It’s Okay to Not Know

By: Isabella Franchi

April 20, 2023

The long standing question of “what you want to be when you grow up?” haunts students. From your first year of schooling, all the way until your last, you will be asked that same question. You may answer something completely different each year, yet there is an expectation that you know before college. Don’t teenagers have enough expectations and questions to answer already? Why should knowing what you want to do when you are older be answered at 17?

For the inspirational people out there saying to “follow your dreams no matter what,” I have two responses to that. One, dreams can change. Not everyone follows the same dream they’ve had at ages 6 or 18 or 50 even. Things change, people change, and dreams change. The average person will change careers 10 to 15 times during their working years, according to career change statistics. Two, they may not have a dream. As a teenager, I have not found a major that has sparked my interest. So what’s next then? Why do I feel obligated to have an answer to questions pertaining to my future? Why can’t we normalize saying “I don’t know?”

Finding a college to attend is hard enough on its own. Now I am challenged with finding out what I want to do for the rest of my life. That's a lot to ask of a teenager who is still trying to find their way through high school. I have friends who have known what they want to do forever, friends who have found it recently, and friends like me, who are lost.

Sure, there are other options given to those who don’t know their future desires. For instance, you can take a gap year, you can do internships, or even go into college undecided. Undecided is the route many take. As undecided, you will go into college and take general education classes, similar to the ones at high schools, and see if that sparks their interest. The only problem with that is that those classes are more of the same curriculum and style as the high school classes. Well, if it is more of the same, how are we certain that college will make that decision easier?

The worst part is that some people are “go with the flow” kind of people. But when it comes to your future it's hard not to stress the unknown and uncertainty.

The world wants to put a timeline on when you should start a career and when you should know what that career is. But why? There should be no schedule for anyone. Everyone experiences a different life. There is no agenda for when you find love, or have kids, or know what you want to do. Asking a teenager to follow one is just impractical.

How about we think before asking a teenager what they want to spend the rest of their life doing? Or we could even not force incoming college freshmen to declare a major so early on in their lives. At the age of 17 an expectation that they know what they want to do for the rest of their lives should be eliminated.