For as long as she can remember, my older sister has wanted to be a photographer. So when a promising agency contacted her the summer after high school discussing her talent and just how much they’d like to work with her, she was more than thrilled. My mother, on the other hand? Not so much. Not attending college was an idea she simply couldn’t comprehend. Regardless of how much reassurance my sister provided her with, the endless conversations with said agency and the promise of a stable, well paying job, she just couldn’t understand it. How could anybody be successful without a degree?

Education is undeniably the key to success. From an early age, students are taught various ways to succeed in the primary, middle and high school years.

Attending college has for decades been thought of as the “peak” of one’s education. It is what we all, as students, look forward to our whole lives. It is the time to spread our wings and see what the world has in store for us. This also means that God forbid any teenager dares to say, “I don’t to go to college”.

There has been so much importance around this concept that the smallest thought about not, perhaps, attending college have been pushed the furthest back, and buried under piles and piles of shame. I mean, why would you not want to attend, right? Well there various factors to consider before throwing judgement at those who chose this path.

That is exactly one of the biggest problem about this: people do not realize that success isn’t defined by one specific thing or lifestyle.

“There should be more talks about this,” says Daniela Lopez, a sophomore at the iSchool. “There are many careers that don’t require a college degree that are just as important as those that do. We need to start talking about them, too.”

Just like many other things in life, college isn’t for everyone, either. What is the point on spending thousands of dollars on a career that could be done without going into severe debt? There shouldn’t be such a shame placed on those who never went to college, but they have a perfectly stable life with a decent job.

“Personally, I know a lot of people who are doing just fine without going to college,” states Jayvin Espinal, sophomore student at the iSchool. “My aunt, for example, wanted to be an artist. She went to college for six months and realized that studying art wasn’t going to do the same as her actually doing it. So she started to put her artwork online and sell them in the streets until she got discovered by this agency and now she has a gallery.”

This is becoming more and more accepted between the members of this generation, but parents are still having a hard time accepting this idea. For many parents, regardless of background, education wasn’t something very accessible, and so at least having their children attend college seems like the perfect way to fill that void.

Kristine Brown, a science teacher at the iSchool states, “I understand why my parents wanted it for me. Back then it wasn’t easy for everyone to attend so the fact that I had the opportunity and didn’t want to take it seemed ridiculous to them.”
Not attending college is undeniably a big step that scares most people. However, it is a reality for many people, and it needs to be more generalized.