What do you want to be when you grow up?

It’s a question every kid has been asked since they were in elementary school and the answer can “[cripple] one of the most insidious of human anxieties, the one that says, you do not belong here, you are unnecessary.” (“Children in the Woods”) It’s considered a very simple question, but in reality, the answer isn’t always very clear in the beginning.

There are many factors that go into finding a dream job and finding out what you want to do in life; one of them is learning about different job opportunities and career paths. One of the easiest ways to learn about these things is through school because of how accessible this information would be to students. This is where the issue of low financing in schools arises. Schools with low financing often cannot afford to create and maintain programs or events that introduce students to different kinds of career paths because of the cost. As a result, students have a harder time exploring different job options because they don’t have as many resources.

Lack of job exploration can have detrimental effects later on in life because it puts pressure on students to choose a job that they are familiar with even if they are not passionate about it. In addition, added pressure by family and peers forces students to make their decision quickly without really thinking it through. A student without the right resources is a “bonsai tree in [an] attractive pot [that] could have grown eighty feet tall….” but has been pruned by a gardener (“A Work of Artifice”). Without different resources, students can not reach their full potential because they don’t know about all the options available to them.

While it may be hard to explore different jobs without feeling pressured to choose quickly, it is important to realize that there is “so much going on [in life and]…you’ve got this chance…to be creative and experiment,” and eventually find the perfect career path (“Lost and Found“).