Where do we go once high school ends? What do we do once we escape the 12 years of mandatory schooling we live through? Are we just thrown to the wolves and told ‘Figure it out’ or was there some key information in those 12 years that filled us in on what to do after we graduate? Probably not.

Throughout our life in school, we are told that the end goal is going to college, finding what you want to do, get a degree, maybe get even more degrees after that, then immediately get a job because your many degrees left you broke. The college route is always described vaguely and seems like the most obvious choice until you get to junior year when you actually have to think about going to college. You choose your options and apply. If you get in, then you choose which one you will go to. You get all excited to be independent and all grown up. You say “see ya!” to your parents after they move you in. And then you’re alone. Like for real. You must navigate for yourself. There is no requirement that you go to classes unless you want to pass but who cares about that? All of a sudden, you’re broke, which is a common theme, you miss your parents, not so independent now, are you, and college is hard, no getting around that. No one really prepares you for the sequence of events that make you wonder if college was all it was cut out to be. But you try to push through, because it costs a lot of money to go to college and now your parents are broke. Is college where we go after high school?

If you decide that college is not the path for you, then you can stay home. But then you are the loser who stays home with your parents while all your friends are living it up at college. Enough said. But at least you’re not broke.

If you decide to get off the couch once in a while, you have other options. You could go to trade school, or join the military, maybe even travel the world. But all these options fall behind in the least talked about section because college is the most expected route. The options might even be endless, but they haven’t been discussed in school, and since we spend most of our lives and time here, we don’t know what those options are.

What’s your life after high school? Where will you go?