Straight-A Student to University Drop-Out; Is there another way to success?

I was once asked, in my eleventh grade English class, what my definition of success was. I replied with something along the lines of having a career that you enjoy and having a stable income to follow suit. Some of my classmates would've countered my argument to say that success was not so fixated on a good job and a certain salary, but also the people that surround you in your daily life, the impact you feel that you're making in the world around you, and the general joy and pleasure that you feel when you wake up each morning. I would've thought my classmates were simply wrong in their opinions and that one could not be deemed successful if they were not making at least 70k per year in a career that they attained through obtaining a university degree.

What I didn't realize at the time of this short-lived class discussion was not only how fixated I was on this confined idea of success, but also that this was not an opinion I formed on my own. I didn't realize that when I was asked what I defined success to be, the answer I was spewing out were the words I'd been taught by those who came before me.

When I was around the age of seven I began telling my family that as soon as I graduated from high school I would move to Los Angeles and pursue my dream of becoming an actress. I was met with responses which were mostly along the lines of "oh that's cute, pursue your dreams, but have a back up option for when you fail." Of course, I was never outrightly told by my parents that I would fail in my attempt at becoming an actress, but they also weren't encouraging me to pursue my dream, either. I was given more subtle persuasion to settle for something that I'd be sure to succeed in. The conscious part of me never cared what my family had to say regarding my dreams, because I would simply prove them wrong. This was until I was about thirteen years old and when family members would ask the dreaded question of what do you want to be when you grow up, this time they began to mock my younger self's response in saying "oh right, you're going to move to California and become an actress." The delivery implied they never believed I'd reach my goal and that it was crazy for me to think I could, too.

In the eyes of a majority of my family members, getting a degree was a sure way to success, so I'd be stupid to not go to university - especially due to the fact that I'd always been a straight-A student. I don't blame my parents for their way of raising my sister and I. I don't blame them for ingraining in our minds from a young age that once we graduated from high school we'd go on to university, where we'd get a degree; then we'd enter into the workforce, where we'd spend the rest of our years until we were able to retire at the ripe age of 65. I don't think I ever let myself second-guess this ingrained idea because mom and dad were always right, and besides, they wanted better for us. Neither of my parents went to university or college and they both ended up in pay check-to-pay check factory jobs - so it's not an absurd idea that they'd want a better life for my sister and I. But in their eyes, they ended up in this life because they didn't have a higher education, and thus, the cycle would be broken if my sister and I did.

While this may have been the case 20 years ago, it is simply not the case today. The reality is that we live in a world where connections and experience mean a lot more than a piece of paper. With more and more people having their bachelor's degree, it is now becoming the minimum requirement for many careers. The idea of one undergraduate degree securing for you a career that lasts a lifetime is outdated.

When you've been a straight-A student all your life, though, it's not just your parents who are telling you to go to university, but it's more of an implied idea that you'd obviously continue on to higher education because, why wouldn't you? I breezed through grade school and high school as the person my teachers and classmates saw me as - the smart, shy girl who was good in school, no matter the subject. I hate talking about myself in this way in fear of coming across as though I'm gloating about my intelligence, but this really was my whole identity for most of my life. I was smart. That's who I was. That's all I really let myself be. That's all I knew myself to be.

I naturally did well in every subject I took and school was never really a stressful or hard thing for me. I enjoyed doing calculus. I didn't stay up for hours each night in preparation for tests or exams. I could wake up an hour earlier on the morning of an exam, quickly review my notes, and then ace the exam. It was implied that I would continue on to university.

I had always enjoyed school, for the most part. This mostly changed in the latter years of grade school, followed by my entire high school journey. The dynamics of my high school were ones that I didn't quite fit into, and I never felt at home or like I belonged in my school. I mostly did the bare minimum in high school and I still flew by as one of the top five students in my class. I didn't have any passion for school, but it came easy to me, and it was the only thing I'd ever known my whole life. It was the one constant that had always been there.

