Are Current Attitudes on College Healthy?

On most articles on about the pros and cons of college, money is usually the main focus. That will not be the case here. I want to discuss the idea that our hype about college can sometimes harmful to kids who aren’t ready to handle the responsibility.

I have not graduated or currently attend college due to both immaturity and lack of vision upon leaving high school. In high school, I knew I was destined for greatness. I had the highest ACT and second highest SAT score in my class by a distance of 50 points. At one point I had a principal make a home visit and tell my parent I had Harvard level potential. What happened? My answer is naivete and external pressures.

Every year, students are told that they should work hard to get to college and it’s implied that if you don’t you’ll become a social degenerate; a failure. The concept of college is awesome, but the way in which we execute it is flawed and stressful. In my opinion, college isn’t as important as vision and education, but we sometimes stress the idea of “getting into college” more than the concepts of the maturity, independence and goal setting that college allows us to explore in a more controlled environment. This leads to many otherwise promising students dropping out of college, not from lack of intelligence, but lack of maturity that only time and experience can give.

In my case, my father stressed college heavy from day one and after high school he wanted me to get into school ASAP. He didn’t care where as long as it was college. I felt differently I wanted to wait, but I was convinced otherwise. I should have stood my ground because I ended up wasting a load of people’s time including my own. I didn’t have a vision for my future since I didn’t stand for anything I fell for everything. I would got to a bigger college campus and party with my best friend at the time. I would go to class and interact, but I wouldn’t do the homework due to its perceived irrelevance to my life. I was naive, immature and lacked vision resulting in a lack of motivation and my eventual drop out from college.

I also found it interesting how many people expects children who were once raising their hands to speak and potty to be able to manage and plan out their entire life within the several months between graduation and fall semester.College isn’t for everyone and sometimes those people just need time to mature so, to the parents and teachers out there: Do you emphasize college as a life investment that one should take time to consider or do you add fuel to the hype and emphasis college for colleges sake?