<p>Hi Parents, need some quick advice here. I’m currently an engineering student, a junior in college, with a pushy parent.</p>
<p>This is my situation… I once get in heated debates with my father because he constantly pushes me to become a doctor because of the salary. Sure, it’s a nice salary, but I’m not convinced that I can make it into medical school and more importantly, I have absolutely ZERO and NO interest in becoming a doctor. Seriously. NO interest in it. He constantly pushes me to take the pre-med requirements and try medical school. I’ve done very poorly in chemistry and I couldn’t even begin to think of me taking Organic Chem I and II.</p>
<p>How do I tackle this situation? It’s almost like he never gets it.</p>
<p>Also, when I talk about getting an MBA, he says I should get it straight after my bachelors. As we all know, many top MBA programs require a few years of quality experience in the professional field. I plan on working for a few years as a engineer and hopefully move up to prove to the schools that I am MBA-worthy… but, he says I should apply to HBS after I graduate with my Bachelors degree, immediately, just to see if I get in. I only have internship experiences and a few officer positions (VP, Pres) in clubs. Clearly, I do not have the quality of a typical HBS applicant yet. It would be a complete waste of time. I would half-a** the essays because I KNOW I won’t get in. He hasn’t done any research into the topic either and complains that I am hard-headed since I do not listen. I would listen if he did research before suggesting these bogus approaches.</p>
<p>While I know some people have gotten away with the 3-5 years work exp “criteria”, it’s probably because they’ve started their own company and made thousands/millions of dollars. I have done nothing of the sort.</p>
<p>How can I tackle this situation? I’ve shown him numerous websites detailing the need for experience in the real world. Just doesn’t get it.</p>
<p>Your dad really can’t MAKE you take pre-med courses, apply to med school or apply to HBS. So: listen, but keep your own counsel and do what you want.</p>
<p>My D’s boyfriend’s family was pushing for him to go to law school immediately after graduation. He didn’t get into the programs he wanted and decided to work for a few years. His mom and dad were quite upset and told him he should have enrolled in any law program that admitted him. During his job hunt they were negative and disparaging. I honestly didn’t know how he put up with their constant criticism and still kept his optimism. He finally found a fairly good job and now, six months after graduation, has decided an MBA will be more appropriate, in a couple of years. </p>
<p>It’s too bad your dad is making life difficult for you, undefined, but you can take a positive and very healthy step into adulthood by weathering their comments and going ahead with the plan that is best for you. </p>
<p>It occurs to me that perhaps your dad doesn’t see you settling on anything you’re really excited about, and is rushing to fill the gap. Be strong and continue to search for what is best for you. An undecided period in college never hurt anyone. Good luck!</p>
<p>My cousin went to med school, on my aunt and uncle’s orders, became a medical doctor, practiced for a number of years, HATED it, and eventually quit. He was miserable for a long time. Now he’s a software engineer and very happy. Don’t do it. Keep taking your engineering classes on schedule. If they want you to take orgochem and whatever after you’re done, or during summer, fine. But that doesn’t mean you have to do well enough to get into med school. There is more than one way to play the game.</p>
<p>NO ONE should have to do something for the rest of their life to please their parent. Sorry to say this, but that is a dysfunctional relationship.</p>
<p>See, these debates we have are once every 2-3 months, so it’s not a constant nagging. I don’t think it’s at the level that your daughter’s boyfriend went through, but it surely is questionable. He’s happy that I’m doing engineering, since it is a solid career choice starting out. I can branch out to business or law, which is the beauty. Or stay in engineering.</p>
<p>The only problem is that the doesn’t understand that being a doctor is the final step. The actual process of becoming one isn’t easy, and since I have NO motivation to become one, I am easily proned to fail in the process. My lack of motivation doesn’t help either. He doesn’t get that. I’m also pretty poor in chemistry, but strong in physics. He says that since I ace my physics classes, I should ace chemistry. Why? He says it’s known that chemistry is easier than physics… which is COMPLETELY wrong. It’s not the other way around either. You can’t say one field of science is more harder than the other. It makes no sense. To one person, chemistry might be harder, but to another, physics might be harder. Whenever I debate with him, I actually use legitimate examples from my research, yet he repeats the same thing he says. I can’t win. Then I get called hardheaded because I won’t become a doctor.</p>
<p>This scenario sounds very familiar to me, as I have friends with kids who are going through a similar situation. It sounds like your parents are well-meaning and they want the best for you, but I understand that it’s your life, and you need to be happy with the choices and goals that you set for yourself. Unfortunately, parents sometimes try to help their kids by controlling every move that they make, and then it becomes a kind of tug of war situation with the student going in one direction and the parents in another. I think it’s good that you’re trying to show by example - however, it can be difficult for some parents to understand or comprehend the situation at hand. It’s important that students express passion for something, but it doesn’t have to be the same program, degree, etc. that the parents choose. It’s very important to establish a dialogue of ongoing communication - talking about it over a course of time - a semester, etc. can be helpful.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. Wow, I would understand it if my dad was a physician, but he’s nowhere near it. I know he wants best for me, but the manner in which he tells me is only because he wants me to become prestigious and make lots of money. I mean, I guess it’s inside every parent to see their children succeed, so I do see it from their POV. I just don’t like the fact that this is so blown out all the time. I have a SEVERE headache right now.</p>
<p>My new tactic is to just politely change the topic without him noticing or just ignoring the situation whenever this discussion comes up… he doesn’t do it often to nag me.</p>
<p>You might want to remind your father that Bill Gates seems to have made a few bucks in the engineering business and he’s by far not the only one. See if your father can come up with a doctor who’s more wealthy than Bill. :)</p>