When eleventh grade came and university discussions began, I wasn't really sure where I stood. There was no career I was ever truly interested in for longer than a week, and there was no program I could picture myself doing. It's as if I'd made the decision to go to university without actually making the decision to go to university. This right here is where the problem begins - not just in my story, but in the entire process of transitioning out of high school. Choosing to attend university should not be an implied decision; it should be just that: a decision. While I did have my doubts, I began looking into college instead. I found myself to be intrigued by a travel and tourism program at my local college, but when I brought the idea to my parents, it was met with approval, with the condition of it being a breezy program I could do before then continuing on to university. Taking a gap year was also not favoured by my parents because in their eyes, if I took a break from school, I would never want to go back. It was pretty clear that the only path ahead would be that of university.

Luckily for me, I spent the summer before twelfth grade in Moncton, NB, where I met a boy who was my age and very passionate about going to the University of Toronto in the fall of 2020. Since I hadn't a clue where I wanted to attend or what I would want to take, having an advocate for UofT so close in my circle persuaded me to follow this path. To select a major, I simply chose the subject I liked best in school - which was math. With that, it became an easy choice to apply to UofT in the physical and mathematical sciences admission stream.

Before I go on, I'd like to clarify: this is not a story about being pressured to attend the same university as the boy I was dating, it's more than that; this story is about feeling like I had no other choice than to pursue a higher education, to begin with. Dating this boy and following the same decision he was making simply made it easier to follow what I was expected to do.

So that's what I did. I went to UofT in hopes of pursuing either a computer science or mathematics major, despite the fact that I still had other dreams that were so far from where I currently was. The way I'd been conditioned to believe, though, was that my present reality as a student studying mathematics in a dorm room in Toronto at UofT was much more realistic to fathom than that of travelling the world, or being a writer, or an actress (not a dream I still had, but it's here as an example). I truly believed that I would not be successful if I did not have a degree to support me.

University got off to a rough start. Not only did I start in fall of 2020 - the year of the global pandemic - but I was also not pursuing the subject that was truly in alignment with my passions. I had been told prior to starting school that university math was a completely different ball-game than high school math, but I was still expecting to enjoy it. Spoiler alert: I did not. My math classes consisted of proofs upon proofs, and my general elective classes consisted of readings upon readings that I could not make myself care enough about to get through. My poor study habits that I'd had for the past 18 years of my life followed me into university and I was not prepared for the intensity of the challenging workload, paired with the frequency of heavy assignments and midterms (which should not be called midterms if they occur once a month).

It did not take long for my normal 90's to turn into 60's, and while that definitely took a toll on my mental health, I more so found myself numb to the fact and I began to grow complacent to where I was with my grades. I knew I didn't like what I was studying, and while I was looking into any other major I could switch into, I was so scared of leaving behind the identity of the smart girl I'd always known. In my mind, being a STEM major made you smart, and pursing anything else was a waste of time and would illustrate a lack of intelligence. It didn't make sense for someone who had grades like mine in high school to do anything besides a STEM major in university, right?

November 6th, 2020; it was a Friday night, I had just cooked myself a gourmet spaghetti dinner, and I was preparing to have a reading week like out of the the movies. Little did I know, that reading week would turn into one of the lowest points of my life, which would then initiate one of the biggest changes in my life.

Said boy who I followed to UofT and I broke up that night while I ate my gourmet spaghetti dinner. Thus began the spiral of what am I doing here?! I began to realize that this was not the future I wanted. I didn't want the next four years of my life to look like this. I was forcing myself into being someone I was not. I ignored school for the entire week and became very well-acquainted with my bed. This continued on for the rest of the semester following reading week.

