“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question so many of us have heard from a young age. Many people say doctors, professional athletes, or lawyers. We have such high hopes as children but that all seems to fade once we grow up and enter the ever scary real world.

Many of us are cautioned from a young age that getting a good job that pays a lot is the only way to be successful. So when we’re asked the question that basically decides the rest of our lives, we strive for the most incredible thing we can think of. As we grow up, we realize just how difficult it is to actually become successful in those high achieving jobs we strived so much for.

Although college applications are turned in around the beginning or middle of senior year, we have to think about what we want the trajectory of the rest of our lives to look like much earlier. To actually get into the desired major you want, you have to start taking classes and joining clubs/activities that relate to that as early as your freshman year.

Do you think a medical school would want applicants with no honors science classes, but all higher level classes in history? No.  Kids have to decide what type of field they want to take an interest in at too young of an age.

Eighth graders choose their first high school classes with their counselor, considering already which honors classes to take and what would look best for the major/career they wish to go into. Eighth graders! 13 and 14 year-old children have to plan their next four years, and consider the rest of their life when they’re trying to navigate self-discovery and other coming-of-age issues.

Many colleges require essays that are supposed to be about the most important thing that has ever happened to you, or an experience that changed your entire perspective on life. How, as teenagers, are we supposed to have these insanely unique experiences when we’re barely one fifth of the way through life? At the age of 17 or 18, kids are expected to have amazing, life changing moments to write about in these essays.

It’s probably of no surprise that many of the college degrees that early adults get go unused later on. A study done by the Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation says that nearly half of the degrees that college graduates get do not relate to their current jobs whatsoever.

Putting the rest of your life in the hands of teenage you and your decision-making ability has cost many people, who have to pay off student loans for degrees they don’t even use.

I’ve heard many stories of how people went into the field they got a degree for, hated it, and went into something else that they really loved. For some people though, this isn’t actually possible. If they hate the career that they have a degree in and they want to go into something else, that usually requires another degree and work experience in that field.

Doing all of this takes even more money and time that people do not have, and so they’re forced to endure working in something they hate.

As a society, we tend to look down upon people who take gap years or go undecided into college. They are seen as lazy or behind everyone else because they don’t know what to do with the rest of their life and they need time to figure it out.

Although this is stereotyped as being bad for someone to do, those people who choose to take the time to decide are the ones who end up being happier in their chosen career. Choosing the rest of your life before your brain has even matured fully is a very risky thing to do, so taking more time than some others could truly benefit you in the long run.