Anika V.
Photography by Yasha Doddabele
If you’re reading this, you can change your major, it’s okay.
From a young age, I was taught that my value was tied to my success. The standard expectation was that I get an A in every class I take, win every tournament I compete in, get into the best schools in the country, the list goes on. I don’t blame my parents—this mindset was how they survived and broke their own familial cycles of struggle. Coming from poor backgrounds in India, being the top of their class and making their way up the job chain are the reasons that I’m able to live the privileged, comfortable life I live now in the US. I’m grateful for them and their love. That being said, even though deep down I know their love is unconditional, growing up, I only experienced praise with success. Thus, it’s only natural that my life has been highly influenced by my need for parental validation, and that I associate my self-worth with my accomplishments.
In high school, I knew I wanted to be pre-med, but I was also involved in activism and debate. Though debate was seen as favorable in my parents eyes, the activism part was looked down upon heavily. “Anika, it’s a hobby. Don’t let it affect your career path,” they’d say every time I’d share my excitement from an advocacy event. My interest in social issues and systemic change essentially felt like a guilty pleasure— but I couldn’t just let it go away! So upon arriving at Duke, I decided to be a biology major with a concentration in anatomy—to fulfill the pre med side and my parents expectations—but also minor in political science to appease my own silly desires.
Sophomore fall comes around, and I’m miserable. The only thing I had figured out was that I wanted to co-major in Global Health. I took a class on guerrilla warfare in the Polisci department and realized that it wasn’t fulfilling any of my interests. The thought of taking bio classes on frogs and mushrooms makes me cry. But at the same time, the thought of changing my major to something else—perhaps even in the humanities—also makes me cry. For context, my advisor suggested I look into cultural anthropology after sharing my intellectual interests. But what even is my worth if I’m not a stem major? The humanities classes are all easy anyways… right? Or so everyone says. Wouldn’t this be me taking the easy way out of being pre-med?? How would my parents feel if their daughter wasted the $300,000 they’re paying on cultural anthropology?? My self-worth, my parents’ ascribed worth and belief in me, and my apprehensiveness about what my future would look like with two non-stem majors had me in shambles.
Nevertheless, the following semester I decided to secretly take two Culanth classes (note, I tell my parents everything). The classes brought me so much happiness and intellectual fulfillment. It felt like everything I was ever looking for. In short, it took my understanding of health disparities from global health to a deeper level, allowing me to explore why root systems of inequity like colonialism and capitalism have persisted and how they affect health from the people’s perspective.
I made the decision to switch from bio to global health and cultural anthropology. It took me months to build up the courage to tell my parents. I also had the looming news of deciding to take a gap year. I eventually broke the news to my parents, and it was grim. It was clear that I had lost the golden girl outlook they once had. I struggled with the fact that I could never go back to being the accomplished, successful girl they had once thought of me as. I did everything wrong in their eyes, straying from my path to success as a doctor. I struggled with my final decision, but in the end, I realized I had to make the change, for myself. I had to trust myself—one could say even bet on myself—as I made a risky switch. I had to believe that I’d end up in the right place for med school, my future career, my desire to change the healthcare space.
Now almost two years later, my parents have accepted that this was my decision. They vehemently disagree with it. In fact, I’m introduced as the daughter who’s “taking a ~ unique ~ path to medicine” to all the Indian aunties and uncles back home, with no further elaboration. But I’m fine with that, their acceptance of my decision is more than I could’ve ever asked for. Ninth grade me would not even fathom dreaming about straying from the words and path of my parents. The parental validation part of me still exists, though, and I’m not sure if that will ever change. But now, I’ve at least accepted that I do know what I’m doing and that I have the power to make my own decision. The doubt about being non-stem creeps up at times, but I remind myself that what I’m learning is valuable and a step towards accomplishing my dream in healthcare.
All this being said, to everyone out there who’s unhappy with what you’re learning at Duke. Forge your own path. Change that major, go pick up that extracurricular, pursue that guilty pleasure.
Anika V., Duke University
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