Who Needs College

I’m here to tell you that college isn’t all that its cracked up to be.  Proving nothing to me of importance, I didn’t take it very seriously.  And who knows, maybe I should have.  I do however have a plan now, that I won’t need college for.  My plan can succeed if I try to make it succeed, and that’s really all there is to it. 

But really, who can afford college anyways? Rhetorical question, yes I know.

After three years of going to an institution where they expected me to have my life decided by the time I was only eighteen years old, I gave up.  It wasn’t hard for me, and don’t get me wrong it wasn’t a cakewalk either, but the challenge level isn’t what scared me away.  There were plenty of people who were interesting, but in a welcoming school, it wasn’t as welcoming as my hometown. 

I had it all in high school, and had it all taken away in college. My dream occupation and job, wiped clean.  My goal to be a music major didn’t happen like I wanted it to. There were guidelines that weren’t explained, which is my fault as well because I didn’t look into it like I should have.

So I moved onto my next major choice of English, which I wasn’t really sure of anyways. See I was still dead set on being a music major, and after a semester with the new choice, I got bored. Business seemed more intriguing to me than English did, because I could do so much with that degree. After a year in business classes, I switched to economics. That didn’t suite me either. Finally, I settled on Communications: Journalism.

I took a semester and a half in that field and was going to switch to Event Planning, but instead I decided to leave school until I could live my life a little and make up my mind. College is expensive after all…I didn’t have the money to pay for more classes when I still didn’t know what I wanted to do.

After three years of school, I have a crap ton of general classes under my belt with a bunch of useless credits towards any major, wasted time, and thousands of dollars of debt.  Hmmm...is the better option to continue down this disastrous path?  I think not!  So I up and left.

I had dreams.  Where I thought I would be at the age of twenty-six, is not actually where I am. No, I’m not married. I’m not a big time show choir choreographer helping schools out all over the country. I’m not even close to any of the feasible options I pictured for possible other career choices.

Maybe if I just would have stuck it out with my English major, I’d be fine right now. I guess I’ll never know.

Everyone, and I mean everyone tells me that I should go back and finish up college. I think they assume I’d just have a year to go, but truth be told, I’d have to basically start from scratch. And I’m still at the point that I was at when I left in the first place, unsure of what I’d do.

Maybe I’ll never have it figured out. That could be what being an adult really is. The real definition of an adult must read, “the complete certainty to be unknown.” Because no matter how much you plan things will always happen out of your control. No one does exactly what they believed would happen in life. No one.

College is a possible dream for everyone. There are resources out there so that the unlikely becomes imaginable. Many people go and succeed, making the best out of their higher education. But then there are some like me, who thought that after graduating high school one is supposed to go on to school. Because that is what was expected of me, that is what I did. There are many circumstances for why people never finish and get their degree. And those people should never be judged. Those people may be more intelligent than you. There are even people that don’t go to college at all.

The stigma behind the idea that everyone needs to go to school to get a great job, basically that a university is the only way that you will succeed in life, is pure hogwash. All degrees are not more important than experience or knowledge of the job. The ability to gain information and process what is happening around you are significant attributes to the business world. Those are the characteristics I would look for in an employee.

I mostly just wish that after graduating high school I would have known these things before I jumped right into the university setting. Knowing that college didn’t need to be the only option for me would have made my life easier. Who knows, maybe I still would have gone, but maybe I wouldn’t have. I did learn a lot and don’t get me wrong, I had a blast there, but college set me back, not ahead like it was supposed to.

I don’t know if maybe I was burnt out with school after being involved with everything in high school. Maybe it was because I’m from a smaller town where I felt that I was important, talented, and smart; that once I was in college I became just ordinary. That feeling made me discouraged. I’m a competitive person, and back in my home town, I knew if I tried hard enough I could be the best at what I tried at. In college, there was too much for me to try and rise above. I didn’t want to try for something and then feel like a failure. So I just didn’t try.

I know I’m not the only one who has dropped out of school after feeling this way. I’ve had friends and family all drop out of school for various other reasons. And I don’t fault them. I don’t think they are any less intelligent than I know that they are. They are people…human. We don’t have our life figured out yet. And being forced to decide what you want to do for the next forty-five years of your life when you’re eighteen years old, is almost inhumane. High school counselors should understand this before they push these kids down that one bumpy direction. 

I feel bad for the people that want to start their career path all over when they are in their forty’s. Society is totally against them. Even though they have proven in their past job what an asset that they can be, if they don’t have that degree, odds are not in their favor over some newly graduated twenty-three year old.

College doesn’t need to be the path you choose. It is a big commitment: lots of money and time. If you want to head down the university path, by all means, you go for it. College will help with so many endeavors in life. But just know that it isn’t all that you need to make your life successful. That relies on you. Just because most of your graduating class is heading to U of M doesn’t mean that you have to. Society doesn’t have to be your guidelines as to what is the right and proper thing to do now that you’re an adult. After all you’re the adult. You set your own guidelines. Be creative and do your thing, you’ll make it.