The transition from middle school to high school is always difficult, from an evolving set of expectations of our life skills to the internal change we must face to mature. I believe college applications may be the worst perpetrator of this distinctly teenage dread. We were children gluing sheets in our notebook then all at once we were young adults burdened with the existential responsibility of establishing lifelong careers and expensive degrees.
This idol we hold of the autonomous working adult, one who in order to live must execute accepted steps towards income with the absolute consideration of the widely accepted conformities, is not only untrue but as result unfair to both the adult and the teenager. It harms the teenager through setting up this inevitability of needing to adopt this foreign and strict approach to assessing oneself. When a person fresh from pre-pubescence fails to do so it encourages a deep shame towards your own character. The fear of irreversibly, undoubtedly lagging behind and by consequence abandoned by the respectable whole of society.
I will debunk this myth one lie at a time. Firstly, most college graduates do not keep their major throughout the entirety of university. About 80% of students in college end up changing their major at least once, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. On average, college students change their major at least three times over the course of their college career.
Secondly, ⅕ of college students are working at jobs completely unrelated to their major and ⅓ are employed in jobs which only require a high school diploma. Thirdly, most adults don't feel ready to be adults either. 51% of Americans over the age of 18 feel that they’re not where they are supposed to be in life. Additionally most didn’t even ‘feel’ like adults until 25 and even up to 28. Adulting has been reported over multiple instances to be difficult and confusing.
How do you overcome this anxiety? I have introduced the first which is to either understand or reaffirm that you are not alone. Even in failure you will find decent humane company, there is a community of people who are not adult enough and imposter syndrome is a common among them. It is best that through this knowledge we can come lighten that fear and banish the shame that only serves to burden us.
Sources:
Haller, Stacie. "1/3 of recent college grads are working at jobs that don't
require a college education." Resume Builder, 8 Feb. 2023,
www.resumebuilder.com/
one-third-of-recent-college-grads-are-working-at-jobs-that-dont-require-a-college
-education/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023.
"Normalizing the Norm of Changing College Majors." University of Tusla, 5 Nov.
2020, utulsa.edu/normalizing-the-norm-of-changing-college-majors/. Accessed
2 Oct. 2023.
Kade, Allison. "When Do We Feel Like an Adult? New Survey Shares 'Signs' of
Adulting." fabric, 6 Oct. 2021, meetfabric.com/blog/
when-do-we-feel-like-an-adult-new-survey-shares-signs-of-adulting. Accessed
2 Oct. 2023.
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