What You Want To Do vs. What Your Parents Want You To Do: The Showdown

College can be a really scary time. You move out of the house, you have to depend on yourself for more and more things, and let's not forget: you're supposed to decide what you want to spend the rest of your life doing in four short years.
Unfortunately, many colleges don't make their credits easy to break up in order to figure out exactly what you want to do in time to declare that your major. There are core classes that you have to get done to graduate and a certain number of credits you have to get in order to have a major, so it does help to go in having some kind of an idea of what you want to do.
If science has always been your best subject, then consider a job in that field. If it's math, think about engineering (or better, teaching: California schools especially need good math teachers, and you earn more leverage than other subjects in terms of your pay). If you're more of a liberal arts person, think about getting a degree in HR (Human Resources). The pay is good and there's a lot of reading and writing involved.
A lot of jobs that you will be faced with are the ones that you swore you'd never enter. They are the ones that involve the cubicle and the standardized phone, standardized computer screen, standardized swiveling chair, standardized life--or so you think. These jobs can pay well, and they are often just the starting place if you are trying to work your way into upper-middle management, which pay better.
And of course, if you really have no idea what you want to do, there is nothing wrong with that. I know an adult who received a masters degree from UC Davis in reproductive physiology, and today is the manager of a company that manages performing arts facilities. The only way that reproductive physiology would ever come into play in their field is if someone was using a cow in their show and the cow decided to give birth. So, even if your major is exactly what you think you want to do, life sometimes just has other things in store.
So, once you have started to think this out, there's always the task of convincing the parents that you're serious about this decision. I want to be an actor. It's just as simple as that. And I know, it's a life of failure after failure until you finally get enough success to pay your bills while working a day job that you don't necessarily enjoy, but I can't imagine not doing it. I can't imagine doing anything else. And of course: my parents aren't too pleased. They want me to have back ups and they want those back ups to have back ups. They talk about the back ups like they are my chosen career path. But my mom has agreed that if that's what I want to do, I can do it. She's learning to not cringe every time I bring up colleges with a good BFA program and she's even become supportive of the idea. And how did I do it?
1.) Step one is persistence. You can't let them talk you out of it--unless they actually talk you out of it. If you have one of those "dreams" like I do, and they manage to make you see that it's a horrible idea for you, by all means: pick a new career. However, whenever they bring up your back ups, bring up your main plan. Insist on your main plan.
2.) Step two is to be casual. It does seem to cancel out persistence, yes, but bring up what you want to do in casual conversations with parents friends, coworkers, anyone--especially when an un-supportive parent is around. They will be forced to watch these people congratulate you on your ambitions, even if it's just polite.
3.) Step three is to get active. You can't claim that you want to go into bioengineering and let your biology grade slip. You can't claim that you want to be a physical therapist and not volunteer. You have to show your parents or whoever is doubting you that you enjoy doing this enough to focus your free time on it.
4.) Step four is to show them what you get out of it. Talk about how it makes you happy. Talk about what you enjoy about it. Even talk about what you absolutely hate about it, but why even that makes you happy. Because if this is something you actually want to do for the rest of your life, you should even love the parts you hate.
5.) Finally, step five is to know that you can do it. Sure, let them talk about back ups, and maybe even take their back up suggestions, but (as cheesy as it sounds) believing in your abilities is the best thing you can do for your potential future. Stick with it.
This is not a fail-proof step-by-step guide to forcing your parents to support you wholeheartedly. You might have parents that absolutely will not accept any future other than you being a doctor, but keep trying. And if all else fails: do what you want to do. Just do it. Don't burn any bridges or sever any ties, but do it. Because you won't be happy unless you do.What