Congrats, Grad! Now, What? I'm off to save the world!

A young man or woman walks into his or her guidance counselor's office with only a vague idea of what to talk about. The goal of this conversation is to figure out what colleges or universities said student should apply to, or if this student should even apply at all. This student, with the help of his or her guidance counselor wants to know what he or she should do with the rest of his or her life.

So many choices. So many options. How is one to know what the best choice is for him or herself?

The guidance counselor does not know the best way to alleviate this quandary, so he or she might ask the student, "well, what do you want to do?"

For many people, that is the worst question in the world to have to answer. If anybody had any idea what it was they wanted to do, would they seek guidance in the first place? Or would they seek what it is that they want?

When I was in high school, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I did not know what it was, but I knew I wanted to do something big and profound. By the end of my high school career, my mission in life was to "change the world."

Vague and maybe somewhat difficult to gauge, but simple, nonetheless.

"Well, what is it that you want to do?"
"Nothing much, just to change the world."

(I've always had very grand plans for myself, but no method by which to actually execute them).

So, the guidance counselors don't know what to do in this situation, so they just give you the best suggestions they can come up with. They tell the student to go see an assortment of higher learning institutions, and pick one that suits him or her the best. If the student ends up not liking it, nothing will keep him or her there. Who knows? Maybe the student will end up getting a scholarship. It's worth looking into.

Let's say this student ends up going to a college or a university. Any old one, it doesn't much matter, because no matter where the student ends up, he or she winds up in his or her adviser's office, asking the next of all important questions, "What should I major in?"

To which the most common response is often the same of that was asked to the student not two years ago, "well, what is it you want to do?"

Even after two years of deep, provoking thought and self-examination, it can be difficult to answer this question.

But at this point in the student's college career, problems have arisen, and the world can no longer be changed in the conventional sense, yet it can at least be agreed that the world must be saved. And so the focus of the student in question will undoubtedly be on deciding what major and, in turn, college degree, is best for saving the world.

How to decide? How to choose? There are so many areas in which the world needs saving, and yet you are only one person. You could save the world by way of chemistry, economics, literature, or sociology. You could save the world by any number of ways that have not been discovered yet.

The aforementioned adviser will not know how to address this contemplation, either, and he or she will probably say something along the lines of, "well, just do what you like."

It's actually sound advice.

If a person performs a task that he or she enjoys, that person is more likely to perform that task well, even if it doesn't garner a great deal of wealth or notoriety. But that's not what we're talking about here. That's not the point of going to college, any how. We're talking about how best to save the world.

Even if a person doesn't know what he or she wants to do, chances are he or she will be able to find a way to save even a small section of the world by doing what he or she enjoys.

Getting the degree is a right of passage any more. It does not necessarily prepare anyone for the post-college experience. Not much can prepare a person for such things until one actually goes through it.

But when you hit trouble, when you hit rough times, at the very least you have your degree to act as a security blanket.

No degree will save you from having to start from scratch and actually figure out your life. Sometimes it takes multiple tries. But at the very least, one can take comfort in knowing that you're not actually doing it for yourself, but instead to save the world.

In some ways, I feel that college is a waste of time. It postpones the inevitable, it adds an unnecessary four years to adolescence. I am now three years removed from the college experience, and I'm not any closer to saving the world. It took me these last three years to leave behind the comforts of college and actually figure out my life (see above).

I can look back at the years of college and the years immediately following and say that I received a great education. People who didn't attend college can't necessarily say that, but it doesn't make them any less smart than people who did go to college. Furthermore, education has never made any one individual a better person than anybody else. Being educated and able to think critically about things and derive logical solutions doesn't make you a better person. Heck, three hundred years ago, almost nobody went to college, and in the grand scheme of things, we're really not that far removed from then.

For the people who spend half their lives in college, they have missed out on what it's like to not go to college. And vice versa. Anybody who hasn't worked in the kitchen of a restaurant doesn't know what it's like to be in there six days a week in unnatural heat, preparing meals that are just going to be consumed for their nutrients and then disposed of. And those people don't realize that they are being unreasonable when they ask for their food a certain way.

Four years of college doesn't necessarily teach a person manners.

But for every person who does something wrong or makes a mistake, there is another person trying to do right or correct that mistake. We're all trying to save the world, whether we graduated from college or not. And whether we do it in dry cleaning, insurance, food service, or entertainment law, we are all going to be part of the problem and part of the solution.

Congratulations on getting the degree, but unfortunately, it's not the degree that counts. It's your labor and contribution. There are people out there who need saving. Let's get to work.