Now that the school year’s coming to a close and everyone’s about to be one grade higher, the eminent doom of the future seems to be creeping closer and closer.
Especially for current high school juniors, college essays seem to be taunting them. With the common application questions released and teachers and parents pressing for intellectual and thought-provoking responses, it can be extremely overwhelming. The question of “What college are you planning on attending?” seems to be the only thing of any relevance nowadays.
People ask questions about the future like it doesn’t come with a giant black cloud of despair and fear attached to it. Often times that adds a lot of unneeded pressure into students’ lives; it’s easy to feel that everything down to the extracurriculars you plan on joining have to be figured out by the time sophomore year hits.
But here’s the real truth: it’s perfectly acceptable to not know anything.
In terms of majors, 80 percent of college students change their focus at least once, and most change about three times throughout their college career before finally deciding. College is all about experimentation, and no one should be expected to know exactly who they are and what they want to do with their lives while everything up to what you eat for dinner is decided by someone else. If you’re lucky enough to have a passion prior to college, roll with it. But, for the vast passionless majority, something will stick regardless of how long it takes to find the thing that makes you happy or where it comes from — a private university, a community college or a trade school.
Sure, having a certificate from Yale University hanging on the wall is very impressive, but in the real world, it’s just as useful as any other degree of the same value.
Namely, the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, A.K.A. one of the wealthiest men in the world, didn’t attend Harvard, Stanford or any other elitist school that parents everywhere are begging their kids to strive for. No, Iger attended Ithaca College in New York, and yet, he makes $44.9 million per year, more than most of the graduates of any of the aforementioned schools combined.
Wherever you attend, the most important thing is the happiness and the level of comfort the school brings you. College is a stressful time in anyone’s life and it makes it that much harder when the school makes you miserable. For that reason, 45 percent of students transfer at least once (my mom transferred five times before finally graduating) and that’s okay. Everything in life is based on trial and error, why should college be any other way?
Go ahead and answer ‘I don’t know’ to any and all of those pressing questions about the future. Apply as undecided and to as many colleges that is economically feasible. No one will think any less of you. It’s an important decision, but not important enough to have you up all night stress-eating at the thought of it. Everything will work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.
