Remember when your parents told you that going to college was the key to a successful career and life? Well today that advice certainly doesn’t apply to most millennials. According to research many millennials over the age of 25 with a college degree are burdened with student loan debt and working jobs that don’t require a degree.
A few months ago I went out to eat with some of my friends and we were all talking about the benefits of going to college. All of my friends are college grads and most of us, including myself have two degrees. We often complain about how much student loan debt we have and how much life would be easier if we didn’t even go to college. I’ve had this conversation with many people my age and a lot of us feel like college didn’t prepare us too much for our experiences today. Many people who go to college end up working jobs that are not in their fields. A lot of us have thousands of dollars of student loan debt which most of us can barely afford to pay back with the jobs that we obtained after graduating. If college is supposed to prepare you for the real world, why doesn’t it teach you basic concepts like doing taxes, how to manage your finances, or even how to communicate or negotiate well which is imperative in the workforce? For the most part college pretty much teaches you how to work for somebody else when in actuality we should all be working for ourselves and building our own empire.
If I could go back I wish I would have taken the time out to find out what I wanted out of life before going to college or grad school. I always felt this pressure by my parents to go to school and I never really established what exactly I wanted to do for myself. I think people should take at least 1-2 years off after finishing high school before going to college just to find out what they really want to do career wise.
A year and ½ ago I quit my job and started on a new career path in writing. I know that making a living out of a writing career is going to be challenging but writing is my passion and working for someone else for the rest of my life is not an option.
Going to college does not equate to a successful career and I think we should stop feeding people this false sense of hope. Don’t get me wrong for some people college is beneficial but it’s definitely not the best path for everyone.
