feuervogel | (Reply)

But you studied architecture because you liked it (at the time) right? I liked chemistry well enough, and I was good at it (got a 5 on the AP exam), but I didn't really have a passion for it, I guess. I thought it was interesting and would be something I could get a good-paying job doing.

I don't know if there's data to back this up, but I have the feeling that first-generation college students (or, in my case second but skipped a generation) choose practical majors, ie medicine, science, engineering, sometimes teaching, more often than things like English or philosophy, because they know there's a mountain of debt in their future, and they want a job that'll give them a salary that will let them pay it off. (And, in some communities, help out the rest of their family to pull them out of poverty.)

My sister majored in musical theater, and she's an inventory clerk at a jewelry store in DC. She also does theater in her off hours. I didn't want to be a high school teacher, and I didn't want to be a secretary. So lab science it was.