Hello EasternJohnDoe: Okay, I read your post! One thing I'm a bit unclear about is how close you are to graduating. Perhaps I just missed it. But I have the impression that you may be getting close. If that is the case, then, it seems to me that whatever else you do, it would make sense to "power through" & finish your degree.

That said... I'll tell you that I am an older man now. I was an only child. I can't say that my parent's had any particular expectations for me other than that I should do "something". Back when I was in college the common wisdom suggested that all one needed to do was to go to college & one would do well. It didn't really matter what you studied. This, of course, turned out to be completely false. Those of us who didn't study something that would lead us into a specific field of employment were left adrift, not being qualified to do much of anything. Allot of us studied things like English literature, philosophy & history. I personally didn't like college & I didn't really care about anything I was studying. I seldom went to class, nursed a growing depression & actually flunked out a couple of times. The good thing was that I was paying for school myself & so I wasn't particularly beholden to my parents financially. I did finally graduate, went on to graduate school, knuckled down, & actually did well! In spite of this, however, I still never particularly liked what I was doing. I just sort-of fell accidentally into a vocational track & continued on. Depression & anxiety continued to dog me as the years went by until around age 50, my ability to just keep putting one foot in front of the other finally just collapsed. Since then, I've just been on kind-of a slow downhill slide.

So, with that as background what I want to say to you is that, from my perspective, trying to "man-up", do the "responsible thing", & be the person your parents might prefer you to be is a prescription for future unhappiness. You presumably still have allot of years ahead of you. And slogging it out day-in & day-out doing work you hate is just inviting sadness & perhaps even despair into your life. From what you wrote, it sounds like you're already headed down that road. And you haven't even finished school yet! I understand that disappointing your parents would be difficult. And, if there is some way to avoid or minimize that, this would certainly be a good thing. But the reality of the situation is that you have allot of years ahead of you. Many of them may be after your parents are dead & gone. How will you feel when you're ... say... 50 years old, sitting behind a desk doing accounting work... your parents are perhaps gone, your sister has her own life & there you are? And maybe by then, you have a family of your own along with the financial obligations that entails & you're stuck.

I can't tell you how to get to a place where you can live the life you want for yourself. But my experience tells me that doing so is worth whatever effort is required in order to get there. Yes, certainly try not to harm others in the process as much as possible. But realize that you have to live with yourself your entire life. You already know what pursuing a course of study you have no interest in is doing to you. So I would encourage you to find a way to live the life you want for yourself, not one you perceive others want from you. If you need help figuring out how to make this happen, or if your current level of depression is such that you cannot make the decisions that need to be made, then seek the services of a qualified therapist or counselor who can help you sort out & reconcile the various factors that need to be taken into consideration. I wish you well...