Here’s the question I received: I’m a senior and my parents want me to go to college after I graduate. I don’t much like school and we don’t have a lot of money. Don’t you think I should get a job not go to college?
Answer: Your parents are trying to lead you in the right direction. Obviously they realize how difficult it is to get ahead and be able to reach your financial and other goals in life without a college education today. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of people out there earning good salaries and having rewarding lives that don’t have a college education, and there are lots of people out there that have a college education but aren’t putting it to good use. There are laborers, sales people, skilled craft workers, service workers, and many others who are doing just fine without a college education.
So, it really boils down to what you want out of life, and that’s a question that only you can answer. If your family already is strapped for money then maybe you can eventually be the one to help with those circumstances if you can get a college education, receive a good job as a result and gain the financial rewards. On the other hand as I said there are plenty of good jobs out there that don’t require college, or at least not a college degree.
Regarding not liking school, I would venture to say that a big percentage of the people that graduate from college didn’t actually “like” the experience, but they realized it was a means to an end. In other words, they looked around at the people in the workforce with the highest paying jobs and not all of them, but most of them have a college education and many of them have advanced degrees such as a master’s degree. So the means was a college degree and the end was a good paying job to support all of their needs and/or wants
Two additional considerations are 1) If you do go to college, depending on what college you go to and/or how much support your parents can give you, you may have to also get a job to help work your way through. Our most rewarding accomplishments are the ones we also fund. 2) If you don’t do college while you are young and still have enough flexibility in your life, you may never be able to go back to do it. Missed opportunities are many times gone forever. I know for a fact once you get into the work world and are trying to make ends meet and get caught in that grind of going to work, coming home tired, going to bed, getting up and going back to work; it is very difficult to change that routine and go back and do college.
Even if you are just a mediocre student in high school you may excel in college because now you are doing something that tends to be more in your own behalf. College is nothing like high school as you are totally on your own. You decide what courses to take and when, you decide when to eat and when to recreate – all things decided for you in high school. You not only work on getting a degree in college, you can also work on becoming an adult. I wish you luck and whatever you decide to do I hope you can look back on it in years to come and feel like you made a good decision.
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