The Finite

I’m sure you’re all wondering about my college plans. Well, let’s see…

I applied to three different schools. UIUC, Purdue, Yale. I applied to U of I first for Early Decision because it was in-state, well-known for its college of Psychology, and I’d have the company of some familiar faces. Purdue was a backup that has the second best pharmacy program in the nation. Yale, which also offers a Psych major, is 100% pure pipe dream. Just as Venegoni promised me, UIUC, my top choice, accepted me.

Unfortunately, my family has been pushing me into a career selling drugs. Almost every Asian grandmother with a connection on the grape vine has heard of the expected shortage of pharmacists in Illinois over the next ten years. And that’s why my aunt, my grandmother, and my mom are all pushing me into a pharmacy degree. It’s all a part of Grandma’s master plan: the first immigrating wave of our family would get blue-collar jobs in as factory workers and accountants. Their children would advance to the level of nurses and pharmacists, their grandchildren to the level of engineers and optometrists. I’ll spare you the details, but this plan culminates in the Oval Office. My birth places me in phase two. According to my grandmother’s schematic, I should be a pharmacist with a yearly salary in the $80,000 – $120,000 range for approximately 40 years, married, 2.1 kids, giant house that’s maintained at a constant 77° year-round, and a midsize SUV with GPS navigation built into the dash.

Grandma’s plan is built on two very important factors: economic stability and filial piety. By the second I am referring to the age-old Confucian virtue that extols utmost respect for parents and elders, and repression of rebelliousness. As you already know, the problem for Grandma is I don’t really want to be a pharmacist. Sure, I was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago, but dispensing drugs? Nope, can’t say I’m a fan.

When everyone found out I wanted to go into psychology, things went a little nuclear.

First there was the line of aunts (along with one tenacious uncle who doggedly tried to push me into engineering) all saying that being a social worker was beneath me (obviously a representative heuristic) and that there would be no jobs for psych majors anyway. (Note: I never wanted to become a social worker in the first place.) They apparently can’t think of any jobs for Psych majors. Once again, I used my crying autistic cousin as an excuse to escape the room.

More recently they have presented more convincing arguments.

1. If I go into a major other than pharmacy, I won’t be given the money to finish college.

2. If I go into a major other than pharmacy, Grandma will ritualistically kill me with this knife.

I can’t read Chinese very well but I theorize that the ideograms say something to the effect of consummation of writers’ folly (至聖先師) which has spilled the blood of countless would-be liberal arts majors for centuries.

Pretty convincing stuff. So I’ll have to get back to Purdue about that housing request…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Day-to-Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.