As I begin my search for what I am going to make of my life after high school, I cannot help but feel overwhelmed. It’s time for high school seniors to start looking into colleges, careers and loans, along with planning the rest of their life out, in just a few short months before graduation.
While thinking about those things may be fun and exciting, it can also be very scary, because it’s your life. So when the big load is dumped on us students about what “life is after high school,” things get overwhelming. 

Students are expected to find colleges, fill out scholarships, look for and find a loan, apply for colleges and work out their financial aid, while still doing their school work and other activities.

If that doesn’t seem stressful enough, imagine not knowing how to fill out any of the paperwork you need for scholarships or even how to apply for colleges. Imagine not being told when the ACT dates take place, not being told how to fill out scholarships and what to do with them when you’re finished. Imagine not being able to finish your college application because you don’t know what the next step is.

This is a huge problem students face today, and it is adding stress upon students and their parents. Trying to figure out how to start anything is hard when you don’t know where to begin. 

Sure, I can recite the quadratic formula and spell “flibbertigibbet,” but I cannot fill out a scholarship or apply for college. 

The lack of information given to the students is ridiculous. Schools jampack students’ heads with information they will forget after the first test and most will never use again in their life, yet we are deprived of life skills and lessons we need to be successful in the life we have after high school. We need to be taught how to apply for loans, colleges, scholarships; we need to be taught how to open a bank account and how to manage life’s tasks.

Teachers are given set lessons to teach by the state and educational boards, giving them little say in what is being taught in the classroom. This large issue can be solved majorly if the educational board would evaluate its curriculum and get more input from students and teachers about what they are needing. 

Schools do offer personal finance and home economics, but those classes run off of a government-based curriculum, not off of what students need to know. I don’t need to know how to make crepes and do the dishes; I need to know how to get stains out of clothes for work and how to manage a home and bills and do my taxes. I don’t need to know what the word capital gains means; I need to know how to manage my time and money and how to take out loans and pay off debt.

EPIC hour has been put into place at Washington High School to help students get ahead and begin to plan their life. During the “EPIC Hour,” students create resumes, take personality test and work on figuring out future goals they have. The only flaw with this class is that it isn’t given much time. The class only occurs about once a month, so students aren’t given enough time to focus and learn about finances, college and other life skills. 

The lack of important and meaningful lessons in school is leaving students stressed and confused. 

School only takes up 12 years of someone’s life, and in those 12 years, we are never taught how to live.