The One Path Problem Why College Is Not The Only Option

before i say anything

full disclosure i’m planning to apply to

and hopefully get to attend college in

fact

when i think about it a large chunk of

my academic career

has actually revolved around this idea

probably since as early as middle school

writing this talk hasn’t changed my mind

although

i don’t know if that’s because this is

the right goal for me or

if it’s simply the only one i’ve been

trained to aspire towards

and maybe even guilted into by my

ever-loving parents

since day one this in

fact is the question that pushed me to

start researching

is life really so binary that the only

options we have after completing our

secondary education

are college or not

what are the alternatives and why

haven’t i heard anything about them

is this a me problem or are others

around me struggling with the same thing

well i couldn’t find a definitive answer

on google

which is a rare occurrence but i did

find

plenty of articles touting all the

benefits of a college education

and there are many a college degree

provides easier access into the

professional world

and is a necessity if you want to go for

a master’s or phd

personal relationships with professors

can turn into life-long

mentorships fellow students can become

friends business partners

or useful contacts for the future and

the overall

college experience is set to be the best

years of your life

where you finally find your people

that’s all great but there is a

surprisingly limited amount of

information

about the possible downsides of a

college education

what i started to realize is that our

society has set such rigid expectations

for ourselves our friends our family

members

and even strangers that anything that

has historically been deemed a little

less ambitious

is considered a failure or a waste of

time

this mindset is not just archaic but

constricting

and harmful and so today

i want to challenge you to start

thinking

and begin engaging in the dialogue

needed to promote more than one

path to accept the possibility

that a college education need not

determine your value

status and society or future success

i want to be clear my goal today is not

to dissuade anyone from going to college

if that is what they really want rather

it is to present the possibility that

for a variety of students

there are other perspectives there is

more than one path

towards success as a high school student

i can confidently say that one of the

biggest pressures we face

even as early as freshman year is

getting into college

a study conducted by new york university

shows that 49

of high school students in the united

states reported feeling a great deal of

stress

on a daily basis and 26 reported

depression

at a clinically significant level these

students

cited one of their greatest causes of

stress

as getting into college this pressure

isn’t just coming from friends and

family but from society at large

the idea however that everyone needs to

go to college

is a purely american one in european

countries

the attendance to vocational school is

approximately equal

and the workforce benefits from having

people from each distinct

background my friend noah

an exchange student from switzerland was

telling me about the differences between

her life back home

and the month she has spent here in

america and one of the things that

surprised her most

was how differently our educational

systems are structured

in switzerland not everyone goes to

college

that is actually the less likely option

around age 16 students start working in

their chosen field

three days a week the other two days are

spent in vocational school

preparing them for their work and

helping to hone their craft

those who do continue on with their

education are pursuing jobs that require

a lot of background information

and training before one can begin

practicing such as a doctor

or lawyer statistics from the department

of labor show

that while only 31 of jobs need training

past high school

70 percent of americans enroll in

college a figure that demonstrates how

pervasive

and incorrect this notion is

but oftentimes students don’t know there

are other options

or if they do they believe pursuing them

makes you inferior in some way

educating young adults about all of the

options and opportunities that are

available to them

should be an important part of the

college selection process

especially because college is expensive

many students have to take out loans to

finance their education

and these can hold them back hindering

them and leaving them with financial

restrictions until they can be paid off

which on average takes 10 years

in fact did you know that total student

loan debt in the united states is

actually

higher than credit card debt it’s grown

to be 1.5

trillion dollars and yet many people who

invest in their education

believe they will be offered a job right

out of college that will allow them to

pay off their loans

in full a study conducted by lend edu

shows that students expect to be paid on

average ten thousand dollars more

than the true starting salary for an

entry-level position in their chosen

field

people are underestimating the cost of a

college education

and are not fully prepared for the

amount of debt they’re going to take on

ouch what a way to start adulting

again all of this isn’t to say that

college isn’t a worthwhile endeavor

it absolutely is for some people

just not for everyone despite long-held

societal beliefs

one option that is commonly considered

is taking a gap year

this is an opportunity to gain

experience in between your senior year

of high school

and your freshman year of college this

time

