Our generation has been drilled into believing that if you don’t get into a good college after high school, then you will not end up being financially secure with a good job later in life.

Getting into a good school will not necessarily fully decide your future. Going to a community college or choosing to go straight to work after high school is commonly looked down upon by our society. There are many pathways for after high school, but  our youth is brainwashed into focusing on college because that’s what our teachers, parents, and peers taught us to believe.

In many jobs, all that you need to know to be successful is learned through experience and training provided by the company. Many engineers choose not to attend college and just go straight into a job because our world and technology is developing so fast that to them, going to school is a waste of time and money.

Determined high schoolers will need to compete with each other to get into the best schools. Along with that comes late nights studying to get a high GPA, volunteering to boost applications, applying for scholarships, and most of their senior year is dedicated to working on applications. Amidst all this, they are desperately clinging onto a social life, and try to spend as much time as possible with friends and family before they leave to their new school.

Seniors are also stressed preparing for the important tests that will be taken, the SAT and ACT. One numerical score could be a deciding factor on what school students are accepted into.

What college a student is accepted into will drastically impact the opinions of relatives, family, and friends.They will be compared to other friends and family members who got into better schools than they did, and that’s by far the scariest part.