Florida Southern College campus 1996
Seventeen years ago I graduated from high school and headed off to college. My entire Senior year of high school was spent visiting colleges, filling out applications, and writing essays. Well, there was work, school, and time with my friends in there too.
At 17 years old I thought I had my entire future planned out. I was going to school to become a teacher. Then I would open my own daycare. That was my plan. As the acceptance letters rolled in (I was accepted to each college I applied to) I then had to make my decision of which college to attend. Well, I knew where I wanted to go, it was a matter of convincing my parents to send me to the school that was the furthest away and would probably cost the most money.
I convinced my parents and I went to my #1 choice school. And then I went two years before I met my now husband, got pregnant, and transferred to the local community college. I didn’t end up finishing college. Just did 2 1/2 years. But I did learn in my first semester of college, that I didn’t want to be a preschool teacher anymore.
I Don’t Know What I Want To Be When I Grow Up
I have now spent the next 16 years of my life flip flopping with what I want to be. After I decided that teacher wasn’t it I threw myself into math for oh a day. Yeah, Pre-Calculus blew that plan right there. Then it was Psychology. I started taking a bunch of Psychology classes. I must admit I still enjoy Psychology, but my problem is what do I do with it? Do I become a child Psychologist? I just wasn’t sure what to do with that. It still fascinates me.
But then I realized a few other things about myself over the years. I am really kind of creative. I love planning my kids birthday parties. I love it so much I help friends and strangers on the internet come up with ideas. And who knew when I really put my mind to it I could bake? Sure I took cooking in school, but I never thought I was very good at it. Then when I had to do it for my family I realized I could do this.
So a business degree maybe? Because I know so little about running a business. But maybe I don’t really need college. Shhh, no one tell my kids I said that.
There are so many people I know who went to college and are not using their degree at all. However, even just having that Bachelors degree does have an ability to bump up your pay scale; even if the area you are working in has nothing to do with what your degree is for. So it does have its perks. If you’re not self employed anyways.
17 years old heading off to Orientation on my brand new college campus.
But are things at 18 really so clear to us? Are 18 year old’s truly experienced enough to make that choice? I don’t know, my 13 year old will be making these decisions in four years. I think she is better prepared already than I was in that she is already having a chance to visit college campuses. She has been learning about careers and she has been learning about different colleges. She’s already a good 3 years ahead of where I was.
But does she have a true understanding of what her career choice is really like? Or is she just dreaming of summers off?
We Need Experience
I think the problem with choosing a career is we really don’t know if it’s going to be good for us until we actually get into it. TV has a tendency to make careers seem more exciting than they might actually be. My 13 year old wants to be a teacher. She has actually wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. When I was her age I was sure I wanted to be a Veterinarian. So in high school I joined the Vo-Ag program and found out I was allergic to most animals. I didn’t want to be a Veterinarian anymore.
Is there a way my daughter can try out teaching before she commits to it? Maybe if she could shadow a teacher. See everything they do behind the scenes before she sets her sights on that.
Last year a test she took said that being a detective was a good fit for her. She did a report on that. She hasn’t said she actually wants to be a detective thankfully. I don’t really think it fits her personality very well. She likes mysteries, but I don’t believe her shyness would allow her to be a detective.
I want to guide her in her choices for her future, but I want to be supportive too. I don’t want her thinking she can’t do whatever she sets her mind to, but I think we need to be realistic too. Try to work towards her strengths.
This is the same with all of my children. I hope that I am setting them up to be successful. I hope they don’t end up like so many in my generation who went off to college thinking they knew exactly what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives, but then 15 years later were doing something completely different. Not using their degree. Never having completed their degree.
So I hope they are getting all of the support, counseling, and guidance that they need to really take their futures into consideration. I don’t know that this even means college necessarily for all of my children. My middle daughter has been saying for years that she wants to be a hairdresser. A fine dream to have. So my 5 year plan for her is get her through middle school and into a tech high school. She can come out of high school with the skills she needs to begin a career ideally.
But recently she has been saying she wants to go to college. I’m not sure what she would want her major to be. But the Magnet school I am hoping she gets into will definitely help with that as their courses are all college prep. But she will also get to experience so much of the arts that she otherwise would not be able to experience that she might also discover her interests and talents lie somewhere else.
I truly hate that kids are deciding their future at such a young age because here I am 34 years old and some days I think about being a teacher again. Some days I think Psychology is where it’s at. And then others I think I should start my own party planning business or bakery. I wouldn’t trade my time in college for the world though. Going as a 17 or 18 year old kid with no responsibilities in life is truly an experience and one that I definitely look back on fondly.
If I were to go back to college now it would be completely different. It wouldn’t be as much about the social aspect of college. It would be all about the education. And that’s not a bad thing by any means, but those two years I spent in college might not have netted me a degree, but it gave me some beautiful memories and an education too. I definitely took something out of the classes as well which I try to put to use everyday. My English 101 professor might not agree that I quite grasped the concepts of all of the grammar he tried to teach me, but I definitely do think about tense much more than I did before college. I must say, it was quite disappointing that all of my years of writing some of the grammar I had to learn had to be done in college. What a rude awakening that class was for me 17 years ago. I took a lot out of my time in college.
Do you think 18 year old’s are equipped to plan out their future?
