Today, we live in a world where seven and eight year-olds attend duel-immersion schools, on the track to becoming fluent in Spanish. One-year-olds take Mandarin, thirteen-year-olds are on the road to the olympics, and 15 year-olds give Ted talks. It is impossible to ignore the advanced and competitive world in which we live.
From the earliest ages, children are thrown into instant competition with their peers. They have no idea the boys and girls that they play handball with at recess will be the same young men and women they will be competing against for college admissions, and eventually, jobs. This sense of competition only develops further as these children enter their college years, facing an entirely new set of stresses and pressures.
College, at one time, was a unique opportunity for students to take some classes, grow up, and realize what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. Today? The pressure to know exactly where you want to be post-grad is so strong that many students believe entering their undergraduate years without a declared major is simply unacceptable. Now don’t get me wrong–I’m all for plans and goals, but many people come to college not knowing exactly what they want to study yet. And thats okay. What happens, however, is the competitive environment millennials have grown up in tells students that if you don’t have a major, a four-year plan, and a chosen career by the time you are 18 or 19, you’ve fallen behind and are on the way to failure.
