The phrase “When are we ever gonna use this” is consistently heard down the halls, that a majority of the classes we sit through for an hour-and-a-half for four years–1056 hours a year, 4,224 hours in four–are just a waste of time for everyone involved.

It may be true that as high school students none of us have truly experienced what it is like to be an adult in an adult world. But since when did high school become the place to take college classes so in college you don’t have to?

When you enter high school freshman year, you’re told that these will be the best four years of your life, that the “world is your oyster,” that these are the years to enjoy before you get old and have to enter college and truly think about what you will be doing for the rest of their life.

But today, although we are told to enjoy the teenage life, thinking about the future and what classes need to be taken to get a leg up in college have become the real message. Students are told again, and again that the decisions they make now will affect how life plays out in college and far beyond.

The pressure is on to take as many college level classes as possible in order to reduce the inevitable annual college tuition–pressure on kids that’s largely aimed to reduce the pressure on a guardian’s wallet.

College classes are a great opportunity but there’s so much pressure to take them: pressure from adults, students themselves, and just the plain old- pressure to succeed.

and taking classes to see what passions you could possibly have, students are shoehorned into into believing they should already know what classes need to be taken and which ones shouldn’t be paid mind to be- cause those classes aren’t going to help you in your “maybe” career. Taking such classes, yes, may take a load off in the following years entering college but, in a sense, students suffer a loss of other passions when they are so blinded by their

own plan. Nobody bothered to tell them to create room for a another route.

Things are always going to change–plans change, people change–and picking something right now at our age is the scariest thing because what if it doesn’t work out and every- thing we did was for nothing?

Not trying to be cynical but let’s let kids be kids, let them experience and explore, and open all those “oysters” we are told the world holds.

Rather than experimenting and taking classes to see what passions you could possibly have, students are shoehorned into into believing they should already know what classes need to be taken and which ones shouldn’t be paid mind to be- cause those classes aren’t going to help you in your “maybe” career. Taking such classes, yes, may take a load off in the following years entering college but, in a sense, students suffer a loss of other passions when they are so blinded by their

own plan. Nobody bothered to tell them to create room for a another route.

Things are always going to change–plans change, people change–and picking something right now at our age is the scariest thing because what if it doesn’t work out and every- thing we did was for nothing?

Not trying to be cynical but let’s let kids be kids, let them experience and explore, and open all those “oysters” we are told the world holds.