Never once
has the thought of not attending college crossed my mind. I have known since I
started High School that I needed to go to college to get ad degree and better my
future. When I met with my first counselor to begin college classes, the first
thing she asked me was what I wanted to be when I grew up. I responded with “a
psychologist” and she looked at me like I was stupid. She shot me a stare of
confusion and pity and responded with, “well there’s a lot of fields that you
can go into, have you not thought about this?” This is something that has
always confused me because graduating from high school we have no former
training on how to answer that question, we are only expected to know. I picked
my major solely out of passion for something that came off as interesting to
me. I have never had the privilege to
take a psychology class in high school but I knew about two years into high
school that it was what I wanted to study. In an article titled “Did Anyone Ask
the Students”, the author Jeff Selingo asks the audience some questions in
regard to their opinion on a higher education. One of the question he asks is, “How
do they judge the value of a college degree and weigh it against its rising
price tag?” followed by, “What’s the purpose of a college education?” To these,
I came up with the idea that: Essentially, the purpose of a college education
would be to impress business owners and CEO’s to see something in you. Its
purpose reset solely in getting you a good job that pays well so you can live
comfortably until you are ready to retire. I am very convinced that a lot of
college students would not be attending a place of higher learning if they knew
that a potential better pay and more comfortable lifestyle would not come along
with it. While this is not necessarily promised, this is most everyone’s
intentions, and no one would willingly throw themselves hundreds of thousands
of dollars in debt for no reason at all. In regards to one of the other
questions he asks, I’m unsure a lot of the time if my education is worth the
money I will be spending on it, in the long run. I have heard many older individuals
say something along the lines of, “I’ll probably be paying for my school loans
for the rest of my life!” I have to talk myself into the thought that it will
be worth it in the long run, regardless of the price tag, or the quality of the
education from my professors, that I receive. The theme that resonated with me
most deeply is the one that states, “More career exploration is needed before
college.” As I stated earlier, I had no knowledge of the direction in which I
wanted to take my career, I only knew the field I was interested in. The only
way you can explore a career of choice is if you jump into classes that cost
you hundreds of dollars a semester, and you could still end up changing your
mind. I don’t believe that high schools or even colleges give students enough
time to figure out what it is they want to major in before they make them
decide. In conclusion, I just feel like there is too much indecision and fear
in a young students mind to make them decide so early on what they will put
themselves into debt for.
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