Brigit+F’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016


 * Title of Speech **

Since I was 7 or 8 years old I’ve known I wanted to be a doctor. I’m planning on applying to a few different colleges in California, and I’m especially interested in UC Santa Cruz because they offer a B.S. in Human Biology. And If I don’t get accepted directly into one of the universities I want to go to, I plan on going to a junior college and transferring to a four-year university afterwards.

That’s my post-graduation plan currently. But I might get to college, and do my first internship, or travel somewhere -hopefully Spain because that’s where I really want to go-, or have some other experience that tells me I’ve been wrong and I don’t actually want to be a doctor or that I want to go to school in Kansas. And if that happens, it’s OK.

Now, I’m fortunate enough to have an older sister that continuously helps me out with everything having to do with college, but when she was in high school she really had no idea what she wanted to do and she really just messed around all of high school. So when she graduated she wasn’t ready for college. Instead, she got a job in telemarketing, racked up a ton of debt, and after gaining insight and real world experience, she decided that going to college would be what was best for her. She went on to get her master’s degree at UCSB and she’s been accepted into their phD programme and although she definitely says a more conventional path would’ve been easier she also says she wouldn’t be the person she is today if she hadn’t taken that break from school.

I used to feel a lot of pressure - pressure to go straight to a four year university, pressure to get a 4.8 or whatever the newest 4.0 is, pressure to know exactly what I want to get out of life. And I’m sure you’re all feeling it too whether it be from parents, siblings, or your friends. but now I know it’s none of my business what people think of me and that the only expectations I should have to live up to are my own.

So I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that if you’re like me, and you’ve known what you wanted since a really young age, or if you’re like my sister and you find yourself staring into the post-graduation abyss completely terrified and possibly even apathetic to the options you feel you have in front of you - which let’s face it, are probably college or no college - you’re going to be OK, and you’ll be OK sooner if you stop caring what people think you should be doing. Stop worrying about whether you’re doing the right thing or not for your parents - just worry about doing what’s right for you. So go to college or travel or get a job or any other thing you want to do after graduation and trust that older, more wiser, you will be able to figure it out. After all, life is just one big never-ending loop of existential crises and if you don’t start giving yourself the space to find yourself now it might take you a long time to find out what’s going to make you happy. So I want to grow old in an America where parents and older siblings, and educators, and influencers give young people like us the room to find our own path instead of trying to force us into Agrestic style tiny boxes. And if you didn’t get that pop culture reference we can’t be friends.