<p>Seriously though, you need to continue to do what you’re interested in and your father needs to quit living vicariously through you - if he is. Most likely though, he really just wants what he thinks is best for you and this is probably his way of guiding you. In the end you have to do what you;re interested in so keep marching forward with your engineering.</p>
<p>Is this push to become a doctor by any chance related to a ‘cultural’ past?</p>
<p>Well, there are a few Indian doctors (I say Indian because we are of southasian decent… of course, equally there are rich “white/black/orange/blue/purple” doctors in our neighborhood who are wealthy), because they are doctors. He sees them and he’s like, “look at that, you should be one too. Look at their lifestyle.” Sure, the lifestyle is great, but if I did become a doctor, it would be because I would want to help someone. Not to earn a $200k salary.</p>
<p>Also the fact that a relative of mine who is an ER physician, that makes $200k or so. That doesn’t help.</p>
<p>Your dad wants you to have job security, and medicine is one field where there is pretty certain job security. He’s so fixated on that goal that he really isn’t open to any objections from you. As hard as it is to have to deal with his point of view, it’s rooted in his fear for you. Since you have enough self-awareness to know that his path for you won’t work, you will just have to become inured to his protests, be polite and just realize that whatever you say will fall on deaf ears. Be compassionate to him, but just continue on the path that you have found makes you happy.</p>
<p>Yes, job security is an issue he brought up today as well. I tried to bring up medical malpractice as an issue… didn’t listen.</p>
<p>I would think that an engineer with either a MBA or law isn’t a bad choice either. I mean, it’s not like I’m not going to college or majoring in something where I cannot find a job in. I know that the job security is not up to par, if you compare it with a doctor, but I also think that I would posses the skills enough to hold a steady career. (However, I may be wrong. I can’t fully attest to this.)</p>
<p>The world doesn’t need doctors just trying to make a buck, which by your post is what your dad is pushing . You sound like a person with a soul. Don’t lose it to the almighty dollar. </p>
<p>Not to say that there aren’t a lot of ways to make a dollar, and lots of them. Just that most of those ways- commercial pursuits- involve improving lives but not with a gun to your customer’s head. After all, I can CHOOSE to buy computer software next month, but I can’t choose whether or not to get treated for a brain tumor. There used to be a creed, an ethics, in medicine. Hmmm. I don’t think money was mentioned. Something about helping people, though. </p>
<p>If you want to go into medicine, but are afraid of your chemistry inhibitions, that’s not a good enough reason to quit. If you don’t want to go into medicine because you really don’t want to deal with the sick people, PLEASE don’t do it.</p>
<p>What you might want to do is show your parents some admission materials from some of the top level programs you are interested in, highlighting the passages where the school suggests that successful applicants have real world career experience first. I know, for example, that Northwestern is quite clear in this regard. Maybe seeing this is black-and-white would help your parents understand this better. The world is muchdifferent than back in our day, when all of us went straight on to graduate or professional school immediately upon graduation.</p>
<p>Have you tried a smile and “pops I love ya…” </p>
<p>Consider the opposite life… my dad split when I was three. I never spent more than two consecutive days with him until I was 20 and he was dying of cancer. I cried when we buried him because I didn’t know him… </p>
<p>Remember there are worse things in life than a dad who wants you to be successful… at least they have to care enough to nag… Someday you’ll have a wife to take his place… </p>
<p>Just smile, give him a hug and ask for a steak knife and if he wants to play operation…cause you need to practice. Try Gene Wilder’s gun hand from blazing saddles… </p>
<p>in other words realize your da loves you and smile and try to enjoy that.</p>
<p>Opie, Really, his dad is browbeating him, at the age of 20/21, into entering a field he doesn’t want to go into. For the money. Pay the man respect, yes. Love your father, yes. But don’t go into a career that you don’t want to, for the rest of your life, because ‘dad wanted me to’.</p>
<p>My 2 cents…start talking to him about the changing face of health care in America. Bring up ‘single payer’ and ‘National Health’ programs. Talk about how health plans in other countries have changed the playing field for doctors so that it is no longer an absolute given that you’d make lots of money. You might also show him the figures on how long it takes to pay back student loans for doctors…when you are going a min of 250K in the hole to get that degree, it may not look as good to him.</p>
<p>I recommend talking all these points over with someone at your college’s career center. See if they can give you some hard data to show your Dad. Ask them for advice dealing with parents who are somewhat excessive in their pressure to pursue specific careers against the will of the student. Also be open to their suggestions. </p>
<p>Perhaps if there’s something from another party other than yourself to show your Dad, it might be more objective and he’d consider the facts.</p>
<p>There’s been talk among non-science types (like me) that engineering isn’t as secure as it used to be; perhaps he’s generalizing. If you can pin down what you want to do, find some income projections on it, get something perhaps off of the US DEpartment of Labor’s website on Occupation profiles that describes normative career tracks in various fields, you can at least distract him or give him new data to consider. At least then the information source is older than age 20ish (you). </p>
<p>Also, Opie didn’t sound like he wanted you to choose according to your Dad’s pov. He seemed to me to just be saying, tell the guy you appreciate that he cares, but you feel differently. Give him a hug, humor him, don’t fight…love him, but say clearly that you see things differently for your future.</p>
<p>With the deepest respect due a father, you might remind him that the bottom line is that you’re the one who’ll have to wake up every day and pursue the career, not Dad. Everybody should love their work, or come as close to that as possible. Remind him that it’ll be your alarm ringing when you’re 50 and you still need to be in the profession where you believe you can do well and bring skill to the table. </p>
<p>Your career will continue long after he’s left this world. So choose what is right for you, perhaps in consultation with major advisors or professional career counselors at your university. They really know more about this in 2008 than your Dad.</p>
<p>That set aside, love your Dad, joke with him, be a son as Opie suggests. But don’t choose the career that Dad wants if you don’t.</p>
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