Not Too Soon, Not Too Late

When most high schoolers hear about college they typically freak out a little with all the stress that comes with finding where they want to further their education. Starting early will not do much except exposing the different colleges there are, most kids put off taking college research until it is time to apply and find where they will like. I would say that starting in around 7th or 8th grade would be great to get those college wheels turning. I remember taking a college tour at 12 years old in 6th grade and I kept thinking to myself, ” You have six more school years before you start college.” and in all honesty I remember nothing about that college except for the fact that we got to eat lunch at their lunch room.

Starting too late would be beyond stressful as well because imagine you are a sophomore in high school, about to be a junior and junior year is most important for colleges. You know nothing about any of the colleges and therefore you are not prepared to start looking into different ones and different majors, etc. There is no secret that the college process is anything but simple and effortless. The amount of effort you put in affects the college you want to get into. Which means if you do not know about colleges or where you may want to further your education then you may be ruining your own future.

Being educated early about college may not be a bad thing, depending on the child. Middle school grades and below really do not mean anything to a college when they are looking at the bigger picture. All they want is your high school transcript and information about your high school career. Being exposed too early only benefits the individual and that is if they soak in what is being given to them. Most children only worry about the things they are doing in the present, it takes time and experience in one’s school career to plan ahead and be proactive.

To make a definite statement I would have to say early college planning is not beneficial in almost any way. Growing up and being exposed to colleges at just 12 years old while learning about how a cell works and the differences of plant and animal cells, how the Egyptians lived back 400 B.C.E and reading the book Holes by Louis Sachar, all in the 6th grade just does not add up. How is a child who has not even hit true biology, Shakespeare, and statistics going to begin to care about their future, or know what they truly want to study. It is hard enough as a senior in high school to be confident in what I am pursuing as a career, exposing a child who has not even begun their teenage years is not going to help.

College is stressful whether you know what you want to study, or you are still exploring. However, most of my fellow classmates did not start touring colleges and committing to both a college and their major until the summer before senior year at the earliest. Using me as a personal example, I grew up wanting to be in the medical field. I went from being a nurse anesthetist, to being a pediatrician, to changing my mind completely to a criminal justice degree to become a police officer, all before I settled for becoming an esthetician and later on becoming a cosmetic nurse. I did all of those things within the span of one year. Yes, it is a lot of flip flopping but I used this as an example to show that you may think you want to be one thing when you are younger but as you grow up and start figuring out who you are along with things you enjoy doing then a career becomes easier to find. I am not saying that I changed my mind because I had a lack of exposure, I had plenty of exposure and guidance along the way, it just took me time to figure out what I wanted to commit to doing for my lifelong career. The college exposure does not really start to stick until high school begins. Everything you do begins to matter and that is when college conversations can begin to stick and the impact of the experience is helpful. Not when you are so young that the only thing you remember is that the college you visited had an ice cream bar in their school lunch room.

“Ice Cream Sundae” by docguy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.