Security versus dreams in choice of major
Dear Mookychick,
I haven't yet declared my major, and I will be a junior this fall. I'm still not sure what it is that I want to do.
I think psychology is interesting, but the reason why I'm considering it as a major is because I feel it's far more secure. I love the idea of perhaps going to the Fashion Institute in NY (I live in NYC), but I don't think it's very realistic or secure. I don't want to be filthy rich, I just want to feel secure. Maybe I'm being too logical. I spent my whole life concerned with security, things that people's parents just naturally provide for them (I never had any parents), and I WANT THAT.
I think because of my fear I could put off something that excites me (which lately it feels like nothing does), in place of something I'm just accepting to be part of the status quo. I'm afraid that if I do pursue Fashion Design, I'd be put right back into that time in my life when I spent so much time worrying over basic shit like where my next meal is coming from, how I'm going to get from point A to point B, and lack of medical treatment.
I applied and was accepted to Study Abroad in Florence, Italy this summer at my current school. I'm enrolled in an introductory fashion design course. If I enjoy it very much I'm considering applying to FIT when I return, however I'm still on the fence. I'm not afraid of happy endings, I'm just afraid my life wont work that way.
Help!
Love, Anonymous Me xxx
The Mookychick answer to your problem
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Ashley says...
I'm friends now with someone who was a high school teacher of mine. When I told him, long after high school was out, how little I had going on for me at home during high school, he said "Wow, you should have turned out feral." So first off, congratulations for not "turning feral." And know that, compared to those peers of yours who could always go home on the weekends, could always count on collapsing with their mom and dad and siblings if they had a cold, or were broke, or were sad, or were tired, you are stronger. Like the man says, it's one of those experiences that's priceless - but you wouldn't do it again for a million dollars. You'll figure out security. Right now, you've just got to figure out what kind of work floats your boat.
It's a good time to be a student. Plenty of us in the real world are thankful just to have a job and plenty others work hard and get laid off and plenty others are realizing they should have gone into PR or orthodontics a long time ago. Stay in school as long as you can and take a bunch of classes outside what you think are your interests: Chinese. Building trades (learn to pour cement!). Take an aerospace class where you'll learn about the spaceports they're building in Sweden and Australia and New Mexico. A forensics technology class where you'll learn about how they can take a bleached, dried knuckle bone washed up on the shore, put it in a solution of enzymes to dissolve it, and figure out whose it is. Take some theater. Hell, consider just staying on in Italy after your visa's out and make it work.
If you really just want security, you'll major in some kind of health field (education is also burgeoning, but you have to have a fire in your belly to teach or you'll walk out the first day) but not necessarily psychology. Psychology and fashion are "sexy" fields because the layman can wrap his or her mind around them, but I have a feeling you need to poke around the world of All Possible Jobs a little more before sticking - even nominally - with one of them. And remember, lots of fashion graduates end up working at Joann Fabrics.
