Career And Educational Choice When Being Funded By Others
General Thoughts and Fun Topics

Career And Educational Choice When Being Funded By Others

Stock market money prediction

Today I was told about an unfortunate scenario that is taking place with someone who is apparently within my very distant family tree I guess you can say. In a nutshell, basically the parents wanted their daughter to go into a specific field, which from what I was told was something in chemistry, and in an effort in wanting to give her the best they paid to have her go to the US for schooling (They live in Hong Kong normally).

The conflict came in as she did not want to get into that field as she had no real passion for it nor was it something she was good at, but the parents insisted and so she went ahead with it. Now the interesting thing is that she was suppose to graduate this year, but the parents soon learned that she couldn’t due to not having enough credits. The story that I heard was kind of interesting as apparently midway during her schooling she switched directions and took courses in a field that she was actually interested, which was business related I was told, in which the parents didn’t know. So not only won’t she be graduating, but she has to leave the country soon because of the way the school Visa works and so she is trying to cut communication directly with the parents for as long as possible as she fears she would be say scolded over it. Almost sounds like a soap opera huh?

This sure was a complex situation I thought. In general, for the most part I would say that it is obviously better to get into something you are passionate about. The other view for this would be that if you are given so much and agreed to go through with it in the first place that you should at least follow through with it. I know quite a few people who chose their careers mainly because of the income potential as people had to sacrifice a lot financially to be able to give them the ideal education and so they felt like that was a way to ensure that it won’t go wasted so to speak. I only know one person who kept changing paths during his schooling as it was “too hard” and money didn’t seem to be an issue. While it isn’t exactly the same, it kind of reminds me of say a business and investor relationship.

For these types of situations though, I guess the bottom line is that I am more inclined to say that you should really think hard right from the start before getting into something because it can be a very black and white scenario in the working and business world. For example, if you agreed to do something for someone and you went ahead and took the money, rarely will you be able to backtrack from that without some kind of serious repercussion regardless of how dramatic the situation may be. So learn and work towards what you have a lot of aspirations in, but I’d say at the same time if other people are helping you financially then you owe it to them and yourself to be honest from the start. That means even if they are pushing you to do something that you disagree with, then it is your responsibility to either not accept it from the start or try to compromise in the beginning before doing anything.

4 Comments

  • joewatch 7/23/2007

    Although I think your advice is true in a general sense, I don’t agree that it applies in your cousin’s case, as basically, she was not really mature enough to make a decision about her studies right after finishing high school. The same thing happened to my sister, who basically chose to major in pre-med in college in order to please my parents. When you are a kid, especially in an Asian family, you do whatever your parents tell you to do.

    Now that she has done the right thing by choosing the major that’s best for her (doing something against the wishes of her family is really a big step), she should take it all the way and tell them the truth. Certainly, they may be mad, but that is the right and adult thing to do, and they will still love her no matter what. I would hope that there is some way to apply for an extension on the student visa, but perhaps she can just transfer the credits to school in Hong Kong if she needs to.

  • Alan Yu 7/24/2007

    I don’t know the entire story, but I guess it is a matter of perspective and circumstance in my view (I don’t think it was right after high school either based on the age).

    Even at say eighteen though, for the most part I personally think people are at that point where they should be making straight forward decisions as hiding from your fears or challenges is not the way to go I’d say.

    The main point is that you should deal with things directly as oppose to trying to hide from it. As with your example, I’m my view it seemed like it may have worked out better if your sister was able to somehow get it across your parents from the start and then follow her desired path. Yes, I can definitely relate to how hard it can be. Is that really expecting too much from a young adult though? I suppose that depends on your environment too.

    I can only imagine how much stress and misery I would have gone through for example, like with this scenario, if I just went with the “become a doctor or dentist” type of path that I think most parents would like to see initially. So why put yourself in that predicament? In general, again I don’t know the exact details, I would say even as a young adult you should recognize that you are responsible for the decisions that you make regardless of how much you are being pressured.

    As an example in terms of accepting money from a parent for education, I know people that disagreed with their parents and instead of accepting any funding they just worked ridiculously hard and earned every penny to fund themselves in every way you can imagine. In their minds, if they took the money even though they still disagreed they would feel obligated in some way as taking it in the first place is kind of an acceptance that you don’t like it, but you’ll do it. I guess I agree with that point personally from a general standpoint.

    I have even read some overblown examples such as people being told they would be kicked out of the house, but sure enough they still made it happen. Obviously you can’t expect everyone to have the same determination/perseverance at a young adult age, but I guess that is one of those things too where while it may be hard, it’s not impossible and I’d say learn it from the beginning.

    And don’t worry, it looks like the story is going to have a happy ending.

  • GoldnSilver 7/31/2007

    I am a little lost with this post and your point. So are you saying she should have been up front with her folks that you she chose a different major?

    Or are you saying since she accepted her parents paying for her college, therefore she should study the subjects that her parents preferred?

  • Alan Yu 7/31/2007

    Basically, I personally think the better thing to do is to be upfront right away and deal with it then regardless on how hard it may seem to be. So if anyone is in that situation right now I’d say that is the way to do it personally.

    For this case, she accepted and so I think it would have been better to follow through instead of quietly/secretly changing midway. Also, it’s not so much about accepting the money for school, as most people do that anyways and is how a lot of people get started, it’s more about being given something with a specific intent on what you would do with it and then instead you secretly do something else.

    In this case, the topic/situation has to deal with the type of field to be educated in and with conflict and circumstance in place I’m sure everyone has their own opinion and thoughts on it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Loading...