Higher education: A life-changing decision
A study conducted in 2011 by Youth Transition Studies (YTS) revealed that up to 14 per cent of post-secondary students drop out in their first year.
While some of the reasons the stat seemed to be so high was because of high academic stress, inability to meet deadlines or poor study habits, the number one reason students could not commit to University was because the student did not like his or her program.
The pressure to choose a career path directly after high school is a ludicrous suggestion, as many students haven’t even discovered their own interests yet; let alone what they should be doing for the rest of their lives. There is an astounding amount of pressure to follow the strict path of graduating school, immediately getting a post-secondary education and then getting a job afterwards in the field that the student studied for so many years. There is an even heavier amount of pressure on the students who still are unsure of what they want to do.
Ever since the end of Grade 8, students have had to start thinking about what they want to do with the rest of their lives. They must make the decision early on whether or not they would like to take academic or applied classes when they enter high school. The academic stream leads them into a university-level career; the applied stream leads them into a collegelevel career. In the following year or two after that decision, students must choose which classes to take that will help them get into the program they want to study; even if students still is unsure of their interests.
If a student goes through their entire high school career believing that they want to major in English but suddenly comes to the realization in Grade 12 that their passion is Computer Sciences, it’s too late. They can’t go back and take all the computer science classes they needed when they were busy studying literature.
For some students, unfortunately, the realization that the path they’ve taken isn’t the one they wanted doesn’t occur halfway through high school. But in university. Megan O’Byrne, a former Trent student, wasn’t completely sure what to do after high school, but chose to attend university since she had taken academic classes her entire high school career. “The expectation to go to university was instilled in me in such a young age,” says Megan “but I knew university wasn’t for me the moment I started.”
Megan has now decided to take a semester off from Trent and apply to college next year to study something she is much more passionate about. “Deciding to leave university was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made” says Megan, “but it’s also terrifying because I will have to face the social stigma associated with this decision, like so many other young people who have chosen a different path for their lives.”
Students’ interests and desires are ever-changing. In fact, their idea of what they want to be when they grow up changes so often that when they’re older, and look back on what they thought they wanted years before, they laugh.
So for those who are still unsure, there shouldn’t be any rush. They can take a gap year, and use some of the money saved to travel or spend a year or two working.
Some people don’t discover what they’re destined to do until they are adults, and even then, their minds can change. The pressures of choosing a career so early has made students believe that once they’re immediately done “one step” (high school), they have to jump to the next one. No one ever talks about the time that is sometimes necessary in between. Adam Scott student Elizabeth Sargeant is wrapping up a semester as a co-op student in the Examiner newsroom.