Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks answers to Mississippi’s brain drain problem. To read more about the project, click here.

Back when I was a kid in 1988, my mama and I had an argument about what I wanted to major in at college.

I had dreamed of being a journalist since the age of 8. To me, that meant that I was going to Ole Miss, which had the journalism department.

My mama said I could only go away from home to Ole Miss if I was going to major in law.

So I settled on going to Mississippi State University just down the road and majoring in communication. She told me I should major in engineering since that’s what State was known for.

I said, “That’s even dumber than me going to law school. I hate math.”

“We

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