money. He sees a lesser future for me in sociology and psychology than he does in mechanical engineering.
So it leaves me wondering, does my father see me?
