“What’s your dream college?”

“What career do you want to go into?”

For the past month, these have been the most prominent questions I have been asked. Everyone I talk to has brought up what they want their future career to be or what their dream school is, then they ask me one of the same two questions.  

Every single time I’m asked, I reply with the same thing: “I don’t know.”

Seeing my friends have their lives seemingly figured out makes me feel like I’m behind. Every time the topic is brought up, I start feeling stressed and pressured to make a plan – the feeling is exhausting.

Next year, I am entering my junior year and it is said to be the hardest, most defining year of high school. Teachers and upperclassmen have told me to start looking into colleges and majors that would be beneficial to my future career, but what if I don’t know what I want to do with my future? 

I shouldn’t be expected to have my entire future planned out when I am barely halfway through high school.

The school recently just went through course selection and I was presented with a variety of different options: multiple AP classes, dual credit classes and so many different electives. In order to choose what type of classes I wanted to take, I need to have some sort of idea of what I want to do in my future. This made everything feel so much more overwhelming.

When choosing between dual credit and AP, I had to consider whether I would want to go to college in state or out of state. When choosing a science credit, I had to look at which of the options would prove to be the most useful later on. I had to pick what would look best on my transcript for colleges. The list of deciding factors for college felt never ending, whether it was a new set of classes, my GPA or class rank.

I am only a sophomore in high school, yet I feel so much stress over not knowing what my future looks like. I am only 15 years old. I have my entire life ahead of me, yet I’m supposed to have it all figured out before I even experience the better end of it. 

There has always been an expectation, intentional or not, set for me to know what I want to do one day. My siblings — both younger and older — have found career fields they definitely want to go into. So the pressure is a little higher when it comes to me needing to figure it out.

Though it is ideal to have a plan for the future, it should not be an expectation, especially for teenagers.

Knowing where your interests lie is difficult, but knowing what you want to do with those interests is even harder. It’s OK to be confused regarding the future. I am still just a sophomore, and the last 15 years of my life shouldn’t define the next 15.