Every outing I attend, I am pestered with ‘What do you plan on doing with your life?’ This is usually paired with suggestions based on caricatures of careers. Similar to how jobs were given in the Giver, by Lois Lowry, parents suggest, or even select, the future careers of their children through both direct statements and the manner they raise their children. No matter how nonjudgmental parents are, they heavily influence their children towards, or against, certain career paths. Parents prefer their children in medical school over art school, no matter what they say.
Parents are not the only ones prodding students. Students are pressured by family friends during outings, peers during club meetings, and ourselves at 3am struggling to fall asleep to pick a goal and carve out a channel to reach it. This is in great part due to the modern college application system: each applicant must (appear to) completely know themselves. At 18 years of age, each applicant must have 5, 10, and 20 year goals related to their careers, and have years of demonstrated interest in reaching each of those goals. This constant prodding by society, demanding their preferred career, provides ample incentive for students to pick something–anything–at quasi-randomness and stick with it, regardless of its quality of fit. This journey is stress inducing and forces students to extrapolate long into the future.
At the very least, this is how it happened for me. Though I currently have an answer, I did not always, and blindly made guesses based on conventions and arbitrary patterns. STEM is generally my strong suit, but includes millions of careers, so picking the right one is impossible.
Still, I explored my choices. Due to my passion for reading, I tried writing, a natural extension of my hobby. After numerous failed world-building attempts, I quickly realized that I was a poor writer and struggled with every element of writing pieces of fiction: writing was off the table. I mentally wandered through who I thought I was, investigating what were the corners of my being, and what were merely temporary. This produced some inane shower thoughts:
‘My last name is Harris… and I live in Harris County. I could become the first noble house in the USA.’
Obviously, this would not happen. It does not fit my temperament, plus Harris is one of the most common last names in the US. Still it led to the train of thought:
‘I live in Houston, AKA the Bayou City, H-Town, Space City… wait–one of those is more interesting than the others. Studying space is also more plausible than becoming nobility.’
Recalling the exhilaration of the sci-fi I have read, I decided to do something related to space. I did not know if it was space science, infrastructure, or exploration, but that was not the point. It is a starting point I quixotically chased, leading to interviews with NASA engineers. From there, I reached another crossroads–how would I influence space? Through physics and engineering, I would either delve into theoretical or make something new. The research I had done in high school suggested that engineering would be better, but I flip-flopped. During my senior year of high school, I decided to apply as a physics major. My rationale was that physicists uncover the paradigm changing discoveries used to develop space, while engineers just use the tools physicists revealed–or so thought a teenager that was clueless about what physicists and engineers actually do, based on YouTube videos.
I have since changed plans. In a freshman orientation presentation that urged students to pursue entrepreneurship, I recalled my father’s advice to hire others to do the science, and instead hold a managerial position in a space-centric startup. Like elephant toothpaste, I wiggle excitedly in my seat for the rest of the presentation until I could research the space economy. Despite the lack of his proximity in that moment, my past exposure has drastically shifted my career.
Still, I realize I am incredibly lucky to have something to latch onto, the opportunity to actually work on it as well, a lack of financial stress, and top notch education. Most people do not have a family that is supportive in just the right way while still respecting boundaries, a college where students are encouraged to explore their passions in a panoply of subjects, and do so while feeling comfortable to still take risks. My parents both went to college and gave quality, informed, and ample advice on career development. I live in a city literally named Space City–is there anywhere else better to explore a passion for space? Without all of these resources and more, the college application process is like Salem witch trials’ forced confessions, where alleged witches were tortured until they admitted to a crime they have not committed. It strong-arms students to pick something specific. This leads students to make poor decisions. I know someone who, after receiving a PhD in geology, realized they did not want to work in geology-related fields. Students know this is the most important decision of their life. Combine this with the stress of school work, puberty, relationships, and a rapidly changing world, students are rightfully stressed, anxious, and drained.
Still, if students are given the proper resources to explore their skills and opportunities, there are numerous benefits. By forcing students to specialize since high school, this system forces students to be introspective, teaches them how to be analytical and different problem solving strategies, and in rare cases they find the perfect match, creates a powerhouse with a deep knowledge of a topic and the opportunities to truly change the world. Key words: proper resources. The current education system has numerous issues that must be addressed, with this being just one.
Ideally, colleges will allow their students to take risks and explore their opportunities and talents. For example, many colleges allow students to change majors until their second semester of sophomore year, a resource I will certainly be taking advantage of.