Social class is something that I only grew to become aware of as I grew up, as my parents never really discussed it with me openly. Now that I am older, I know that my family is largely middle, if not upper middle class; my parents are both professionals, one is an engineer, the other is an accountant and they both have provided me with a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. I say reasonably comfortable lifestyle because I have come to understand that I am privileged enough to not have to worry about necessities like food, water, sanitation and housing. My parents have always provided these for the family (including my younger brother) and we have lived in the same home since my birth.

I believe that being of the upper middle social class makes it easier for me to achieve my goals in life because I have lesser needs to worry about. Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I would say that I largely have the physiological, safety, and love needs accounted for – things like breathing, food, water, sleep, security of body, health, property, friendship as well as family. This means that I will better be able to achieve the ‘esteem’ needs of confidence, respect of self and others, as well as ‘self-actualization’, which involves morality, problem solving and other cerebral factors. Being of this social class means that I am more likely to be able to make it to university, whereas being of a slightly lower social class may mean I have lesser access to education and opportunities that will pave the way for what is considered to be a conventional path of adulthood like getting a tertiary education and a job.

Besides money and finances, some of the other factors that could determine one’s social class are in assets owned. This is a non-liquid form of one’s financial worth that could be added to one’s finances to assess the social class that one belongs to. I would also assume that one’s level of education also determines the social class that we are classified under. For example, more educated persons are likely to be in the middle to upper class, where jobs like doctors, lawyers, engineers are classified under since a higher level of education is a prerequisite for such jobs.