“What do you want to do?”
It’s the most common question for new high school grads. Yet, many teenagers resent having to have their life plans figured out at 18, and many adults will tell you that even the best laid plans need to be open to adjustment.
Hayley Emery, head of the Guidance and Counseling Department at Newport Middle High School, tells students to think about what they want to do, then work backward to figure out the steps they must take to get there.
“You don’t want to spend your whole life doing something where you hate going in to work every day,” Emery said. “We all have to work, so you should at least enjoy it most of the time.”
However, she also assures students that its OK if they don’t know what they want to do for work.
“If they have no idea or they are panicking about it, I remind them it can always change,” she said. “It’s OK if it changes. Most people’s career paths will change.”
Abby Paquin, a member of the Class of 2019 at Newport Middle High School, will be attending Bowling Green State University Honors College in Bowling Green, Ohio, for a major in political science and a minor in social work.
She made this choice after connecting with students who had criminal records. The experience of helping those students got her interested in family law, she said.
“Doing this for so long and meeting so many influential people has made me want to make this into a career and help so many other young people that are caught up in the legal system and help them turn their lives around,” Paquin said.
For other Upper Valley seniors, like Logan Osmer of White River Junction, pursuing interests means skipping higher education, at least for now.
“Most people get surprised when I say I’m not going to college or seeking higher education, but I’m really not all that big into school,” said Osmer, who attends Hartford High School. After graduating Osmer plans to get a full-time job while pursuing his interest in writing, performing and recording music.
“I kind of want the whole experience of a musician,” Osmer said. And for now, his diploma is good enough, he added.
“I think a high school diploma can get people pretty far.”