I never wanted to be a doctor. Or a vet. Or an astronaut. Or even a princess. I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was five years old.

“That’s cute,” my relatives would say, thinking it was a career aspiration I would soon grow out of. By age fourteen, I knew I wanted to teach English. “But what about math?” my mom asked, because at least there’s more money in the STEM fields.

I’ve always loved words, though. I was a shy kid, so writing was my outlet. My special place to say the things I was too afraid to say in person. Sure, I was an honors student, and I could’ve easily went to college to be a math or science teacher. I simply didn’t want to.

“You know you’re never going to find a job,” I’d hear. “Have you seen the starting salary for teachers?” they’d say. It was never about money. Or holidays or summers. It was always about passion.

In college, I majored in Secondary English Education…until my senior year. I decided I could no longer see myself in a high school classroom teaching The Scarlet Letter or To Kill a Mockingbird. So, I changed my major.

I had finally reached the point where most of my relatives were proud to say, “My [insert relation] is going to school to be a teacher!” And then, I dropped a bomb. I was changing my major to English. Yes, just English. How impractical of me.

“You know you can’t make money writing.” “You’re giving up having summers off? Are you crazy?” “Can you even get a job with an English degree?”

I’m now a college graduate with an English degree, and I decided to drop one more bomb on Mom and Dad. I’m going to graduate school…for creative writing…with a concentration in poetry. Poetry? I know. It doesn’t get much worse than that, but it’s what I love.

For whatever reason, English, and most other humanities-related degrees, are highly frowned upon. I may never make exuberant amounts of money, but I know that a decade from now, I will not be waking up dreading my career choice.

I’m choosing passion over paychecks, and I’m going to be doing what I love for the rest of my life: writing. Loving your career is important, regardless of the starting-salary statistics. If you’re passionate about what you do, you’ll always be motivated to reach your full potential. And, most importantly, you’ll be happy.