SENIOR YEAR BEGINS…
It's the start of senior year and the excitement buzzes through the air like electricity. The countdown leading to a life of independence is on! You've seen all the movies, you know all the social culture: senior ditch day, luncheons, senior sunrise, prom, senior photos, the pieces fall into place. As the year speeds by in what feels like the blink of an eye, graduation is here and you're walking across the stage to shake someone's hand accepting this little piece of paper that represents so much more.
For some students, they think they have every milestone, every life event, every week of their lives mapped out for the next several years. For other students, it's a time of exploration and self discovery. But there's a 3rd group of students emerging that we haven't seen historically; the ones who feel overwhelmed and frozen in time. Not because of a lack of information, necessarily, or even a lack of drive or motivation, but the need to make what feels like a lifetime decision. A lifetime commitment to pick a path that will mark decades to come…and it’s daunting. For many of us in my generation, we think, “Wow! If we had had what you have, if we had the Internet, if we had tutorials, if we had online classes! You have so many resources, the world is at your fingertips!” When does it become too much? When is it too many choices, too many options, too many paths to choose? Contradicting sources of information confuses the youth even further. There is a whole group of youth allowing the choices to be made for them by making no choice at all.
It can be easy when you have a dream, drive and passion. When you're top of your class or taking the AP exams, scoring really well on your SATs or ACTs and the Colleges and Universities are coming to you, filling your mailbox or inbox with offers and recruitment materials. It can be a lot simpler to make a choice when finances are not a factor or when you know exactly what to expect. For the students in the middle? How about the students in the bottom? For the youth who have to make decisions based on funding or to help care for someone in their life by staying close to home? For the students who don't have the support system or family experience to know exactly what it looks like jumping into college, it becomes a lot more complicated.
Even some of the things that seem the most simple are more complicated when you start taking a deeper look. So for those of you who are unsure, for those of you who are surprised four years have passed since graduation, for those of you who think the funding isn't available… I'm here to walk you through your choices. I'm here to share with you where to begin. So let's get cracking! Whether you're binge reading through all the articles today or wanting to take it in bite size amounts one piece at a time, let's lay out the stones on your stepping path and take this journey together. Continue on with other blogs in our Senior Spotlight series.
