Oh no! I've just finished high school and I've been thrown out into the real world. What do I do?
Honestly, I have no idea.
All throughout my years in school I haven't found anything that really sticks out to me. If you're familiar with my previous post, I mentioned how I wanted to be an author. While I do say that, I don't think I would be able to support myself on that. But let's not talk about that right now, talk about this:
I'm a high school graduate, I don't have a whole lot of experience with many things, I have a job at a movie theater, I don't want to go to college right away (I'd rather wait a year or so before going). I don't know exactly what I'd like to do. I'm interested in trying to learn Astronomy along with a few other things, but I don't know if I'd like anything I'm thinking of. In short, I don't know what I want to do with my life for a career. There are days where I sit down and think, "Maybe I'm not meant to be around for very long?" I feel like I should have figured out my calling by now, or at least had an idea.
Does anyone have any advice what I should do? Should I go to the local community college branch and see if they can help place me in something I might like? Or should I just take it slowly and go figure it out myself in a few years?
Don't worry about it. If you can afford it, take some time to think about it and explore your options. The older I get, the less important I think having a career is. Of course, it depends on your goals - but it doesn't sound like you have any goals, which is perfectly fine! I never had any goals either, but here I am with a nice job, a house and two kids.
I never planned it would turn out like this - I just studied something I liked and took the jobs I could get. I was accidentally good at what I did, I suppose.
Consider yourself lucky - you're young, and just the fact that you're reflecting over all this makes you sound like an ok person. You have endless options and opportunities, and it's a lot easier to explore them while you're young.
- "Maybe I'm not meant to be around for very long?"
No one is meant to be one thing or the other. You might fall over and die tomorrow, or you might live to become 120 years old. Who knows? No one, that's who. Treat life as an adventure, and just remember that life is what's happening right here and now.
Hi, first off it's fine to take a year to try and figure out what you want to do in life, especially if you have a job currently. Nothing wrong with taking a year off if you're being productive! When you do decide to start college, I'd highly recommend enrolling in your local community college. Even if you still don't have a direction, you'll be able to get your gen eds out of the way at a fraction of the cost of university. They should also have someone to talk to or email to help you find a general direction to head in.
Don't worry too much about not knowing what to do in life, many high school graduates find themselves in the same position. Just remember that you will eventually find something that you are passionate about. Unfortunately there's no trick to finding out what that thing is. You could find out tomorrow or a year from now. Your best bet is to expose yourself to as many new things as you can, you've just been thrown into the real world, so go explore it! Also try not to hang too much on finding something that can also support yourself. Find what you love first, then take it from there.
That makes a lot of sense! :) Find what you love first, I'll keep that in mind! :D
To be honest, if you're completely unsure of what you're interested in, I'd suggest not even going to community college when there are so many free online courses are available. I'd suggest taking a couple of online classes that seem interesting - Coursera is great and has a huge selection of topics. Devote as much free time as you can to this and see if there's anything you really love, and if there is, then research the shit out of what careers you can go into in that topic!
Don't let people pressure you into going back to school. As long as you're able to support yourself for now, you don't need to be in any kind of rush. You might even discover that you don't need too much more education for whatever you want to go into.
In short, take it slow and figure out what interests you. You're young and have plenty of time!
Thanks! I'll check out the site. This is great advice!
There are a bunch of others too. I've heard Udacity is good, but it's restricted to programming. There are also a bunch of good sites for learning programming (I like codeacademy for quickly learning the syntax of a language).
MIT OpenCourseware has almost every course they offer, but a lot of them don't have video lectures (which I find to be the most useful part of courses!). Stanford also has some of their classes online, but I think they're slightly different from the MIT ones and be designed for being online IIRC.
I have another piece of advice on this front. I've found that it's very difficult to stay motivated with online classes since there's no real incentive to put in the work. So you might want to set up some sort of weekly "class schedule" to keep yourself motivated and on track. Picking a time where you force yourself to work on the class (even getting out of the house & going to a coffee shop/library if necessary) makes it easier to finish out the class.
I did the Udacity programming course, and I found it really helpful. I was in high school at the time, but I could pick it up at night and it felt really low pressure.
The coffee shop atmosphere can be surprisingly conducive to productivity, and you can meet some interesting people. I've gotten into a lot of good discussions about writing style by reading my book at a coffee shop instead of at home.
That's what happened in my online course in High School. No incentive besides "get it done so you can graduate". Thanks again!
I'm in the exact same situation as you are. I'm an aspiring writer, but I don't really have any concept of how to turn that into a tangible job. However I would recommend taking a trip or a vacation or something. It doesn't have to be a backpacking-across-Europe extravaganza (though it could be), it could be as simple as a series of day trips. I just went on a road trip across the US, and getting out of my hometown helped me think about where I want to go in the future, and it gave me a different perspective on where I already was.
My best buds and I are leaving for the Upper Peninsula in Michigan very soon, so that might help. Thanks!
Don't freak out too much. I'm about a year from graduating from university and still have no idea what I'm going to be doing for the larger part of my life. When I went to college originally I set "learning" as my goal rather than "desperately searching for my career." I found that really helped me out. Since you just got out of high school you have PLENTY of time to figure out what you want to do. I would just explore literally everything, one of the things I found out as I grew up is how expansive each career path is. What does it mean to be an Engineer? A whole lot and it is really different for most in the field. My advice is even if you have a slight interest in a subject explore it in-depth because you may find that some very small part of it really appeals to you. You would be surprised with what you find that way. I think it was a good idea that you didn't rush college either, college will always be there for you to access when you feel you are driven enough to pursue something. Also, you mentioned you wanted to be an author, I would recommend writing in your spare time.
Good advice! I was kinda stuck with that because I wasn't sure if I should (as I thought of it) "waste" my time trying to learn about things when I probably won't like it. I was considering getting an apprenticeship or something that would guide me. Make me learn that trade so I could do that and earn a living in the meantime of finding what I love. But I don't know if that's the best way, since that apprenticeship will take up all the time that I have pretty much.
I think I'll do a lot of research about careers, talk to my community college about stuff, and check out websites where I can learn courses for free. Thanks a lot!