"So are you in college?"
I let out an annoyed sigh...
"That's a complicated question..."
This is the number one most
annoying question I get asked, and it also happens to be the most frequent.
"Are you in college?" "Did you graduate college?"
"What are you going to school for?" And hundreds of other variations
of the same question. It's even more annoying than the "so do you have a
boyfriend?" Question. At least that one has a simple answer. "Nope,
haven't met the right guy yet." But the school question? Well that's more
complicated.
I was homeschooled through tenth
grade. From preschool to high school my mom taught me at home and I wouldn't
trade it for the world. I started college at fifteen, finishing my last two
years of high school while starting on my first two years of college. My
professors couldn't believe how young I was. I graduated with my associates
degree in General Studies at nineteen years old with a nearly perfect GPA, only
a couple B's and one C (It was a poorly done online class) and I'm proud of all
of that (not the c, but that wasn't totally my fault). I took a year off to
figure out what I actually wanted to go to school for, since I would be paying
for it, and school wasn't exactly my favorite thing in the world. Though I
learned a lot in college, it turned me into someone I didn't like. Anyway, four
years later here I am. I haven't gone back to school and I am finally back to
the girl I WANT to be. But that's not my story here.
Not everyone is cut out for
college. Should everyone go get their associates degree in something? Anything?
Sure! It's a good experience and opportunity to learn more. But not everyone is
meant to be a doctor, a teacher, a business man, or whatever else you can go to
college for. Something is just now coming out in the news that I've been
warning people about for years, there aren't enough people in trade jobs. We're
low on plumbers, construction workers, mechanics. Jobs that require going to a
trade school or some sort of an apprenticeship and not spending thousands of
dollars on a college education that may or may not result in a job let alone
one you actually like.
My sister said something the other
day that I really took to heart. "You should have a job that you wouldn't
mind not getting paid for." Now, sometimes you just need a job because
unfortunately this world we live in runs on money, but if you can have a job
that you would do for free, that's the job you should be doing. I've heard of
kids with perfect test scores being told they shouldn't go to the trade school
to be a plumber because they're too smart, that they should go to college and
be a doctor or something more "important." And on the flipside kids being thrown into trade
schools because they have "academic issues" when in reality they
probably just need a little extra time and attention then the public school
system can give them.
I don't know what I want to be when
I "grow up" but I know what I want to be right now. I want to be
someone who wouldn't mind doing their job for free. I want to teach swim
lessons, use my talents to help those who need me, crochet adorable critters
that put a smile on people’s faces, be a writer and change the world one little
bit at a time. I would do all of those things for free if only the world we
live in didn't rely so much on this thing we call money. None of those things
require me to go back to college. Could I go to college and learn more and do
those jobs better? Perhaps. But is it worth it after calculating the risks to
my health, my mental state, and my wallet? No. Because for me, I don't want to
be a Doctor, a lawyer, or any of those other jobs college qualifies you to be.
I want to be a writer, and I'd like to stay as far away from "starving
artist" as possible. Paying for college won't help me there.
Going to college is right for some
people. Trust me, I am in no way against college in general. But we must be
more accepting of those who decide college isn't what's right for them. That
the job they are meant to have might not be one that can be obtained with a
college degree. God makes all sorts of people, and the Construction Workers,
Car Mechanics, and Plumbers are just as important as the Doctors, Teachers, and
Lawyers. They keep the world we live in running just as much as the rest of
them.
So, "why don't you go back to
school?" they ask. Because that's not Gods path for everyone. And that's
not God's path for me right now.
