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Journalist: Jessica Ong | California
Ever since I moved to California, my entire life has become focussed on the single prospect of going to college. My thoughts, dreams, and visions are consumed by an ACT score or the way my life looks on a piece of paper. I’m not alone when I say I have cried over a 1% difference on a test.
But why? Why is this such a big part of our lives when teenagers have a reputation of not caring about the future? Why do we worry day and night about where we will spend four years of our lives when we really couldn’t care less about what the future holds? If the future is something pointless, why stress over the name outside your dorm?
I really don’t understand why I do this either. I have no plan or vision of what I hope to do in my life but I do have an elaborate checklist of what I should put on my application. This situation mirrors Y2K. A few people were worried about how the transition from year 1999 to 2000 would affect computers which caused everyone to freak out, resulting in world wide havoc. This shows how easily humans are influenced by others and the power that fear holds. People saw others panicking about Y2K and as a result they began panicking too. I see people fearing the prospect of college rejection and in turn, I begin fearing it too. Earlier in the pandemic, we saw people hogging toilet paper and then the rest of the world followed suit. Looking back at these events, we see how brainless we really were. I know that one day I will look back and think about how silly it was to solely focus on one aspect of my future and not give anything else a second thought.
At the end of the day, the reason and purpose behind education is so that we can live our lives comfortably and with understanding. College is a stepping stone to get us further in life and ultimately, it doesn’t matter if that stone is made of diamonds or plain rock. College isn’t where our life ends; it’s where it begins. It’s the place we find what we want to do and who our lifelong friends will be.
There is so much more to life than college. These ideals reflect the anecdote of the horse that is chasing a carrot in front of its nose without having any idea of where it is running. So, if you don’t get into the college of your dreams, so what? The world has so much to offer! If we just open our eyes and look at the bigger picture, we can achieve things far greater than a college acceptance. A degree is just the passport; in the end, you decide where you want to travel in life.