What I Would Be When You Grow Up

High school graduation marks the start of young adults’ lives, a time where they are expected to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Many young adults are pressured into attending college, whether they have determined their goal or not, but is it necessary? “The Case Against College,” an article written by Linda Lee, a mother who has questioned the former belief that college equals success, claims that “not everyone needs a higher education.” College, though beneficial to many, is not for everyone and should not determine an individual’s life.

College is a time in life where students attain a sense of the real world and commence a new road to independence. Despite the alluring effects of a college education, many high school students have yet to decide whether or not college is worth paying for.  As time progresses, colleges are raising their demand on finances in return for a person to become acquainted with the intellectual properties for their desired career choice. Due to this dilemma, numerous teenagers have been dropping out of high school believing that college is unnecessary in order to find a job immediately. The progressive increase of financial gain in colleges have also raised some concern to the group of people that do wish to attend college, but cannot afford to obtain such prerequisite. While some may claim that college is not a valuable coming of age experience due to a personal conviction in which a college education is not able to fulfill one's goals, or appease prior expectations, college is able to be considered as a valuable coming of age experience nonetheless. The reasoning behind this is that a college experience allows an individual to discover their ambitions for the future and provide knowledge of who they are, while additionally providing a sense of purpose to their life in the future by transforming them into a more prosperous person.

Many have experienced an encounter as a young child where they are asked what they want to be when they grow up. Answering that question may be easy as a kid because your mind is filled with thoughts of being the unimaginable. As you grow much older, those ideas begin to depart from the mind and you are suddenly more aware of what is and what is not possible in this world. When beginning the most important years of high school, you stop and rethink your career choice numerous times, stressing on who and what you want to be. Many adults such as teachers, counselors, and parents will emphasize the importance of knowing where you want to be in the future during high school, sometimes even middle school. It became imperative that one chose their

    Dating back to the early 2000’s, over 1,000,000 teens a year have had children during high school (Source A). Teenagers are depending on others to rely on their children and not the effect of their education and their future career. As the years tick by, the teen pregnancy rate has reduced a solid 9%; becoming the lowest rate in over a hundred years (Source A). Since teen pregnancy has dropped and the amount of tax dollars have increased, the fight to find the time and place for their children's own education, is still a matter of struggles (Source

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I can not recall the numbers of times I have been asked this question. The question is phrased in various ways:

Society has put so much emphasis on attending college after high school, making it a social norm. During the last two years of high school guidance consolers, teachers, parents and their children begin meeting and have discussions on whats next after high school. Many parents such as the ones in the study conducted by Holmstrom, Lynda Lytle plan to send their children to college after high school. One parent stated “ what kind of economic future do they have if they are not educated.” Participating parents were from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and those who’ve attending college and some that did not were in agreement that the benefits were everlasting. When asked what they received from attending college parents gave responses such as “ I was well served, it was a tremendously exciting place, along with gaining new prospective on the world, boosting self confidences and broadening and opening their minds. Other parents expressed the ability to obtain a job they were about to provide for their families along with gaining personal benefits like health care. The parents in this study were faced with the truths of having to pay for their children’s higher education and overall they were willing to go the extra mile so their children were able to go to college and not be struggling to make ends meet in the years

Sneaking up on me, the end of my senior year is starting appearing, the most frequent question I get asked is,” What are you going to do after high school?” That question for me isn't a hard one--in fact, it is rather easy. At the age of 10, I knew I wanted to become some type of teacher, or someone in the medical field, I didn't know what exactly. At the age of 15 I was in an accident that helped me realize what I wanted to become.

Most young adults, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, may suffer as I did with “What will I be when I grow up syndrome?” I must admit that this syndrome is not only prevalent but life altering. When I was eighteen and asked this same question, I may one day respond with fire fighter and the next day a neurosurgeon. I had NO idea what I wanted to do with my life and thanks to my Mother, I had this preconceived idea that money actually did grow on trees

“I’ve seen too many high school graduates who have gone off to college in September but are back home with mom and dad in December. And I’ve seen those who have made it through the first year but transferred back home to a community college for the second.” Lawrence B Schlack is a retired superintendent who strongly protests the idea that college is the only path to success and encourages students to take their time to decide whether or not they are ready to move on into the real world. In this generation, teenagers are made to think that without college, it is impossible to live a successful and prosperous life. Schlack claims that there are many paths to a successful life, and that seniors who can’t declare they are college bound are made to feel like failures. Schlack firmly supports his claims with multiple facts, examples, and statistics.

Throughout my life, one question has plagued me during icebreakers, uncomfortable family gatherings, and standardized tests: what do you want to be when you grow up? I went through the standard set of responses as I grew up (ballerina, Rockstar, astronaut, Godzilla, etc.), but when I finally got to the age when what I answered actually mattered, I found that I really had no idea. I antagonized over the question, trying to work my way backward: What did that question even mean? Was it just to find a job or a career, something that paid the bills, or something that truly made me happy? For much longer than probably advisable, I put off answering The Question. Thankfully, the universe felt generous enough to drop some pretty obvious hints my way.

What do I truly want to do in life? Who do I truly want to become? What legacy do I want to leave behind in this world? These are questions that I constantly ask myself to navigate my way through my journey in college. When I was a freshman in high school, my school held a career day bringing in a wide variety of speakers from different careers such as an engineer, religious leader, dentist, nutritionist, and even a body builder. Call me crazy, but because I loved doing math and just heard that an engineer was a good job, I thought that I wanted to be a computer engineer. Honestly, I never thought too much about what I wanted to do in life early on in high school. In a way, I was letting my life be defined by the people who I respected. This was because I was not listening to my inner self and exploring the wide variety of options that could help find the right career for me. At one point, like many kids throughout the world, I even dreamed of becoming a professional athlete playing basketball or football. However, as I progressed through high school, my aspirations in life naturally changed. Because I started taking a programming class, I thought that I may want to become a programmer. At the same time, I was also fascinated by learning about the human body in my anatomy class. To be quite honest, one of the reasons why I am currently majoring in Biology is because of the role models that have influenced my decision to pursue this path. Therefore, one of the things that I

From an early age in life, people often encounter a common question asked among many which is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For many this is quiet an easy questions, they know what they like, what they are good at and what inspires them so its easy to answer it. For many not so much, this might be a frustration of many especially during their high school years. Many even think they know what they want but as they start working on approaching this goal the find that they no longer want this anymore. In grade ten, I found myself asking these questions. Where do I want to be in ten years from now? What am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? After thinking about this and asking for different advice o those around me, I decided I

When we were young, if you can remember, our parents asked us a lot of times, “What do you want to become?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This may be a typical parent-to-child question for many families, but not for mine. Growing up in Thai culture, I have noticed a common role of women in my society. Most of my female family members are housewives and that is what I’m expected to be when I grow up as well. But I had bigger aspirations than that – I wanted to find a profession in which I, as a Thai woman, can gain respect and appreciation of people in my culture just as men can, and also gain a sense of personal fulfillment. As a result, throughout the first half of my undergraduate studies, I decided to follow an educational path that would prepare me to become a physician. I also took interest in Psychology, partly because of its

The first time I knew I wanted to be grown up was when I was five. I wanted to pick out my own clothes and dress myself for my first day of kindergarten. My mom used to fix my hair and my sippy cup, but I began to grow and did not need her as often. At school teachers would ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Hands immediately shot up and answers such as Doctor, teacher, and Astronaut were blurted out. Now everyone has different answers. I was so fixated on being an Artist and having my art in a fancy museum one day. But as we grow, our minds change.