I had given up on school. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was the most lost I'd ever been. There was no instruction manual for navigating this area of life. It was just expected that I'd figure it out eventually. At that time, I began to ponder the idea of dropping my planned courses for the winter semester and instead, taking a range of fun courses to broaden my horizons and find a potential new passion. While the idea of leaving school and possibly having a go at college had crossed my mind, it was never a thought that I'd let myself ruminate on. I didn't think I'd ever be allowed to do that. By the end of November, and by the time I had more than mentally checked out of my studies, I had a phone call with my dad who verbally made the point that I'd been debating in my head as to why the hell I would spend another couple of thousands of dollars on a semester of school that I had no interest in doing. Having someone like my dad suggest to me the prospect of leaving school made me realize that perhaps that was the best decision for me to make, and it also confirmed that I'd have support from my family if it was what I decided to do.

It wasn't long after that when I met with my academic advisor in order to begin the process of correctly leaving school - because how does one just drop-out? Turns out, it wasn't that complicated, and by Christmas of 2020, I was no longer a registered student at UofT. And that felt amazing. A weight had been lifted from my chest.

When I talk to people about the subject of leaving school, the one reason I often hear as to why they wouldn't or won't is because they don't know what they would do if they didn't go to school. This is a perfectly normal response and it makes sense given that most of us start school at the age of 4 and that is what our whole life revolves around for the next 14 years of our life. All you've ever known is school. Sure, maybe you've had extra-curricular's or a part-time job outside of that, but from the time we are 4–5 to the age of 17–18, our everyday routine, our everyday life, revolves around school. It's hard to imagine a life without it. It's not so different from when a student finally graduates college or university to enter into the work-force and they are overcome with feelings of confusion and feeling lost. None of us really know what we're doing. We're all just figuring it out as we go. Staying in school for an extra 4 or 5 years to continue your education is only delaying the phase of your life where you feel utterly lost. It is not the answer for those who don't know what they want to do with their life.

After I left university I got by through telling people that I was going to apply to college instead - hoping that this reasoning would delay the unasked for comments and opinions of my family members. It mostly did. I was pretty intent on going to college, though, because I still deeply believed that I would be getting nowhere in life if I didn't have some form of higher education along with a degree or a diploma to prove it. Not only was this opinion my own, but it was one that I was still being fed, even while receiving support from my family. I saw the lives of those around me and knew that I couldn't reach my definition of success without a degree.

I'll keep a long story short; over the next 5 months I applied to over eight college programs, ranging from travel and tourism, to interior design, to chemistry lab technician. When I began receiving acceptance emails from these colleges I felt anything but relief. I didn't feel excitement and joy, as you should feel when an opportunity is meant for you. Mostly, I felt indifference. I felt the emptiness in my bank account from a college application I had no business in submitting.

The next year of my life was filled with many unpleasant feelings. I so desperately wanted to find my purpose - which at that time, I was amounting to one career that would make me decently happy and pay the bills. That's all I wanted. That's all I allowed myself to want. At my lowest points I even thought of going back to UofT - the one place that had spawned my misery to begin with. I felt so insanely confused and most of that stemmed from the fact that I didn't trust myself. How could I trust myself when I had allowed myself to make a decision that had been so out of alignment with what I knew I truly wanted to do? How did I let myself get so far from where I wanted to be?

The problem with our education system is how heavily we rely on grades to judge our intelligence, and as a result, to judge where we will be headed in life. The problem is that we're supposed to know what one career we want to supposedly do for the rest of our lives by the time we enter high school. Yes, it begins this early on. We are forced to choose our high school courses based on the courses we will eventually need to have in order to apply to our chosen university or college program by the time we're in grade twelve. Most students have no clue who they are outside of school; who they are outside of the influence of their peers, of their teachers, and of the curriculum. We have never learned what the real world is like and most of us don't let ourselves learn on our own. We see the life that our parents or our close family members have established, we're fed their beliefs, and we come to think of that as being the truth. The reality is: the truth of the real world is whatever you let yourself believe.

