It was rational because you valued what your teachers and parents thought. All value is subjective, so you cannot define a universal optimum. To say whether so

It was rational because you valued what your teachers and parents thought. All value is subjective, so you cannot define a universal optimum. To say whether something was a rational decision requires evaluating the subject's utility function at the time of the decision. This is something only the subject can do. Trying to judge something after the fact is very difficult. What good input could you have used when you made the decision (or while you continued to execute it)? Making mistakes in reasoning and/or lacking information that would allow for making a decision at a higher perceived utility does not make one irrational. An irrational decision is one where an action determined to have the most utility is not taken.