Country music has an uncanny way of retelling familiar
stories.

Sometimes I think Jessica Andrews’ song, “Who I Am,” might sound
a little bit like my life if the names she sings were changed and
instead the chorus went:

“I am Gloria’s granddaughter,/the spitting image of my
mother,/and when the day is done, my sister’s still my biggest
fan./Sometimes I’m clueless and I’m clumsy/but I’ve got friends who
love me/and they know just where I stand./It’s all a part of
me,/that’s who I am.”

I would only disagree with the last line–it’s all a part of me,
but that isn’t who I am.

Over winter break, reality began to sink in and I realized that
in less than five months, my name will be called and I will receive
my undergraduate degree, my golden ticket to the future I’ve
dreamed of.

That’s when it hit me–I didn’t know what my dreams were.

My parents pushed law school. I sat for the LSAT in October and
did well enough, but throughout the time I prepared for the test
and even as I took it, my heart wasn’t in it because I didn’t care
if I went to law school or not.

My parents did, especially my mother, who did everything she
could to convince me not to change my major to political science,
since she thought I would have no future unless I went to law
school.

Things changed last semester. Much to my mother’s relief, I took
a lot of law classes in previous years, but last semester I took a
class called Asymmetric Warfare and, in doing so, I stumbled across
a dimension of my field that suited me better than my mom’s
interests.

I am a self-proclaimed politics and policy nerd, and I don’t
want to stop going to school after May rolls around. I discovered
some graduate programs in Washington, D.C., that excite me and, by
a stroke of luck, a door to Washington might be opening.

My parents do not share my passion. My father has supported me
both emotionally and financially throughout my undergraduate
experience, but because of money concerns and a few other factors,
his enthusiasm for my plans is less than profound.

I don’t think it’s because he shares my mom’s sentiments toward
my undergraduate degree choice, and it took me a while to figure
out why my parents might not be thrilled.

In Confucian Chinese society, young people never strayed far
from home and the family. The family was central to life, and while
children went away to school, they returned home after their
studies were complete to contribute to the family. This idea,
pardon the pun, is not foreign to my own family.

With the exception of an aunt, my whole family has stayed in
Chicago. People went away to school, but they came back. Family
parties require, at most, an hour’s travel to a different suburb,
never a flight across the country.

Education is very near and dear to my family. I come from a long
line of teachers, yet only a few members of my family hold master’s
degrees and nobody holds a higher degree than that, so I think it’s
hard for them to grasp why I want a master’s degree when they’ve
all been successful without it.

I don’t think my family is unique in either of these respects
and I think this might be part of the reason why I, and many other
people my age, have never-ending battles with our parents when it
comes to the future. They have a hard time understanding that even
if we fall, we’ll get back up. Each time we rise, we move one step
closer to shedding the exterior of the girl or boy we used to be
and becoming the woman or man waking up inside.

Part of becoming the individual I want to be means listening to
the opinions of my family, but following the opinion in my heart.
But our families do not define us. Choosing not to take their
advice and the paths they took does not mean they are any less
important to us or that we love them any less; it means we are
taking another step toward the futures we’ve dreamt on our own.

The first step I took is realizing that although I am Gloria’s
granddaughter, I look like my mother and my sister is my best
friend, I am not my grandmother, my mother or my sister, and what
worked in their lives isn’t necessarily going to work in mine. I’m
chasing my own dreams, and that–not other people–will ultimately
define who I am.

Sharon Turlek is a senior studying political science.