This is the year my baby boy, the one who made me a mommy, graduates from high school. With the fact I have a, soon to be, adult to add to my list of accomplishments, it caused me to think back on my senior year in high school and things I really wish I’d done differently. A senior year bucket list if you will.
Taken a Road Trip to the Schools I Was Interested In
By the end of junior year, I’d narrowed down my list of schools to 3. The University of North Carolina Charlotte, New York Institute of Technology, and some other school I can’t even recall at the moment. They’re written in order of popularity with me at the time but one major problem – this was all based on catalogs and websites. I didn’t go look at any of them.
Unless someone else were driving, this one wasn’t happening as the glorious first taste of freedom I envision in my head because I didn’t get my license until I was 20. Yes, TWENTY. I really had zero interest in driving … I still have zero interest in driving most of the time. My son followed in my footsteps and, at the soon to be age of 17, has expressed zero interest in driving as well.
I wish I’d at least expressed to my parents that I wanted to go on college visits because it would have given me a better idea of the place I was going after high school. As it turned out, after getting on campus and actually interacting with other students and my counselors, I realized UNCC was more of a business school (I went there pre-med, majoring in Chemistry with dreams of being a Pediatrician) and not right for me.
When I wanted to change majors I realized I didn’t care for the lack of direction the counselors provided. I also realized, due to Charlotte’s limited public transportation options at the time, not having a car meant you were pretty much trapped on campus with very limited options to go anywhere unless you were able to bum a ride from someone with a car. Freshman weren’t allowed to have vehicles, so my lack license had no baring on my lack of options for leaving campus.
Gotten a Credit Card When I Turned 18
My mother is amazing with numbers and money. She was not so amazing with advice. As it related to credit cards she always told me they were bad and that I never needed them. When I went to buy a house 3 years ago, I learned she was wrong. My credit was perfectly fine except there was a huge lack of revolving credit and I was told I needed to get 2 or 3 credit cards. Major fail.
I wish I’d started, responsibly, creating my credit profile when I turned 18 because age of credit history matters. Because I didn’t get my cards until I was in my 30s, my history is still very new and this has a medium impact on my credit score. This one may actually be my number one senior year bucket list regret even though it appears closer to the end of the list.
Interned With Career Interest
As I mentioned earlier, I went to UNCC pre-med, majoring in chemistry … big mistake. I had interest in Pediatrics, Architecture, Law, Psychology (and we obviously need more Black Psychologist and Psychiatrist) and Literature. Had I gone to NYIT, I had a full scholarship might I add, which is 100% more than UNCC offered me , I would have declared Architecture as my major. Would I have liked that more, who knows. If I had at least interned with a few different careers, I would have had a better idea for what I could see myself doing for the rest of my life.
Saved My Money for a Gap Year
Truthfully, I didn’t want to go to college right away. My mother was dead set on me going though. In her mind, I was going to take a gap year and never want to go to college, so I went. In the end, I dropped out. I just had no idea what I wanted to do and I felt like I was wasting money. I did have pell grants and some scholarships, but I had to get student loans as well. I had zero interest in racking up debt while I jumped from major to major trying to find the perfect fit.
I don’t regret the decision to drop out, but I do regret the decision to not be more forceful with my wishes to take a gap year. I think if I had approached her with a plan, say if I had saved up all my money from the job I had all throughout high school and told her I was going to travel some or something that would have potentially led to me finding myself, she would have been able to better get on board with it. If not, I still would have had money to pay bills on my own.
Who else has senior year bucket list they just didn’t quite accomplish?
