What is right for your future?

I think as everyone gets to the end of their high school career, we start to think a lot about what we are gonna do outside of school. This is something I found quite difficult to do, figure out what I wanted to do. It felt like there were too many options and so many people coming my way asking what I was going to do. This isn’t just for me, I could ask anyone graduating with me and they would agree they have felt and experienced the same things as me. Everyone should know what they can choose and have the right time to figure that out. We should all try to explore our options and figure out which one we want to choose for ourselves before we go rushing into something that is not what we want or really need.

When I first entered high school, the first things I was hearing was, “what are you going to do when you are out of school?” things like these created a lot of pressure and expectations for me. Even as a freshman, I felt helpless because I didn’t already have a set plan of what I was going to do after I graduated. And I would argue that it started far before I was in high school. This would happen to me frequently in middle school and maybe even before, I know its a lot different than it being mentioned later in your life but it was something I have heard forever. It never truly stopped either, even as a senior, I am still being asked the same questions but now at least I know my plans. It took a very long time though for me to really figure it out entirely, and the ideas that I had vary so much over my life. I feel that it is unfair that kids get pushed into deciding instantly what they want to do or are pressured into choosing something. Especially when I heard things like those, it really slowed me down because I truly couldn’t decide anything at all, and hearing everything and everyone telling me something just made me unknown to what I was going to do. I heavily disagree with how college is always brought up and shown to kids as the only option or the one that they should do. Everyone should be able to know all of the options that they can choose so they can choose the right one for them, and not have someone else tell them that they need to go somewhere that they don’t need to go to.

While I feel that college should be brought up and shown as an option, it shouldn’t be plastered as the only option you can choose or the one that will land you a good job. There are so many paths that you can choose for yourself, and it is up to you to decide what you want to do. But not everybody is going to choose the same thing, and that is something we need to normalize and accept. I feel like the pressure that a lot of students get, (including myself) makes us feel boxed in, unable to decide or think about the possibilities. It took me a while to really decide and formulate a plan on what I was going to do after school, and the pressure that I felt throughout my highschool career was terrible. We should give students some grace, and let them decide and choose what they want to do. I went through the stress of not knowing and trying so hard to choose what I wanted to do, and it felt almost impossible to make that decision.

“I hate this job” by Ү is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Apprentice Electrician” by Chris Hunkeler is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.