A Teenagers Unreasonable Responsibility
Teenagers like myself all over are faced with a choice to make or are beginning to fully comprehend the choice they must soon make, that will shape the course of their lives.
Not only is this terrifying to someone who’s life has only just begun but we’re teenagers, we’re indecisive. Last week we wanted to be doctors but this week we want to be lawyers, next week we’ll probably want to be a photographer or the head of an expensive company. How am I supposed to figure out what exactly I want to do for the rest of my life? What college is right for me? This decision is not one that should be forced on an adolescent just becoming a young adult, not in my opinion. College is expensive, no matter where you go. Colleges are so different from each other and there are so many to choose from it makes my head spin.
All my life I’ve been under the wing of my mom and dad; I’ve never really been out in the real world for myself. I have no idea what kind of environment is right for me. Do I want to go to a college in the city or a nice secluded campus? Do I want there to be a million kids there or just a few? The questions could go on for hours, it’s just so hard to sit down and pick one especially if you have no clue where to start. Yet here comes the hardest part, picking your major. You finally have the chance to pick your area of study and you have no idea what you want. It’s impossible to choose, you thought you had an idea set for yourself but then you see all the options you could have and you question yourself, doubt your plan.
You see all of these majors and see what everyone else is doing and you get nervous, you want to be the photographer that gets published in all the national geographic magazines but you want to be the doctor that saved a young girls life yesterday or be the teacher you wish you had in high school. But wait you can’t have your dream job because it won’t support you in life in the long run so you have to pick something else. You can’t follow your dreams to do somethingn that makes you happy but something that makes you money. And God forbid you change your mind halfway through or you’ll have to pay thousands of dollars all over again and retake all the classes and you’re there even longer and behind all your friends who are ready to graduate. More and more often kids are going to college to find a way to make a lot of money with something their able to do, their good at but not what they like or enjoy to do. The goal is money, money, money but wait you have use all of your money and the governments money and scholarships just to be able to get in, to be able to qualify for that internship and work you’re way up the food chain to a higher position.
You finally get somewhere and you want to save money and buy a house and support yourself and family and go do the things you’ve always wanted while you’re still young but don’t forget those school loans you have to pay back because they’ll be there for the next seven years unless you hit the lottery. So many teenagers, including myself at times have no idea if they can afford college. If I can it might not even be the one I want. So many of my friends or my peers have totally shut out the option of college because they can’t afford it and that disgusts me. Someone should not be denied the chance to better themselves and their lives because of something as simple as paper with numbers on it.
The way education is dealt with in America truly frustrates me and upsets me in multiple ways. The fact that it’s all shoved on teenagers is just the biggest factor of them all. We’re young and we want to be wild. We want to explore and see what the world has in store for us before we even think of settling down, before we throw away our dreams for a life of waking up at 7 everyday and going to work for a job we can’t stand until we make enough to retire to sit around and do nothing because we’re too old to do anything else but remember our glory days. So I believe with all my heart that this responsibility that’s pushed on to us is unreasonable, even a little cruel and something should be changed.
