We at Find My Future are recent high school graduates who were tasked with finding a community engagement project. We have found that students are overwhelmed by post-secondary options and lack of personal support needed to make these decisions. We feel it is important that the stress this creates is decreased as much as possible because we had similar experiences as we were making decisions after high school. We have also interviewed many other students who had similar experiences of feeling overwhelmed and uncertain in their decision-making processes. This resource is important to us because there is such a high number of people who have been impacted by this uncertainty. We desire for their decision-making process to be as smooth as possible.
As previously mentioned, we felt stress in the post-secondary decision-making process. We experienced the stress and anxiety surrounding finding schools, having to take out loans, applying for scholarships, and deciding what path made the most financial sense for our lives. Some of us felt as though college was an expectation and felt the pressure of those around us to decide on where we were going to school and what we would study. A few of us did not have older siblings or friends that we were able to watch as they explored many of the possibilities before them. While parental input is important, they have not recently had to make the decisions, and thus it is not fresh in their minds. We feel that hearing the personal stories of people who have recently made similar decisions would have been beneficial for us in our decision-making process.
Our passion for this project continued as we conducted interviews with other recent graduates. We heard stories about how our interviewees connected most with those around them who had similar experiences. This made us even more excited about the solution we were creating because we wanted to be part of making connections between students and someone with a similar background. We cannot help our friends to have smoother experiences, but we can use their experiences to help upcoming students to have better transitions.
Much of the research that we did solidified just how important it was to find a solution for our issue. We were increasingly motivated as we read about the lack of hope that students are feeling regarding their future. One study that we read showed that 22.2% of the students surveyed felt seldom or no hope about their future. We also found that the levels of stress and uncertainty amongst students have increased since COVID-19 as students saw how quickly the world can change1. We became more determined to help the students who are still struggling with these feelings of uncertainty as our beliefs were supported by this research. We also found that the data shows students shifting away from traditional four-year college out of high school. This confirmed that we want to create a place where students can find information about many post-secondary options, not only college.
All in all, our passion for this project has only grown. We see ourselves, our friends, and even those who we have never met reflected in our research. This issue has become increasingly important to all of us and we are excited to see our solution come to fruition. We are eager to increase the connections between students and those who can give them some insight into what their future could look like. So, we created Find My Future, a collection of videos and resources to make this process smoother for students whose high school experience is coming to a close. We hope that the stories of people who have recently experienced this same transition will inspire and comfort high schoolers who are trying to make decisions. Additionally, please take advantage of the survey on our page. We would love to foster relationships between students and the people whose stories are featured on our website. If you see a story that resonates with you, we hope that you will reach out so you can ask questions and learn more about that person’s experience. We hope that this will be a helpful resource for you as you make your decisions going forward!
- Strom, P. S., Hendon, K. L., Strom, R. D., & Wang, C. (2022). High School Student Stress and School Improvement. School Community Journal, 32(2), 205–22 ↩︎