Hi! I don't post on reddit much so sorry if I seem odd or out of place. I also might seem a bit jumbled, I am horrid at talking about myself.
For some background:
I am 18(Trans ftm if that matters), just graduated high-school early and am going into community college for 2 years to get a communications degree since my state offers free community college, then I'm moving to a 4 year. My great grandmother was Japanese, and moved to the states from Japan 5 years after having my grandfather.
I'll be the first to admit, I never talked to my grandfather much about our Japanese heritage, mostly because he always hated/hates to talk about his past because his father cut him off and wrote him out of his will for some mystery reason, and therefore my family has always been disconnected from our heritage. Since I was younger I've done my best to remedy that, for a few months I tried to learn Japanese and ultimately gave up, but I was younge. I also studied Japan for years and always saw people who moved their online and wanted to move there too.
I gave up that dream a long time ago, and since my career goals have changed. I got a passion for journalism and have been planning on studying journalism and media after I go to my four year and then move to a big city to continue with investigative journalism. But when I was signing up for college, I realized my communications major required a foreign language. I was planning on taking German, I took it in high-school and found I was already really good at the language.
Cut to me talking to my advisor, and she tells me that they don't offer German. They only offer Spanish, French, and to my shock- Japanese. I asked how often they offered all the classes, and she said that french and spanish were mostly only offered in fall, and Japanese was pretty sparsely offered because only one professor taught it and she wasn't around every semester. I picked my classes, none a foreign language, and moved on.
But it stuck in my head, the idea of trying to study Japanese again, this time with a real, actual teacher and not a language learning app that I could hardly keep up with.
Then, I got recommended videos from people who'd moved to Japan again, and as I started watching them I realized I still wanted to move their. I had also recently had a conversation with my neighbor, whose mother was from Japan, where she told me that I should embrace and involve myself in my Japanese side more.
I could easily finish my communications associates and continue studying Japanese in my four year college, and instead of studying journalism I could study education as well, and then move to Japan as an English teacher just to get my foot in the door.
I know it sounds like a sudden decision, but I've been wanting to as long as I can remember, it's just a dream I always pushed aside for practicality. My only fear would be leaving journalism behind to pursue this passion, which would be trading one passion for another. I'm looking for advise and clarity.
by Comprehensive-Tone72