Real Talk with Caitlin Plummer: Senior year doesn’t define the rest of your life

By Caitlin Plummer

Senior year.

How many television shows, movies and books have been based off its classic reputation? Senior year is supposed to be the best year of your high school career, if not your entire life. If you ask me, this positive status seems more like a haunting stigma, because every senior believes that their year has to be perfect. It has to be the most fun, cause the least stress, and have the easiest work. But Sept. 5 was my first day of this climactic legacy, and I felt… well, just as if it was another day of my junior year. It could be argued that I feel as if I never left school at all. The only thing that’s really forcing the realization that I’m a senior are the college and scholarship applications I have saved on my desktop – for a more thorough review another time, of course. Because I still have plenty of time.

Yet, I don’t have plenty of time. Some college applications are due on the last day of November, and early decision applicants must hand over the key to their hopes and dreams even sooner.

I am only 17 years old. In terms of the average American lifespan, I’m only about a fifth of the way through my life. Nevertheless, before I enter official adulthood in May, I am going to be asked to choose the college I wish to attend – the school that will follow me on my resume until I retire. I’m going to be asked where I want to live for at least the next four years. I’m going to be asked which profession I want to pursue until I turn 65.

I am only 17.

The life of any teenager is full of choices. We have to choose our values, our hobbies, our classes, our habits. But the looming reality of college brings about a whole new wave of choices. Personally, I feel as if I’m suspended in time. My fear isn’t choosing itself. My fear is belatedly finding out that I made the wrong choice.

I think that, as teenagers, one of our greatest fears is to be wrong, no matter how miniscule the mistake. But college is a huge decision. It involves money, our parents’ money. Nothing would be worse for me than to turn back to my parents and admit that I made a bad choice, and that they just paid one year for a college I despise. Then there’s the embarrassment of filling out transfer forms and praying that, this time, you’ll be in the right place. Heaven forbid you could pick the wrong major and spend hours studying to become something that you realize you could never spend your life doing.

My father was a junior at the University of Washington when he began his minor in German. He was majoring in math, but needed a minor too to earn his teaching degree. While his first semester in the class had proven that he could read and write German perfectly well, he didn’t feel comfortable speaking it fluently. Scared that he would end up having to teach German if he completed his minor, he confided in the father of a close friend. My father explained that he had already taken a semester of German, and was already enrolled in a second semester, so he couldn’t possibly switch his minor if he still wanted to graduate on his timeline. And Bill just kept asking, “Why?”

It wasn’t long before my dad ran out of answers.

So, yes, seniors, you are nearing the start of the rest of your life. But the decisions you make now won’t trap you into one college, one major, one city or one lifestyle. People change their minds constantly. There is always a way to get out of whatever box you think you’re stuck in.

My father was the last student ever admitted into the University of Washington kinesiology department in order to earn a minor that would allow him to teach P.E. After his first few classes, he discovered that he absolutely loved the biology of kinesiology. He spent his fourth year of college taking as many classes in his minor as possible, and ended up graduating with more courses in his minor than in his major. Granted, his change in direction stuck him in school for an extra year – but if he hadn’t switched his minor, he would have never discovered his love of the kinesiology department.

So don’t stress yourself out too much about what major you’ll choose, or what college is the “best” decision for you. Be realistic about the logistics involved in choosing a college, like what your family can afford and what the location will mean for your relationships. If you go to school across the country, you won’t be able to see your parents every holiday or always have an old friend close by.

Plus, if you don’t get into your dream school off the bat, there is always graduate school – but more importantly, your second rate choice could end up being the perfect school for you. I have heard more than one story of a student attending their last choice school and experiencing a life-changing college career. When you’re eighty, you won’t care about the name of the college on your resume. You’ll care about the people you met, the experiences you had, and the life you lived and loved.

Remember, we’ll all end up all right on the other side. We always do.

Caitlin Plummer, a senior at Meadowdale High School and co-editor of Meadowdale’s newspaper, The Maverick, enjoys writing about a broad range of topics that are on her mind. She was born in Lynnwood and lives there with her parents, her younger brother and her golden retriever, Cinnamon. Her future aspirations include earning a degree in journalism and writing for a major news source.

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