Thoughts on universities and the future.

As a seventeen-year-old girl who has just finished her first year of sixth form, I am beginning to seriously look into what the future might hold for me. Do I want to go to university? If so, which university? Which course? What careers could that lead to in the future? If I’m not going to university, what other options are there? OVERWHELMING. But my point is – and I feel like I’m not alone when I say this – I’m only seventeen years old, and I do not feel qualified to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I know this is something that almost everyone has to go through and I’m not blaming anyone when I point out the difficulties we’re most likely all facing, but the unprepared-ness I feel inside does not lessen each time a new prospectus comes along, or another open day is booked. In fact the anxiety becomes more intense, because I know there is another potential future and the decision becomes increasingly harder to make. The question, which I’m facing at this particular moment, is do I follow my head or my heart? The sensible option would be to get a degree in something leading towards specific jobs that will still be around in four years time. The more impractical (yet seemingly more interesting) would be to do a degree in something that I would love to do, and yet it does not end with a specific, nor definite, job in the future. Do I have three years of fun and enjoy university to the maximum, or do I still enjoy university although not as much, knowing that I will almost definitely have a job at the end of it?

However, by complaining about all these ‘troubles’, I don’t want to come across as ungrateful to the help that I have received. My parents have been a great help in letting me talk through the pros and cons of my different courses and universities, and have not put any pressure on making me choose the more sensible option – and I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had! I’m also very grateful for the opportunity to go on to further education, because I know that a lot of people – especially women – don’t have the opportunities which I do which is why I am taking it so seriously and with such care. I guess the future is just a very scary thing for me – especially when it is as uncertain as mine is right now.