There are severe misconceptions that some majors are guaranteed to bring an individual success and stability while others will not.

There are two types of responses that usually came after my answer.

Either, they hesitantly said, “Oh that’s nice!” with feigning interest or they spewed out negative feedback that I already heard hundreds of times.

After a lot of indecisiveness between majors I have decided on sociology.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to commit to a career in social work even though I knew that was a direction I wanted to take.

There are some people who sound like they’re being supportive.

That is until they start talking about how I still have time to figure out my career path.

I realize what the actual implication was having time to change my major.

I have friends who want to study art, history or philosophy and find themselves trying to look for a more secure, “reasonable,” field.

I can definitely relate to that.

For a while, I said I was going to major in psychology.

I even took all the classes needed to transfer to a university with psychology as my intended major as a Middle College High School student.

That answer generated pleasant, accepting smiles and conversations, particularly from those older than me.

That definitely beat the shocked exchange of glances and gulps that I got from my parents.

I sat them down at the end of my senior year of high school and told them I wanted to pursue journalism or sociology.

My dad works in the deli section of a grocery store where demanding, irrational customers bark orders to him in the most demeaning and uncourteous way.

My mom is a nanny who swallows her words.

She maintains a good face no matter how disrespectful or misbehaving the kids are, because at the end of the day they’re like her bosses too.

I have always felt like there is an additional pressure because I am a woman.

I didn’t just have to prove that I could obtain a degree.

I also needed to fight the stereotype of going into a field that is commonly occupied by women.

There was even the usual amount of stress to finish and do well in my college classes.

But simply going to school wasn’t enough.

There was that expectation to be some kind of doctor, an engineer or anything else that is deemed “una buena carerra,” a good career.

For a long time my greatest concern was the amount I would earn in a job.

I also allowed other individuals’ opinions of my career options weigh too heavily.

I come from a family who works the jobs most available to them and didn’t have an educational opportunity.

There are expectations as to what you are supposed to do with the incredible opportunity of choosing what you want to do in life as well as in your chosen career.

But in the end, the point of it all is to be satisfied by what we are doing.

We need to take advantage of the chance to make our occupational choice for ourselves despite the negative input of others.