What’s After Grade 12?

What’s After Grade 12?

For grade 12 students, what comes after high school can often feel like the biggest decision in life. It’s like the world depends on it. But don’t stress too much, as you do not have to have everything sorted out before you leave high school!

Do you hate when people ask the question “What do you want to do after high school?,” and then you are unable to give a solid answer because you have literally no idea? It’s quite common, and you do not need to feel embarrassed or left out. For many people, it’s a difficult question to answer.

I am busily investigating different universities to find out which one is the best for me, and it is honestly difficult for me to decide. What makes the deciding process worse is that we do not have Grade 13 like our parents or guardians did, so that’s one less year to decide. Now the pressure sets in.

At a Waterloo Fall Open House, I was able to listen in on an alumni panel discussion in one of the lecture halls at the university. There were five graduates from the school sitting at a desk on the stage, discussing their experiences at Waterloo and how they got into the career they were in now. What surprised me most about what the alumni members had to say was one thing in particular: none of them went into the career they had planned to go into when first staring university. They all took different paths instead and did something different; some of them had no idea that they would ever be what they were today, but there they were. Their original plans had changed drastically, and they instead discovered the careers they were truly more passionate about. For some people, they know exactly what they are going to be and have known for the longest time; however most students, I think, are uncertain, and are still struggling to sort out their whole life. Don’t! Chances are what you are thinking you might study is not what you are going to be doing as your career. People change, especially young people as they go through a very difficult, confusing, yet exciting time of transition between high school and university, college or other post-secondary options. My advice, and I have talked to many supportive people who also shared the same advice with me, is to follow after your passions and what perks your interest the most, and see where that leads. Right now, things may seem confusing, but that might change later as you start to realize what you were really meant to do. You may not see all the doors that are available to you until you are actually in university or college, and have maybe taken several courses. I was also able to attend a tour at Brock University recently. Our tour guide was a fourth year student in biomedical science, and mentioned he switched his career focus four times before figuring out what it was he really desired to do most; and what’s funny is that he started with biomedical, and ended back in biomedical science after lots of switching around. The first career decision he made ended up being his last one anyway, but it took more exploring of other programs available to make himself feel more certain that his field of study was right for him. So, another thing that is important when deciding your career (which you don’t have to do right now) is exploration, as it allows you the opportunity to discover what you are most passionate about. Exploration and taking chances are both very important.

Don’t stress out too much right now, because it is not worth it. See this struggle as an opportunity to explore and try new things, things that may even take you places where you never thought you’d be! Try your best at everything you do, and above all else, never give up. Instead of trying to determine where to go in life, try and see where life will take you.