can be a super important step in

ultimately deciding what you want to do

a close family member of mine was really

passionate about marketing straight out

of high school

she jumped right into classes paid for

and attended them for four years

and as she started her first job she

realized

she absolutely hated it she could choose

to stay miserable

or go back to the drawing board and find

a completely new profession

she chose the latter and is now happy as

a doctor of physical therapy

however she wishes she had taken the

time to get her bearings

rather than going right into a career

and thinks a gap year would have been

the perfect opportunity to do so

recently the pandemic has forced many

high school seniors to consider taking

their own gap year

with the college experience promising to

be vastly different due to various

safety measures

these students are taking time for

themselves and exploring career options

in hopes that they can return to a more

normal version of campus in the next

year

research compiled by the gap year

association found that overall

students who chose to partake in gap

years benefited in numerous ways

from increasing confidence maturity and

readiness for college

to clarifying the path one wants to take

and positively impacting grades once

they enrolled in a university

just because you take a gap year that

doesn’t mean you can’t take high-level

classes in topics that interest you

websites like coursera edx udemy and all

the other ones up here

provide classes online from universities

for free

and in this case you don’t have to be in

college to participate

i’ve been taking classes over the summer

with topics ranging from

the moral foundations of politics to

social psychology

to the art of negotiation while this is

where my interests lie

they have classes in almost every

subject you can think of

quite frankly it’s difficult to pick

just one

you can also take them on your own

schedule which is super helpful when you

go to school

or work every day and if you choose you

can purchase a course certificate to put

on your resume

after taking some of these classes some

might come to the conclusion that

they don’t want to go to college at all

it

might sound extreme but this option

saves time

which can be used to start a new company

create a groundbreaking new product

launch a non-profit

or simply start working in your chosen

field

it also frees up money and does not

involve taking on massive student loans

in fact peter thiel a tech mogul has a

grant available to college age students

offering 100 000 dollars to drop out of

school

and build something new while people

like mark zuckerberg who famously

dropped out of college

are unique and most of us won’t find the

same heights of success that he did

he is also a big proponent of skipping

college

big tech jobs however are not the only

ones that don’t require a college degree

in fact there are jobs in almost every

field that only require a high school

diploma

people can be dental and medical

assistants legal assistants

real estate agents insurance sales

people artists musicians

any of the jobs you see up here and more

and make a very comfortable living

in fact the ceo of whole foods just

announced that a manager in their stores

can make over one hundred thousand

dollars annually with just a high school

diploma

in the past few months it has become

more evident to all of us

how important essential workers are to

keeping our world running on a

day-to-day basis

while we all stayed home quarantined to

protect ourselves and our families

essential workers remained personal care

aids worked with the elderly

the group of people most at risk for a

serious case of the coronavirus

firefighters and emts put themselves in

harm’s way

every day to keep the rest of us safe

truck drivers drive

cross country keeping industries afloat

and delivering supplies

grocery store employees make sure the

shelves are stocked every day

so we can all get what we need it took a

pandemic for us to realize how important

essential workers are

but it is a lesson that we all must

remember long after it ends

while some of the options i’ve just

presented might sound unrealistic

research has found that approximately 23

percent of college students

drop out by their fourth year anyway

that’s almost a quarter

so despite what we are being led to

believe people are coming to realize

too late that college is not the right

choice for them

i believe we have the power to change

the statistic

if we’re willing to think about what we

really want

and we can save a whole lot of time

money

and stress along the way

like i said the difficult part of this

talk for me

is that even after researching and

writing about all of this

college is still my goal i don’t know if

that means it’s the right road for me to

be

on or if google maps has simply

ingrained inside my internal gps

the road more traveled do i reroute now

or wait for a traffic jam

well the goal of today is not to

convince anyone

including myself not to go to college

rather i’m going to ask you to ask

yourself

three questions one why is college so

important to me

two have i ever imagined what my life

would be like without college

and three is there something else i’d

rather be doing

there is no right path for everyone

but whatever you do decide please don’t

do it because everyone else around you

is

or because it’s too much effort to think

about what you really want

it’s true that college is not the only

choice we’re going to make

but it is going to determine a lot

so think about what you really

want do your research

listen to all of the advice around you

but ultimately

make your own choice

thank you