With my ten year high school reunion coming up I began to reflect a little on my high school days and began to realize how unprepared I was for college. Our parents’ generation grew up with the mentality that you worked hard, got a job, and that was that. You had a career ahead of you, a pension plan, you started your life with nothing in your pocket but you owed nothing either.
Things began to change for the Millennials. The once prestigious option of going to college became a necessity. Programs became more watered down with general studies and yet as quality decreased cost increased. The average student now will graduate with $30,000 in debt before they make a single dollar at their first full-time job. Then the economic crash in 2009 irreversibly changed the working world. Gone were the luxuries of a pension plan, job stability and so on. It became much more common place to career switch, or to do multiple things at the same time. I have to admit this change has opened up a lot of creative opportunities but my generation wasn’t prepared for such a dramatic change in society. Parented by an older generation who grew up with such different circumstances we went blindly into the unknown.
I have been out of school for nearly four years now and reflecting back on my high school days I realize just how much I was clueless about. If only I had been wiser back then. If I had known that our parents and teachers can sometimes be wrong, maybe I would have spent a little more time trying to figure the world out.
1. That being interested or talented in something is NOT an indication you will like doing that as a job.
What are you interested in? What are you good at? What do you like doing? These are questions my teachers, parents, friends, friends’ parents all asked me in high school. Honestly when I was in high school I was interested in music, playing the piano, writing songs, writing poetry, writing in general. I was interested in art, drawing, sewing, creating my own clothes and purses. I was really interested in chemistry class and math. I had loads of interests and suddenly I had to just pick whichever one I liked best or was the best at.
In fact this is a terrible approach. Learning about something and applying it are two very different things. For example I was always very interested in infectious diseases but the reality is if you are interested in infectious diseases you are going to probably spend some time in a lot of underdeveloped nations OR working in a research lab.
Now I love infectious diseases but 1. I don’t want to work in a lab and 2. I don’t want to spend extensive periods of time in a country that may lack some of the more luxurious things in life. So is it wise to say “You are interested in infectious diseases so you should study that in college ” ? Obviously not.
Now you can easily see the fault in this logic. Just because you are interested in something or good at something doesn’t mean you should purse that as a career.
2. That jobs have less to do with subject material and more to do with environment and personality.
Like I said – being interested in something doesn’t automatically indicate that this is the field you should go into. In fact, there are so many things about a job that have NOTHING to do with the subject you are working with. Of course you should to some extent like what you work with at your job but it is actually only a small part of what generates job satisfaction.
One of THE most important aspects of your job – is the hours you work. Do you think you would enjoy working Monday to Friday 9 to 5? Do you think you would enjoy a sporadic schedule that changes week to week with frequent travel? Would you enjoy a job where you have to work 6 to 7 days a week? A 12 hour shift? On call hours? Night shifts? From home? At an office? A different location everyday?
Think carefully. Once upon a time I wanted to be a doctor. I thought more about what doctors do, than I did a doctor’s schedule. I would love to come to work 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and save some lives but, give up my weekends? Wake up in the middle of the night due to on call hours? Cancel my plans at the last minute because I got called into the hospital? That doesn’t really sound like fun to me.
You really need to consider the big picture when choosing a career path. Consider the hours you will work, whether it is team or individual style work, the location of where you will work, the amount of vacation time you may have, the flexibility of your work schedule. Your job is more than a job. It will play a major role in your daily life. It is in a sense a part of your lifestyle.
3. How the hell college financial aid works.
I owe a heck of a lot of money due to financial aid. A good chunk of that money could have been spared if my 18 year old self had any clue what I was getting into. Apply for as many scholarships as you can. If it is possible do work study etc.
Then, when you apply for financial aid – try to sit down and consider how much your annual fees are. Did financial aid offer you $30,000 but tuition and fees are only $12,000? I trusted my mom to manage my finances my first few years of college but she was actually just as clueless as I was. I am pretty sure she got onto my financial aid homepage and clicked every accept button like she won the lotto ” 30,000 in subsidized loans? Yes please!”
If I had taken the time to add up my actual tuition fees, housing cost, meal plan, and then maybe an additional 1,000 for books and misc fees throughout the year I could have probably shaved off a lot of the loans I took out. Additionally my mom was actually paying money to my school monthly for my tuition – but when the loans disbursed they actually refunded not the extra loan money, but the money my mom had paid – directly to my bank account. There was some confusion at the time as to what the heck was going on but I was young and stupid and I wasn’t going to question free money. Now I regret the choices I made every time I look at my loan balance. If only I had understood the loan system before my debt got out of control.
4. How to spend less in college.
In addition to my federal student loan issues I also probably didn’t think very wisely about money overall in college. I did a study abroad trip my third year in and spent about six years at school. While I regret neither of these experiences I think if I had put some thought into creating a budget I would have saved a lot of money.
When I lived in England I went out a lot, to restaurants, shopping, buying coffee, etc. Unlike my English classmates most of my classes were going to be transferred back to my home uni as pass/fail so I put minimal efforts into my studies. This lazy attitude freed up my schedule quite a bit, but my English friends were often too busy with their assignments so I had a lot of downtime to waste money. I also spent a lot of money traveling, and in my first few years of college before I realized my terrible fate with federal loans – I was pretty generous with money. I tapped into that “Free money” a lot not considering any of the consequences and how difficult it actually is to pay back later.
If I had been a little wiser I could have enjoyed much of the same experiences but on a tighter budget, so when I graduated school perhaps I would have had a little more of that “Free money” left that I could have used to offset my loan payments.
5. That you really need a backup plan and a backup plan for your backup plan.
When I went to college I wanted to be a doctor. That’s it. I put no thought into anything else in life I just assumed I would go to school and become a doctor and then I would work in a hospital and that would be my life. Six years of school later, and nearly four years in the working world I have realized there is really no set plan in life.
Even if you go to school to be X and you get a job, there is no guarantee you will want to stay there forever or that it will work out for you. There are so many variables. If you’re a multipotentialite like me choosing a life-long career can be impossible. If I became a surgeon but suffered a hand injury then poof! There goes that career. What if I have kids and no longer want to work full time? What if my spouse dies and I am stuck as a single mother? There are a lot of things that can happen to you that we just can’t predict.
So it’s good going to school knowing what you want to do – but also having a sense of what else you would be okay doing too. We have a multitude of hobbies and interests so its good to also take some classes, or minor in something a little irrelevant to your career choice but nonetheless beneficial. Have an idea of other career paths you could take post-college with your degree in the off chance your first plan doesn’t work out, or doesn’t last.
If I had realized this sooner I would have majored in French Translation rather than just French, and taken classes in business, photography and writing too.
6. That changing your mind is okay.
I think this is the most important thing that I wish I had known before going to college. I was fed this idea – as many of my peers were – that you have to know what you want to be. You have to decide at 18 what you are going to do with the rest of your life and there is an immense pressure to follow this course without question. In reality I think it is ridiculous that an 18 year old who has just barely reached adulthood developmentally is expected to choose what they will do for the next 47 years of their life.
At 18 years old you barely know the world – you believe that every adult too made this lifelong choice so you go along with it without question. Many people do feel satisfied with the choice they make and they never look back, but if you find that 5 or more years down the road you totally change your mind about what you want to do – that’s fine too.
I wish someone had told me changing your mind is totally okay too.
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