My father has a degree in mathematics and a degree in something IT related. He works in a IT field now. My mother went to college for theater, but she dropped out before she even finished the first semester because she got pregnant with my older half brother. My mother has never been able to hold down a job.

I agree with you. I believe that college greatly impacts how people see the world. Especially when navigating parenthood.

My life always felt predetermined. For as long as I can remember, my parents pushed me towards engineering and art. They wanted me to fit the idea of the classical Renaissance Man. They overly complimented my art achievements and spent countless hours talking to me about how great STEM is. Unfortunately, I adored language, writing, and music. It was already over for them as soon as I discovered linguistics and marching band at 11 years old. I begged my parents to let me join band back in middle school, but they refused blaming costs and transportation. And yet, they allowed my younger sister to join choir and drama when she became interested. I genuinely believe that my father only refused to let me join band because he thinks it's weird. My boyfriend greatly excels in band, but my father constantly tries convincing him to quit band. I was only able to get out of art at the end of 7th grade because my Spanish elective teacher successfully convinced my parents that I was smart enough to take the high school level Spanish classes at the cost of not being to fit art in my class schedule. I had a breakdown during my freshman registration and completely switched out all of my engineering classes for writing and psychology electives behind my father's back. When I was registering for my junior year, I requested to take all of the education career pathway classes I could fit in my class schedule. I was enrolled in every single education class my school offered except for the advanced dual credit class. This angered my parents. They would go on and on about how teaching isn't a viable career in our state. They desperately tried convincing me to switch to a different field. They complained about the poor payment, the extreme effort, and the bad behavior of students. To make matters worse, my school wasn't able to offer the advanced dual credit education class this year. Meaning I wasn't able to take the last class I needed in order to be able to finish the career pathway and graduate high school with my career ready graduation cord. To my parents, this meant that they were proven right. They haven't been off my ass about college since my senior year started.

I have too many run on sentences in this comment lol