By Forrest Wang

Every day I see the rush of students as they prepare for college and the world beyond high school. I see parents scrambling to prepare their children for life outside of their homes.
You know what I’m talking about, right? The hustle and bustle of students, all deciding what they’ll major in or what job they’ll have. My friend Alex knows he is going to swim. My friend Elvis is set on being an architectural engineer. Even my brother Andrew decided on his major pretty quickly. Me? I want to do all kinds of jobs: I want to design inventions, study new fields of science, and discover breakthroughs that will astound the world. After almost three years of high school, I remain undecided.
One morning, my English teacher, Ms. Kautsch, began to talk about professions. Immediately, people began to discuss all the ideas that they had for after high school. The conversation snaked around the classroom as everyone said what they wanted to do, what they wanted to be. When it got to me, I said that I didn’t know. How could I possibly know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life?
Ms. Kautsch gave me a surprised look, “You don’t have a clue about what you want to do?”
Encounters like this reinforce how much our society focuses on our lives after school. We begin learning about ways to contribute to society and start hearing about being prepared for life from the moment we start school. But why should all students know with certainty what it is they’re most passionate about? Students should take the time to think about what they want to pursue. If a person rushes into a career, they might end up choosing a profession that does not match their personality at 30, 40, or 50 years of age. I definitely do not want to spend the majority of my life doing something that sounded exciting at 16.
One summer evening five years ago, while kids played outside and the scarlet-streaked sky turned hazy from the summer heat, I sat on my bed mulling over my future. I was leaving for iD Tech Camp at Stanford where students would be able to try a multitude of different courses that show them options for later in life. Even with the start date looming, I still could not decide what course I would join. After two weeks, I went to camp uncertain, undecided, and unprepared.
I walked into the camp with apprehension, unsure of where I was going or what I was doing. Yet the moment camp started, I felt right at home: the camp staff members were sincere and friendly, the dorms were clean and welcoming, and the other students were open and friendly.
As the first day progressed and the shadows lengthened, the camp advisers showed me a bit of each course and I participated in a range of activities from video editing courses, to a robotics course, to a computer-programming course. I learned how to program a robot, and I finally decided on a course.
Although I went to camp undecided and unsure of what I was going to do, I learned new skills such as basic programming and computer design and experienced the joy of working and learning with a new set of friends; by experiencing a wide range of activities, I settled on what piqued my interest: a video game designing and programming course. Finding what I truly enjoyed paid off all the weeks of indecision and made my time at Stanford exponentially more enjoyable.
When you find what you used to take pleasure in becomes tedious and wearisome, then it is no longer a hobby, but a chore, a task. Stop it and move on.
I may not know what I am going to do, where I am going to go, or what I might find at the end, but I will always know that there are paths for me to take. Where will I go from here? I haven’t got a clue.