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