A few weeks ago I turned 18 and it was really strange…I was overcome by all these mixed emotions of both the excitement and fears of becoming a young adult. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my future and the expectations that others have of me. My parents want me to go to Eastern Washington University because it’s the cheapest in-state university. But I want to go to Trinity Lutheran College, go into their Children, youth, and family Studies program and become a youth director or a pastor. My youth director keeps telling me I don’t need a fancy college degree to work in the church and wants me to go straight into an internship with him next fall, but I don’t want to disappoint my family by not going to college.
I suppose it never really was my plan or idea to even go to college in the first place, but more an idea placed on me by society that college is the “only option” and the only way to be “successful” in life. Isn’t it strange how by the time we’re half way through our junior year of high school society expects us to have our entire life planned out ahead of us? I find it scary that the college decision we make as a 17 or 18 yr-old in high school pretty much determines where we end up going and ultimately what we end up doing for the rest of our lives. If you ask me, that’s a lot of pressure to put on teenagers! I’m so young…why does society expect me to make such a life altering decision at such a young age?
