Do your parents ask you what you’re going to do when you leave home? Do they ask you when you’re going to start applying to college, get a job, or start driving?

My parents do, and a lot of my friends’ parents do too. Many people have no idea what they are doing when they leave high school, and that’s not good. It’s especially not good for people who do get accepted to college and have to move cities, or even states away from home. Personally, it pushes me to feel very on-edge and also very stand-off-ish. It makes my chest ache and causes my head to pound. It also seems to change my attitude and the way I respond to my parents if they are talking to me, even if they leave the subject of ‘what comes next’ and ask me what I want for dinner.

The reality of it is that school just doesn’t teach us exactly how to be a functional, productive part of society. School teaches us writing formats,  how to graph a parabola, and that history can repeat itself. In some ways, this is beneficial because it helps raise our test scores and helps us get into the colleges that we want to get into. I agree that we need some knowledge of math, writing, history, and other major course topics. However, we also need classes that will provide us with information we’re going to need after high school. We need to be taught how to talk to people, how to do taxes (It would probably be a boring class, but we need to know how to do taxes). We need to know how to rent an apartment, or buy a home. We need knowledge on how to live after high school.

I wish I knew what comes next. I’m overwhelmed, and I wish I could answer questions about what I want to do or when I’m going to apply for college, going to start driving, or when I’m  getting a job. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I do know that it’s going to happen soon and  that I need to be prepared.