"There are two things I was completely sure of when I began looking towards my future. One, I want to help people with their problems and I want to make their lives a little easier. And two, I would make life a lot harder for myself if my parents weren’t happy with my career choice. Originally, I believed that medical school was the be-all-end-all option for being able to help people. I figured that I would go into the college of Arts and Sciences, major in a biological field of some sort, and go on to save the world. After all, two of my sisters are already doing the same thing. So, I thought, if they can do it, why can’t I? However, medical school and the process to actually get into it is hard. Like, really hard. My mom knew this so she proposed an alternative: apply to the engineering school and declare a major of Biological and Chemical Engineering. This way, I can get my prerequisites for medical school done as a lot of them will overlap with my engineering classes, and if worse comes to worse and medical school falls through, the odds of finding a good job with an engineering degree under my belt are in my favor. For now, it seems that engineering is the means that I can satisfy the two things I knew to be certain: I want to help people, and my parents need to be happy. I’m not sure where college will take me, if I will stay in engineering or the sciences at all, or if I will find my true passion and have the courage to pursue it, but I do know that I’m ready to find out."
The Why Axis Project is a manifestation of a larger concept I try to incorporate into my work. In my opinion, to truly understand someone, you must learn why they do what they do and not just what. The world of college gave me the opportunity to start this photo story by looking at why people chose their major versus just what people chose. This fundamental shift in thinking has allowed me deeper connections to those I met and photographed. Through this long-term photo story, I hope to share all the different answers to this question.
