November 15, 2011
Steph asked me why am I so excited for school. I really don't know. Maybe it's my inner James Franco wanting more education or something.
On one hand, I really really really want to graduate early, you know, so I can take a break from December to May before dental school starts. Then I could travel, or do stuffs that I like that doesn't have to fulfill any requirements of sorts, or maybe do an internship if I'm gonna be overachieving. But my major has so many requirements (66...plus 18 hours for business minor) I have to plan really early like now when I'm a freshman. So pretty much I already have all the classes laid out in front of me and have them arranged tightly in my future semesters in college. If I still want to graduate a semester early, I'll have to take 5 classes every semester and maybe a maymester.
I guess that's pretty normal for anyone who's in my situation. But, one of the reasons I'm majoring in biochemistry instead of biology or chemistry (both have just over half as much credit requirements as mine) is that biochemistry is like double-majoring with some choices, especially for the higher level classes. I don't wanna just major in bio because I kinda like chem...But I don't wanna major in chem because that would be boring. Heh. And that 18 hours of business minor will add some "flavoring" to my all science schedules in the future. I hope they are fun. Even though most people seems to be like, ewww about those all the time.
Umm I've been pretty boring for the last...5 minutes? So when I wanted to write this post, I wasn't gonna write about my major or all these credits that I need to take. I was gonna write about how I want to stay in school for a while. Just to take all the classes that I want to take. Like, learning how to paint and be a pro at it; or studying art history and study abroad for a while; or maybe venture into political science and...women's studies? All the possibilities. Maybe it's just the overwhelmingly amount of things that I actually get to learn in this first semester of college made me think that all classes are gonna be so absorbing and exciting. But seriously. There's so much freedom in college that you can learn just about anything. Am I being overachieving? At this point you might not think that I'm sane.
So if I had the time and money and I didn't have to worry about becoming a successful dentist and feed myself after I graduate, I would love to stay in school for a while and study all the things I like. Kinda like what James Franco is doing. Except I would never study creative writing because I just don't really have the courage to do that and I know I would feel bad for myself if I did. But sadly, in this world, for what I have and who I am, I could not do that. I will have to stick to 4 years of college and get into dental school and all that. All these people who go to graduate school or do something else before going to dental school were actually doing something dental-related, and are mostly, well, not surprisingly, guys. It seems that girls have no time to "waste" before starting to do something that you are gonna do for the rest of your life.
I was so tempted to become an art major or something. Except, art majors actually have so much to do and they have no time to do anything else. So I really wanted to be an art minor before I found the BA minor designed for non-business majors. My parents were strongly against me doing art. They consider it to be "not useful" and thus I should not "waste any time" on it. But art is so useful in so many ways! They just don't understand. My parents also belittle any non-science/business/engineering majors. And they don't understand people who do things they love that do not make money. For them, becoming successful is like, having such a profession that gives you enough money to have a quality life (well of course, it needs to be a "proper" profession not like dealing drugs...) And for every second of your life, you need to be doing something "useful" to achieve this. So I would assume they are happy with my career choice because a dentist fits this concept of a successful career. They always question me if this is what I really like. Because since, if you don't like something, you are not gonna be happy and successful at it at the same time. What they don't understand is, I actually like these really exciting stuff that you get to do when you are a dentist, and that getting to educate your patients about stuff that you know very well is exciting.
Sometimes, to me, they seem to be contradicting themselves. Because they feel the need that I should settle down and be confined to my gender role and at the same time be successful. While that is quite possible, something along the lines of accounting or the pharm program here is most ideal for them. Because then, you don't need to spend forever in school, you will earn good amount of money, you get to move to wherever your future husband need to move to, and your job is stable. But even though they did ask me if becoming a dentist is what I like, they also wonder why I don't like being a pharmacist. They seem to blur out the line between being successful and being happy about something. What I understand from them is, you should be happy if you have any of the "decent" professions. And that is, well, quite unlikely. I think that being a pharmacist is boring and too much memorization and being a accountant is like doing exact same repetitive things for the rest of your life. While those are essential professions, to me, they seem to be very "Asian" professions and are too confined to gender roles.
Anyway. You are probably bored to death and think that I'm insane now. Or maybe not. You could think my parents are tho. But that is just some stereotypical Asian rants I guess. So. to conclude this, I would like to say that I love being a dentist for all the reasons. And I will try to be as un-intimidating as possible.
Labels: personal, thoughts and feelings
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