Why did Morrie decide to become a professor of sociology in Tuesdays with Morrie?

One could say that Morrie Schwartz almost fell into becoming a sociology professor; it's not really something he ever planned. When Morrie was a young man during the Great Depression there weren't many career options available for someone from such a poor background. But his mother was a great inspiration to him; she understood that education could provide a way out of poverty for Morrie. And she proved just how much she valued education by taking classes to improve her English.
Morrie chose to major in sociology because it helped to make sense of the society in which he was raised. As someone from a poor Jewish immigrant family, Morrie was acutely aware from an early age of the significant disparities in wealth and opportunity that existed within American society at that time. Studying sociology could help him to take a step back and gain a greater insight into the culture in which he was brought up and its relation to American society as a whole. For a second-generation Jewish-American like Morrie, sociology will undoubtedly have been a big help in understanding the various social factors that limit educational opportunity, and which hold back so many people from economically-deprived groups.