There is no reason that anyone should pursue a higher education if they do not feel it's right for them. This doesn't mean never pursuing a higher education. This also doesn't mean living pay check-to-pay check your whole life or being considered a failure because you don't have a degree - even if you choose to never go back to school. Often times, pursuing a higher education when you know it's not the correct next step will only harm you more than it will help you. Unless you've been given some very generous scholarships or grants, university is a costly investment. It's an investment that need not be made if it mustn't. Going to university when you already had your doubts about it, just to leave with piles of debt, is not an easy way to enter into the real world.

If you are currently in a place similar to the one I've just described above - I'd like to leave you with some hope for your future. Firstly, you have absolutely no responsibility to go to college or university if you feel in your heart that it is not right for you at this moment in your life. You should be going to school for yourself - not to make anyone else happy. If it is not something that you know will make you happy, simply do not go. Despite what your parents, teachers, and guidance counsellors lead you to believe, pursuing higher education is actually a yes or no decision to be made. So really, think about it. Do not follow the flock just because it may seem to be the right choice for everyone else. You are not everyone else. If your decision is met with resistance or distaste from your family or friends, their support is not something you need. They are not the ones who will have to face the consequences of your decisions. It's very easy to spew a mis-informed opinion when you're viewing a situation from the outside. You'll prove them wrong one day, and when you do, they'll realize the strength you had when you were forced to go against the grain and make a decision that is not easy to make, but that you ultimately knew was more in alignment with the path you are on.

Secondly, know that you do not have to have any idea of what you actually want to do, even if you choose to not pursue higher education. You are still so young, you have so many years of learning ahead of you; you are only just discovering who you are. The person you are in high school is not the person you will see in yourself when you enter into the real world. It may take some time to figure out the things that interest you outside of school, and this process should not be rushed. As a matter of fact, it's not even a process that should be forced. It should be a natural reaction to your leading by inspired action in your life - living by simply following your curiosities and taking each day as it comes. It becomes very easy to worry about the road ahead and believe you must have the blueprint of your life drawn out in detail by the time you're 20, but it's simply not true. By no age will you have every single answer to your life. Life is about living and learning - this never stops. Turn your fear of the future into excitement for what is yet to come. By not forcing yourself into following a specific path out of fear that you will otherwise lead an unsuccessful life and, instead, following the guidance you receive from your intuition and feelings toward certain interests or ideas, you will be setting yourself up for so much more success in the long-run. In short, you do not need to have a plan B to justify not going to school.

I'm happy to say that I've reached a place where I feel like I've genuinely reached a level of success that I've not yet experienced in my life - and I did it without a degree. I did it solely with the belief that I could; I did it because I believed there was some greater plan for me that did not require going to school. I've reached this place a mere 2 years after leaving school. Having absolutely no clue where I was headed when I left, I've now ended up living in my dream city, with the only job I would ever dream of doing - which also allows me to do the only thing I have any interest in right now - travelling.

When you embark on your unique journey, you will not know the path that lies ahead. You may have an idea of how things may go, but you truly will never know until you take the leap. Some of the best decisions come with the most discomfort, but they yield the greatest change. As you begin to live your life the way you want to, not the way that our society depicts you must, your path will begin to unfold before you. Even though I am in a comfortable place of stability in my present, I know that there still exists a long path ahead that will lead me to places my current self can't begin to fathom. That's a beautiful thing. Being in a place of unknowing does not have to be a fear-ridden experience. It can be a place of wonderful opportunity, magical moments, and an abundance of personal growth. If you are currently in the place I was in two years ago, forced to make a decision that you know isn't right for you, then truly, listen to your intuition. There is no cookie-cutter way to success. You define your success. Once you take the step into living your life for yourself, and not for what others tell you to do, you'll begin to shed away the old beliefs that have been weighing you down. Your world outside of school does not have to be a scary place. The world is full of wonderful opportunities - it's merely up to you to allow yourself the chance to discover them.