As a child growing up, my parents always had high aspirations for me, and I was able to meet them more often than not. At a young age, I was told and somewhat pushed into the direction of becoming a doctor or a lawyer; my choices were limited. Being a Pakistani, and someone who is expected to one day be the breadwinner, my parents wanted me to get a career that was high paying and of high respectability. Suffice to say, a Bachelors of Arts in History did not fit that description for them. Therefore, I applied to university having decided that I would be pursuing a career as a lawyer. Having entered university, I learned three things: university was not going to be easy, the competition for law school was tough, and I was not very passionate about it. After completing first year, I was unmotivated and took a semester off to figure out what I wanted to do. During this time, I did additional volunteering at schools and community placements and found that my real passion was helping children and teaching. With passion renewed, I rejoined university, got into the Bachelor of Education program at York, graduated, and now have been a History teacher since June 2015.
My History and Teaching degree has opened up opportunities for me that I would not have otherwise thought to explore. In the past 3 years, I have taught in different countries across the Middle East, and travelled to many more. I can now be described as someone who has a bit of wanderlust and someone who enjoys a peripatetic lifestyle. My History degree keeps me competitive in overseas markets and jobs are always readily available.
However, despite having been a teacher for only 3 years, I felt like my formal learning had come to a standstill and that I was not fulfilling my potential and commitment to be a lifelong learner. In pursuit of this, I am currently in the process of obtaining my Master’s Degree in History. In doing so, I hope for several outcomes. I hope that an MA History will help me in my teaching career, and also, to hopefully achieve acceptance in my parents’ eyes that I had attained a level of success which they could be proud of.