Many branches of my life were written on my Identity map, but what I wanted to share most were my career choices. I tend to stay on a path for a long time, at least until it gets derailed by something. When I was 11, I decided I wanted to be an astronomer for 3 years because I thought it was amazing how these scientists got to look at stars all day. My interest first began when I read a book about astronomy in the 5th grade after taking the TCAP test. I was absorbed and it was just so beautiful. I talked about it to my friends and family all the time and whenever we had a piece of writing to do, I’d write about astronomy. Now remember, I was 13 when my brother told me it involved a lot of math and that it wasn’t just about looking at stars. That kind of ruined it for me but it was still in the back of my mind.

At 14, I watched a T.V. show about forensic anthropology, called Bones. After 12 seasons of that show, I wanted to become a forensic anthropologist. The thought of being able to identify people just by looking at their bones and and facial features was just amazing. I stuck with that for 2 years. Before I realized it, I kept thinking of cons rather than the pros for that job. Looking at corpses and having to be around death all the time is most likely going to affect someone in a very negative way.

After I convinced myself out of that interest, I thought of being a doctor or at least a nurse for about 2 days. It just seems like such a stressful job and, because I’m asian, I feel like a lot of people would say that it’s “normal”. I want to break away from asian stereotypes and “asian traditions”. With so many movies depicting asians of being smart or having crazy tiger parents, people just assume things of me. I feel that it’s similar as when a tall person is told, “You’re so tall, you’d be good at basketball.” Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you’re automatically assigned to a label. Especially in this generation, people have such high expectations that all asians are “smart” or “good at math”. This leads people to think that all asians should be “doctors” or ¨lawyers¨. 

When  I entered freshman year of highschool, I didn’t know what I wanted to be and it made me feel anxious. I then realized that I wanted to study psychology and maybe work somewhere in the criminology department. I still want to major in psychology and I feel like it’s something that suits me well. I’m looking forward to the future because I want to see how my life will play out. It’s an adventure that’ll last a lifetime and I don’t know what to expect, but I suppose that’s what makes it exciting.