In all honesty, is AP Calculus going to help you do the laundry or do your taxes?

Simply, no.

Do you know what will help though? High schools offering classes to further our education in the real world.

Answer me this school, why is it that I know how to plot parabolas and find the degree of a radical, but I do not know how to apply for a loan or do my taxes? Why is it that I’ve read “The Raven” over 5 times, all in different classes, but I have no idea what to do the moment I decide to move out?

Why is it that I’m making all this money at my part-time job, but I have no idea how to invest or properly save? What exactly are twelve years of school going to teach me as a young adult other than how to analyze a poem or conduct experiments during organic chemistry?

High schools need to offer more classes that will help students out in the real world.

As previously stated, our normal classes will increase our book smarts but not our common sense. Isn’t that what you need to live as an adult? Common sense?

Although I do see an upside to the clumps of paper that sit crumpled up at the bottom of my bag, this being priority, there’s just no other way to look at it. Well, maybe time management due to our lack of work effort and learning to work under stress because of the fact that we procrastinate, but other than that, there’s no guarantee of a stable household the moment you’re on your own.

High school is the time to prepare, learn and grow yourself as an individual. But the question at hand is how does one do that with such a minimal plate of options to learn from?

We’re preparing you for college, they say. Okay? What happens after college? Do you think everything is just laid out like tiles on a floor? No! We’re expected to be high functioning adults by then.

I would honestly be greatly appreciative if I felt prepared for the future. With all the stress that highschool lays on our shoulders, why shouldn’t we at least have some pressure taken off just by simply learning about how to take care of ourselves?

Teachers have the audacity to claim they’re proud of how far we’ve come on graduation day, but in reality, we are all adults leaving our small safe bubble and having no idea how to fend for ourselves. Highschool, I feel, is doing more bad than good for the students by focusing solely on academics rather than preparing us for real world scenarios. We just need something to stabilize us, push us a little further.

Although it is true that academics are a huge factor to be able to figure out our preferences and give you an idea of what’s involved with your future jobs, there’s never anything stating that school can’t teach you just a little about the real world and how to handle yourself.

It’s also true that for generations before us they have figured it out. With prior knowledge of such information, teens can think and expand on their future plans, which in the end, make them more successful compared to if they would have learned by struggling. All in all, having us figure it out when the time comes is preparing us to fail rather than preparing us to succeed.

Some may say that failure leads to success. In all honesty though, so does being prepared.

High school is leading us to be smart, but now they should include leading us to be adults. It’s preparing us but missing a few steps in the middle.