Since middle school, we’ve all been inundated with tests. These varied from standardized tests that put you in a category that should tell you what field in which your job should be to fit your personal aptitudes, or SAT or ACT academic tests that your parents agonize over because these scores “decide where you’ll go to college.” Not to mention the pressure your high school teachers put on you to go on to college, the feelings of fear because everyone else seems to know what they’re doing while you don’t, or even the media blurting out commercial after commercial of this or that university and the amazing opportunities college offers.
Why is it that our society is obsessed with academics and getting into a “good school”?
In the U.S., attending college is more expensive than ever. We make it impossible for people who might want to go to school to be able to even afford it…and then we criticize those who don’t attend.
Something that’s come to my attention lately is the blatant assumption that everyone is in college. The rare times I mention my long-distance boyfriend, it is immediately followed up by the dreaded question, “Where does he go?” “Actually,” I answer, “he doesn’t go to college. He works.”
This often takes people aback, and I can see them scramble to cover their embarrassment. College is something that shouldn’t be a given—and besides, what about the people that don’t want to go to school, but prefer pursuing their interests elsewhere? There so are many other options, but too often people connotate anything “unacademic” as a bad or unacceptable possibility.
I want to bring awareness to the fact that for each person, the path they choose after high school is their own. There is no one right answer; it isn’t the end all be all. Some choose to go to college at a fancy liberal arts school like Kenyon, others live at home while commuting to the local university. Some decide they want to get a steady, well-paying job in order to save up enough money to move out of their parents’ house and get out on their own, while still others decide they want to apprentice at a trade school or join the military.
If you or someone you know isn’t the kind of person who would enjoy school, why make yourself miserable for four years? We put so much focus on the dollar amount that we start judging how good a job is based on what it pays. But it really isn’t about the size of the paycheck. How fun would it be to do something you don’t really enjoy all day long? We need to feel fulfilled by what we’re doing.
Whether it is driving for UPS, serving your country in a branch of the military, or getting an Associate’s Degree to become a registered nurse, you should ideally be doing what you love to do. Being more open-minded and conscientious is just the beginning of understanding and accepting other people’s life decisions. Instead of pressuring kids at an early age to follow a certain, set path, give them room for them to be themselves! And that is something that should never be judged or looked down upon.
So next time I talk to someone about my boyfriend, I hope they are receptive and respond genuinely—“Oh, your boyfriend works? That’s really cool!”