r/LifeAdvice•
Fateismine22

My parents want to decide where I study for the next 5-6 years. What should I do?

Family Advice

Now I know some people might read this and say "well they just want you to be safe" but I hope you can try to see this from my point of view.

I'm 19F and me and my family immigrated to another country for safety reasons and both my parents were the "golden child" in their family and they became doctors so ofcourse they want me to become a doctor. I've never gotten to dream about becoming anything other than a doctor and as I grew up I started to like it and now I don't have any issue with becoming a doctor but here's the issue, in the country where I live now it's not allowed for immigrants to become doctors(because they want their people to have the space) and so my parents told me to find a scholarship and it took me about 3-4 months and it was a hard time on me mentally, but nevertheless, I found this scholarship that's basically perfect and I got attached to it, when I told my parents about it they said no, their reason? because a young girl can't travel alone. I've tried to come up with countless suggestions but they still refused.

In addition, my older sister has been working on this different scholarship which requires so many papers and to be very fluent in the language and she has been trying to pass the exam for about 3 years and it's not cheap but my dad had no choice but to support her in it. This year, she finally passed and my dad got so excited and he said that I'll have to go with her and study there in that country's language. I have never hated something as much as I hate the idea of studying there and my dad is the kind of father who thinks he's always right and if I try to talk to him he raises his voice at me so I have to prepare myself mentally for days before talking to him or even trying to talk to him about what I want.

Let me add that in those years where my sister kept failing her exam, my dad got desperate and he genuinely supported me in my scholarship and I took IELTS and passed from the first try. I am literally overqualified (as my mother says) and the cherry on the top is that the scholarship I want costs him about 75% less than what he spent on my sister's. He supported me fully until my sister passed and then he switched up and told me to deal with reality and that no daughter of his will go traveling alone.

I tried to accept it and learn the language for the exam like my sister but it hurts and it feels so wrong knowing I poured so much into the one I want like it's been a full year since I started planning and preparing for it. I don't have my own money or anything to support myself but I was so close to applying, atleast a rejection would be better than not applying because then I can say I tried my best instead of giving in to another one of my parents' demands. These are 6+ years my parents want me to sacrifice. I have prepared almost all my papers and the only thing left is the medical check-up and my motivation letter(which was in progress). Should I listen to them and start from square one or should I do something about this scholarship that I want??

The main point I wanted to make is that I have already given up a lot for my parents and I can't give up another 6 years when god forbid if they died I'd just blame myself for listening to them. I don't know who to ask so I came here for advice. I hope you can see this from my point of view and leave a gentle response. Thank you so much for reading.

Posted Sep 25, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

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