Too much push towards university

“So what’s your plans after high school?” My peers and I hear this all the time as we prepare for graduation. For some it’s an easy answer; they want to go to university, take a year off to work, travel, and find themselves or whatever their plans are.

However I feel there’s too much of a push to go to university. We’re being told our whole high school life that we’re preparing to go to post-secondary. Now in our graduation year we’re constantly bombarded with presentations about picking the right university or college, even though we don’t know what we want to do yet. Parents mention they still don’t know what they want to do in life, so how can they expect us teenagers to know?

Frankly, the push for postsecondary is a waste of time and money, why “encourage” us to spend a year of our lives and spend copious amounts of money for a year at university, when we’re still unsure of what we want. Society tells students we need to attend post-secondary because we can’t get good jobs without the education.

Overall, I think the push for post-secondary is excessive: it’s a waste of time and money if students don’t know what they want yet. So what’s the point of “encouraging” us to go straight to post-secondary when we should be encouraged to figure out our likes and dislikes; then, deciding a career path from there.

Sarah Blaisdell,

English 621 Class,

Souris Regional