Hi, my name is Blue.
I found this website just aimlessly looking for something to make me feel like my considerations about taking a gap year in between my high school career and my college career was not, as defined by my parents, “ungrateful or naive” (funny how every conversation with a parent always winds back to the child being ungrateful), but in fact, a sign of great (ish) maturity in seeking my own destiny in the real world.
Before my junior year, I never genuinely considered not going to college (junior year I was diagnosed clinically depressed and I did a lot of self-reflection about how I want to live my life, long story blah blah). It was just something that’s kind of…there. I’ve spent 17+ years of having knowledge shoved down my throat like a freaking thermometer, barely retaining half of it might I add, and I apologize if I may or may not want to redeem my grand prize that is sitting in a cold, still room with more strangers than I can count, for the next 4 years. Sue me.
Yes, I know. Of course, college/advancing education is HUGELY important to me. but what about the things that I want to do right this second. I mean I am not a 3-year-old who needs help putting a spoon into my mouth every night at the dinner table anymore. It’s time for me to venture out and discover my TRUE vocation(s) without boundaries or limits. Isn’t that what college is for? Higher education for higher jobs at higher corporations for higher incomes. blah blah blah.
I am a photographer. I mean I really like photography. But even in high school, I can’t just explore my artistic purpose and expression the way I choose. I don’t even know if photography is my calling, but it’s all I know I’m relatively both interested and good at. But no one is really giving me the time nor the space to figure that out for myself. I mean I also really think I might be interested in studying writers like Zora Neale Hurston or Alice Walker or James Baldwin in American Lit to become a writer, or sculptor or hey I really like to sing and create rhythms in the shower so maybe I’m good enough to become an artist. My point is we will never know. Not for a long time at least. There could be a million things I’m good at out there and incredibly passionate about and I simply just have to wait? Kids no longer have the time to go out and explore on their own what things matter to them and really move them. Creativity is almost now manifested solely inside the walls of a school. School kills artists (i am aware I am dramatic). And I’m sorry but I’m not willing to be another casualty.
Life is too short to live by someone else’s expectations for yourself. I’ve got bigger ones. And you should too.
please give me your insights
-Blue
And yes I know I understand the irony in my grammar and sentence structure being kind of sucky here and there and I’m talking about the benefits of the absence in college education. Yeah Yeah.
If you want to go get a full-time job and cover your rent, food, insurance, transportation, utilities, and personal expenses no one here will try to talk you out of it. Good luck exploring the arts while you’re busy trying to make the rent.
I guess I never thought of college as a given. I’m from an area where a lot of kids choose trade school or go to work after college. Although a lot of them eventually do decide to go the 4 year route and attend the local university PT while working. It’s not for everyone and it sounds like you don’t want to go, so don’t. Unless you mean your parents are insisting you go? Even if that’s the case, you’ll be an adult and can just say no.
You come across as very ungrateful and self-focused. College is not a given, many people desperately want to attend but can’t afford it. If your parents are willing to send you to explore your interests, it’s a gift. You are really lucky!
Don’t know your individual situation but you might feel better to help others. Share your love of the arts with kids or the elderly.
If you don’t have a job, get one. Nothing like working all day for a small paycheck to help appreciate living for free at your parents’ house.
If college is really not for you, train for a skilled trade. There are plenty of well paying jobs. It’s your responsibility to support yourself.
Oh my lord. You are so so so young. Yep. It feels horrible to be asked to defer your inner spirit – or whatever it is that you’re actually complaining about. Um, excuse me, but you sound like someone who SHOULD go to college … because I don’t think you have any idea right now exactly what you want. If you do not want to take that path, then, as @Tigerkat said, be prepared to support yourself.
You don’t need college to start reading James Baldwin, Alice Walker, etc. and what students of their writing have written about them. You can do that and your photography right now. You don’t need to go to college, but there are few jobs out there that pay well enough so you can support yourself. I agree that you shouldn’t go to college if you don’t want to and are opposed to learning.
Funny going to dinner at my friend’s house. Her name is Blu.
You need to go to a liberal arts college and explore all sides of your interests. My daughter is very artistic but changed her career focus from theater design to Cultural Anthropology with a polici minor.
She loves the arts so she took a ton of pictures on her study abroad in Southeast Asia.
She is not a photographer per se but has a very creative eye.
She approached a local gallery at college (partly student run). She got accepted and had a 5 day run. At the opening she priced her pieces at prices so students could afford it. She sold like 14 /25 pieces the first day. ?.
More sold the following days.
My point is you can have your cake and eat it to. You just need to have the drive to make it happen.
I may or may not want to redeem my grand prize that is sitting in a cold, still room with more strangers than I can count, for the next 4 years.
Then perhaps you don’t want to go to college now. Life is about choices. In your case you either go to college now or you don’t. If this is an issue between you and your parents, then that is something you have to work out.
Life is too short to live by someone else’s expectations for yourself. I’ve got bigger ones. And you should too.
“And you should too.” Unnecessary. You only need to worry about yourself and don’t need to project onto others what their personal expectations are.
Blue:
You’re living in a dream world, which comes from your food, clothing, and shelter being provided for you. You sound like a picky eater complaining to the wait staff at a nice restaurant. In this case, the restaurant is life.
Take a gap year, but be sure to completely cut the umbilical cord with home. If you don’t, you’ll miss the reward of stumbling and learning to get up on your own, and learning the value of being hungry to go after life.
You really need to study history more. For thousands of years, children were required to join the workforce as soon as possible(way before 18 yo). The concept of being able to find yourself is a new and still limited idea.
I’m 50. Back when I was 18 or 19 or so and still “trying to find myself”, I remember my grandmother telling me basically to hurry the hell up. I got the “When I was 18, I was a widow with 3 kids” speech more than once. And it was true. Back then most kids only went to school until 8th grade and then started working.
There’s nothing wrong with getting a job and moving out on your own, while you decide whether - and where - to continue your education. (I assume you don’t plan to ask your parents to continue supporting you during a potential gap year. It would be unrealistic to expect to spend a year taking photographs, reading novels, and navel-gazing; you’re too smart for that.)
However, you sound to me like the kind of person who might enjoy college. It’s very different from high school, and while you’re expected to attend class and do homework, there’s a lot more freedom in terms of what you choose to study and how you schedule your time. Learning from experts and connecting with other young adults who are in that same transitional, finding-yourself phase, can be helpful as you figure out what you want to do next.
Have you been on any college visits yet? What if you go to a few, once school starts up again, just to check it out (and appease your parents). Talk to some students, take a tour, get a sandwich or a smoothie and sit outside people-watching, maybe even sit in on a class or meet with an advisor. That way you’ll be making an informed decision, and should you want to go back to school later, you’ll have some idea of where you might like to go.
Life is a journey, and that journey is often unprectable. If you feel that you want to take a gap year, there is nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of people that have succesful adult lives that never went to college, or dropped out of college (of course the odds of you succeeding will be stacked against you statistically). Perhaps you could get a part time or full time job while pursuing your photography passion and see where that takes you.
Who is college a given for? For you and the kids in your area it may be a given. There are places in this country where graduating high school is not a given. I don’t think college is for everyone but if you are going to make it in the real world you have to burst that privilege bubble your parents àllowed you to live in. I made the same mistake with my kids. My daughter couldn’t wrap her mind around how someone could go to school they haven’t visited. I fixed that privilege way of thinking by taking her to one of the high school in Brownsville Brooklyn.
