Any decision involving education should not be taken lightly

Since we were young, we've been told about the importance of education.

From "get good grades in school, it's for your future!" to "do your homework, it'll help you later," instruction was followed by reasons for explaining why what we were doing was important.  

Even the most random formulas in the most obscure algebra lesson were given a justification or real world application by our teachers.

Although some of these lessons have shown through in our lives, like perimeters and areas, most are left to forget as soon as we finish the test.

So as we continue down the path of higher education, we're given basically the same rationales with different lessons.

Do we ever truly question why we have chosen this specific road?

Back whenever we were younger, we all had cool dream jobs: "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be a police officer."

We just naturally assumed that whatever we were learning in kindergarten was steering us toward that exciting career.

We were young and pretty much everybody loved school.

We were playing with our friends, learning exciting things and everyday there was something new to discover.

Elementary school was where lessons started to become more abstract and theoretical.  

In algebra, letters started representing numbers, ethics came into the equation, and our grading was much less cut-and-dry.

Phrases like "be cool, stay in school" invaded our world while we were still pretty naïve.

Growing up and becoming more aware, we graduated in little robes and hats to the big world of high school.

In high school, everybody pretty much had the same basic reason for going to college, to get a "good" job.

We all sort of had an idea of what a "good" job was, but couldn't pinpoint where or what that job was.

Good is a vague word and, for the most part, is up to each individual to determine.

What we did know was that we didn't have the same dream that we did in kindergarten.

I certainly still don't want to be a firefighter, although I think that would be a pretty rewarding, yet risky, job.

Even though we had multiple years of various types of education, many of us, including myself, had no idea what we wanted to do freshman year.

Phrases like "it'll pay off soon" and "you'll need it later" were starting to grow a little thin since we didn't know when or where they would apply.

So here we are, still working hard completing our college education and hoping that whatever we're learning gives us the insight we'll need.

But wait, there's more.

Now the new goal is graduate school.

We're told to keep our grades and extracurricular activities up so that we can, once again, attend another institution in order to learn about subjects that we'll "need" to know.  

How much is enough to fulfill that "need?"

Have you ever woken up and felt the pangs of hunger for higher education?

Rarely do we stop and think deeply about how the subject matter we're learning will affect our future.

Does somebody with our current financial standing just purchase, on a whim, a car that would put them in debt without first weighing many pros and cons?

We should approach our education with the same scrutiny and diplomatic attitude that we would with any important and drastic financial decision.