Kamaru Usman Quotes

When your parents are Middle Eastern immigrants, you have three choices. You can become a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer.

Being from a very traditional Chinese-American family, my parents believed the only options to have a successful life were to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a business person.

I'm Greek-American, and I come from an immigrant-type background, and Greek-American parents want you to be a doctor or a lawyer. Because that's how you make money, and it's very respectable.

I'm from Nigerian descent, and the classic Nigerian mentality is 'Stay in school! You're going to be a doctor, you're going to be a lawyer.' That is what it is. Thankfully my parents knew my situation was different because I definitely didn't want to be a doctor, I definitely didn't want to be a lawyer.

I have three older brothers, and each one of them has chosen one of my parents' education. Two of them are actors, and the third is a doctor as my mother is.

My mom is the type of mom who wonders why I haven't used my psychology degree to become a successful clinical psychologist.

My dad wanted me to go down a more academic route. He is very much about sticking to the rule book and sticking to the blueprint of a successful career.

My parents never understood why I didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer. They're Cuban immigrants who wanted to give their children the American dream, and, to them, that was more of what 'the dream' entailed.

Nobody just leaves medical school, especially given it's fiercely competitive to get in. But I had a sister who was a doctor, another who was a pharmacist, a brother who was an engineer. So my parents already had sensible children who would be able to make an actual living, and I think they felt comfortable sacrificing their one strange child.

Yeah, I didn't ever think about music as a career. Like, it was never - it's just something like an extracurricular activity that my mom put me in. And as every South Asian, you know, like, child, I was like - oh, OK, I can do medicine.

I think I wanted to be a doctor. In Iran, the engineering and medical professions are worshipped. My father very much wanted me to be a doctor. I was certainly eager to please as a young man - as a kid, I should say.

My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

My mum thought my TV and film addiction was laziness. If you're an immigrant, you know you'll never be an accepted part of society, but you hope your children will be, and you try to make them essential to the community in a practical way - being a doctor or a lawyer. Acting was beyond their comprehension.

The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree.

In my school, the brightest boys did math and physics, the less bright did physics and chemistry, and the least bright did biology. I wanted to do math and physics, but my father made me do chemistry because he thought there would be no jobs for mathematicians.

Most Indians go into education. Their parents just push them into education like parents in Australia push them into sports.

My mother never made me do anything for my brothers, like serve them. I think that's an important lesson, especially for the Latino culture, because the women are expected to be the ones that serve and cook and whatever. Not in our family. Everybody was equal.

Finish last in your league and they call you idiot. Finish last in medical school and they call you doctor.

My parents wanted their daughters to reach their full potential. I joke that they said, 'We left our homeland so you could pursue your dreams - as long as you're a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer.'

My parents have mellowed quite a bit, but, growing up, there was a sense that the only real professions were doctor, engineer, lawyer. Those were your choices.

My father would not pay for me to study anything but engineering or math in college.

Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school.

The expectation was I would get married and become a mother and settle down. We didn't have any role models. We saw teachers and doctors and nurses, but I'm not a teacher, and there was no possibility of being a doctor or a nurse. I had to work and find my own way.

I look at the kids coming out of Yale. They are so intelligent with their careers. I wish I had that.

My parents come from that immigrant culture that places a lot of emphasis on doing well scholastically. Being a comedian or an actor is such an American thing. The Iranian culture is not about dreaming. It's about taking over your father's business, falling into line.