Career choice and Parental concern

Growing up in most Nigerian homes, our parents must have one time wanted us and our siblings to further our education and become a doctor, lawyer and engineer career wise. While some parents despite their preference still allowed their children the liberty of choice, others put their foot on the ground and went since you are under my roof, it's my money funding your education, you will become a doctor because I want you to.

In cases like this, we see most of these children whose parents imposed their choices on going astray and losing interest in education completely. The lucky ones who managed to bag the degrees end up not even using it to advance in their career field because that is not where their interest lies. Like the saying goes, you can force a horse to the river but once at the river, can you still force the horse to drink water? No!

While our parents might feel, they've lived longer, with more experience and want the best for us, over meddling in a child's life choices will often end badly for the child.

Luckily for my siblings and I, my parents have always given us the freedom of choice.

Not long ago, I decided to go back to school to further my education. Before now, my friend Abdul has been on my neck to go for PhD but I just wasn't feeling it. I do not want to have all these degrees that I do not use, so I resolved to bagging them according to my career requirements at the time.

Initially, the plan was M.Sc, then PhD but I deviated from the plan after my M.Sc or rather I took a break to become a mom.

So recently, my friend Ejike and I were discussing careers. Ejike is an accountant and he informed me about going for his Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) training. I have had interest in ICAN training since my service year with the federal government.

You know while I was serving, my ex at the time made some arrangements for me to start up with ICAN training. But I couldn't go through with it as I wasn't mentally prepared for anything accounting.

Eventually, when Ejike brought up the ICAN conversation, I told him that I am also considering bagging a certificate in ICAN or a degree in PhD. Then he asked me what field do I want to measure in, like what's my career choice/interest and then I told him administration. He laughed and said, "you don't need a PhD degree, what you need is an ICAN certificate."

I wasn't convinced that an ICAN certificate could be more important than a PhD degree, so Ejike went further to inform me that I do not even need a Masters degree for my job role and I would have gone for an ICAN certificate instead.

According to Ejike, a Masters degree is for when I want to pursue a career in Education while an ICAN certificate is for when I want to pursue a career in Administration. To further enlighten me how important an ICAN certificate is in the Administrative world, he gave me several examples of how people with an ICAN certificate will earn higher and advance further in their administrative career than people with higher educational degrees like Masters and PhD.

After the conversation with Ejike, I decided to go for the ICAN certificate since it's the requirement I need now for career advancement.

Like the Universe is one big existence of thought wave and process, one morning, my mom invited me for a talk, where she informed me of my father's intention for me to go back to school and start up a career in lecturing afterwards. Note that I did not even discuss my interest in returning to school with my parents.

At the concluding part of our talk, my mother informed me that my father had asked her to speak with me about their desires for me, if it will be something I will be interested in.

I was happy and appreciated them for always having my best interest at heart and also for giving me the freedom of choice.

Like my friend Ejike explained to me, I also explained to my mom. I told her that I had already planned the remainder of my life and I really would not want a PhD degree now.

I gave my mom my reasons, being that I already started with administration and would want to finish off strong before advancing into another field.

I see PhD as something bigger because after attaining it, I would not want to be stock in Nigeria, in one lecture hall looking for students to sell my books to.

I also would not want to end up as one of those lecturers that would collect money from students for grades, as that is what is obtainable in most Nigerian universities.

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Above is my response to the inleo prompt for October day 21. You can participate HERE

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