The start of a new school year marks the initiation of excitement and nervousness among all students at Rocky. However, the situation is slightly different for Seniors, seeing as they need to figure out what they want to do with their future before they graduate.
How do our Seniors decide what they want to do, especially with the pressure of graduating, college ambitions, and ongoing jobs? One thing is for sure; being a senior isn’t easy.
To begin with, how do Seniors even decide what careers they want? Some find something that they are interested in and then they go down the path that interests them the most for their career. Senior Rachel Roberts plans on going to the University of Idaho to get pre-pharmacy requisites and her Pharmacy Doctors Degree. “I really enjoyed my science class, especially biology and chemistry, but just being a scientist didn’t seem like a super impactful job, so I decided that a pharmacist would be a great occupation to use science to help other people.”
Evidently, sometimes knowing what occupation students want doesn’t come easily and that sometimes it takes a few classes to find out what students really want to do. However, the ratio of high school classes to actual jobs isn’t equivalent, seeing as there are only so many high school classes students can take and there’s a whopping 3.3 billion jobs globally. Some students truly don’t know what they want to do even after their classes, and sometimes they pursue careers that may benefit them in the future or what may have better pay.
Being a student is already hard enough with homework, peer pressure, and trying to enjoy high school while it lasts, but it’s even harder to deal with when future career decisions come into play. But sometimes not knowing what students are going to do after high school can be an advantage even though it may seem stressful. Andersen Slaughter said, “A lot of people don’t have plans yet and I think that’s a good thing because you’re going to change your mind over the course of four years. I knew what I generally wanted to do, but by trying new things you’ll know what you want to do, it will be like a snap, like when I saw the National Guard programs. It was like a snap, and I knew I wanted to do that.” The experience of not knowing what students are going to do with their lives is something they need to experience because by not knowing what’s in the future is what could be the key to their success.
The future holds many unexpected choices and that’s what makes students get in stressful mindset while making these decisions. Ridge White said, “I plan on going on missions for my church and then I plan on going to BYU with a scholarship for football management.” Planned out decisions are helpful for some students like Ridge White, and some students do go on missions for their church after High School. Yet the thing that most students look past at are scholarships. Students think that they must be very academically smart or athletic, really when there’s lots of opportunities for scholarships that they’re not aware of, such as music scholarships or scholarships based on volunteer work. Even though scholarships may not seem like an option for some students, that doesn’t mean passing up on an incredible opportunity is worth it.
Students constantly are overwhelmed with let alone decisions, so impactful decisions for the future are even more difficult to make. However, it’s not as hard as students make it. Colleges offer scholarships, U.S military offers financial aid for education, and school counselors and career centers are always open to help students in need.
