Whenever I meet somebody new, inevitably, this is one of the questions they are compelled to ask. I mean everybody’s been a teenager before. Don’t they know we have no sense of direction in the ever-looming job criteria? I’m always forced to come up with some canned response like, “well I’m not sure but I make the most of opportunities and I’m very ambitious yada yada ya.”

Its hard deciding what I want in life. Obviously I want to live comfortably, but how exactly am I supposed to do that? We’re told as youngsters that we can do anything we set our minds to. You can be an astronaut, but you need impeccable vision and health. You can be a fireman, but you have to be under 200 pounds. You can be a police officer, but you can’t have a criminal record. You can be a dentist, but you need thousands of dollars to earn the title.

You can believe in that naive crap, but I live in the real world of resumes and job interviews. Where grades, extracurricular activities, gender, ethnical races are the deciding factors.

Part of the problem is that for ALL of my life the occupation has been “student.” High school is supposed to prepare you for college and college is supposed to prepare you for the this so called “real world”. High school was just being played out for me. I dressed the way they wanted, showed up where they wanted, did the things they wanted, and all the while acted the way they wanted. This was hardly preparation for college. Summed up, our high school goal was to be a promising college applicant. I have a feeling college will be another charade for this real world I’m supposed to enter.

I refuse to let my life be shaped by admission officers of any kind, collegiate or otherwise.