College Choices

My students are beginning the year thinking about what college they’ll be attending. A few of them are certain about what career they’ll pursue. Many have narrowed it down to two. The rest are starting to realize that they’d better make up their minds soon; otherwise, they’ll be living a life that was chosen for them. All of them, I noticed, seem to be grappling with the fact that they will be making one of the biggest choices of their lives.

There is added pressure since there are just too many choices. Having too many options can, in fact, be paralyzing. For example, it used to be just a course called Business Management. But then it started branching out into further subspecialties: Legal Management, Management of Information Systems, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Communications Technology Management, Management Accounting, Management Engineering – to name a few.  Who would have thought that it’d be just as hard to zero in on a Management course, as it is to zero in on a Medical subspecialty?

Also, there are the current mantras of “living one’s life to the fullest,” “finding one’s passion,” and “finding a work-life balance.” All these notions are well and good, certainly, but one really doesn’t need to figure it all out at 18. Sometimes, we do not know what our passions are until we give ourselves time to be good at something. Finding a work-life balance is a skill that we learn and relearn for the rest of our lives. And living our lives to the fullest may be true some of the time, but we also need to accept that some days we just need to survive. This doesn’t mean our lives are any less than what the media would have us live; it simply means that we don’t always have to get it together. This much I didn’t even learn until I was in my thirties!

Then, there is the fear of making the wrong choice. Many people become afraid of choices because they’re afraid of failing. While it is true that some choices may seem irreversible, it is also true that very few choices really are. Career choices are not set in stone. One can change one’s mind or try different things. What’s important is to make sure that one doesn’t get caught up in an irreversible situation so that one can decide more freely until one is ready to make a commitment.

Choosing a college course is the first real step into the world of adults and the transition from childhood to adulthood can be daunting. Although, when I think about how I was at their age, I don’t remember being afraid about the choice much. I was anxious about getting accepted into the program I wanted and finishing high school, but not so much about making the choice. In retrospect, maybe the fear isn’t really about making the choice at all. Maybe the fear comes from the fact that they don’t know what they really, truly want. When the world is too noisy, it can be very difficult to listen to one’s heart. And that’s not just a college thing. Or even a teenager thing. That really is, a very human thing.