After finishing high school, you have several options. You can:
- Immediately “go into adulthood” and find a job.
- Take the popular abroad ” gap year.”
- Enter a higher educational institution.
Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages. Let’s go over them.
1. Codename: “goodbye_school_hello_adult_life”
Benefits:
You do not waste time studying at the university (now it takes 4 years to get a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree (if you decide to continue your studies) – another 2 years). You can start working full-time right after school and earn your money.
Disadvantages:
Not all vacancies and fields of activity are open to people without higher education. Many employers require a higher education diploma or at least confirmation of studying at a certain university course.
You need to know exactly what you will do next and in what direction you will develop to have career development and the ability to provide for yourself in the future.
2. Gap Year
Benefits:
If you can’t decide what to do after school, then a gap year is ideal. It will take a whole year to do what you like: attend various courses, work, read, travel, volunteer, and the like. You can become a more mature person and subsequently make an informed choice.
You can use the year to fill knowledge gaps or improve your skills in certain areas. Poor history or math? You can “tighten up” problematic moments in a year. If you want, you can try volunteering or internships – new skills, acquaintances, and experience are guaranteed.
Disadvantages:
Not everyone has the financial ability to take a gap year: travel, courses, and other activities require finances, so you have to convince your parents of the advisability of a gap year or go and earn money on your own to support yourself during this period.
It is necessary to have willpower because the year will fly by quickly, and if you do not engage in useful activities, you may not understand what to do next, and the year will go by without giving you anything.
3. The University Route
Benefits:
You receive both general and specialized knowledge that allows you to understand many areas and prepare you for further employment and life (we know that sounds like a cliché, but it is what it is).
You’ll also have new acquaintances and friends. A higher education diploma increases the opportunity to get a good place to work and further career growth.
Disadvantages:
Difficulties of choice: in which city? Which university/institute? What specialty? If you are studying in a specialty that you do not like and in which you do not plan to work, there is a risk that you will waste time, but there will be little sense afterward.
Problem of Choice
According to statistics, more than half of schoolchildren think about their future profession only in graduation classes, and almost 60% of people do not work in their chosen specialty. This situation is familiar to us. Part of the problem is in the education system. Let’s examine what children are taught in other countries.
In Finland, whose education system is considered one of the best, children are not prepared for exams. They are taught to live and be part of society. There is no priority of subjects: physics is not more important than art or music. Classes and assignments are formed according to children’s abilities; there are no excellent students or good students – there is an individual approach.
By graduation, schoolchildren can draw up portfolios and contracts, use bank cards, count taxes, understand inheritance issues. They know how to plan their income and what bills to pay, how to enjoy benefits, how to navigate their city and country, and much more.
While attending school, children learn about most professions and even go on excursions to factories in China. This helps the children get a realistic view of what a real-life job looks like. Unfortunately, our training program is clearly lacking in practicality. Therefore, the basic information that forms the student’s choice he learns from relatives, friends, or through the Internet/media.
What Happens in Reality
It turns out that a common teenager has only passing scores and guesses at what some jobs are like at the time of making a decision. If the young person didn’t have any great passions and didn’t develop any special talents or inclinations, they’ll be deciding their future life in bad faith.
Having no interests, the recent graduates try to go for the most common route and choose to continue their education with a major that:
- Is much easier to do.
- Their friends go to.
- Their parents will tell them to choose.
- Is just paid very well.
This step is extremely important because it will determine the whole stage of a graduate’s life: what they learn over the coming years, how they will communicate, how it will be useful in real life. Making such a decision in bad faith can result in the child not having a good job and being in a good place mentally. Instead, they’ll be completely lost in the mid-’20s without any clue what to do with their life.
How to Settle on a Path
Without a doubt, such an important decision should be approached accordingly. You have to think long and hard about the future and yourself. Excluding the external factors, you must consider the following:
- Your interests.
- Your desires.
- Your Character and physical capabilities.
These should be the most important things to dictate your future life. Want to become independent first and then figure out which field to improve? In that case, go get that job and explore opportunities. Do you know what you want in the future, and it requires you to get a degree? Then, it’s the higher education route and editing college essay for you all the way.
It is important to provide yourself with all the information you can. Search through various vocations as there is an incredible number of them out in the world. There are not only managers, economists, and designers. The Internet provides many courses for free in all areas – a good way to understand what’s available.
Magazines publish interviews with people of different professions, study what their working days consist of. It is also helpful to be a volunteer. This will not only give you experience and skills but also help you make useful contacts. And don’t forget about communities that help you choose your future business.
Don’t Let the Generational Conflict Get You
Denis wants to become an actor, and his family sees the boy in a safer place in life. Or the successor to a family business. How to be in such a situation?
Every loving parent wants his child to be well-fed, healthy, secure, and live a better life. However, it is important to understand that the child must choose his own path. If he is not aware of himself as a person capable of making decisions, he will not live fully.
In such conflicts, the young learner must prove the seriousness of his intentions. Find the right courses, learn the basics of the profession. Explain why exactly this is, what opportunities the specialty gives, what abilities he will develop, and on what terms he will live. A good parent, seeing that his child understands all the advantages and disadvantages of the decision, will accept the choice.
What’s Really Important to Think About
Work is a way of earning money and a huge part of our life in itself. If you don’t want to hate the alarm clock every morning and having to make yourself get up. You should pick a field that makes you happy day after day.
Work is also a way of self-realization. Of course, it does not always characterize you, but this is the place where your abilities can develop or fade away.
If the recent graduate is not ready to choose at the end of school, it is wise to wait out the year, gather more information, and even work to become self-aware. Neither the child nor the parent should worry that someone has already achieved this or that by 22 years.
Remember This Truth
Each of us has unique abilities that make us useful in the context of a community and happy on our own. They guide us on how to find our place in the world and make a living. So, listen to yourself and make an informed choice.
