Thoughts on turning 18

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I turned 18 years old this month. According to many people’s definitions, I’m an adult. Legally, I can vote, buy cigarettes, and consent to sexual relationships. I can remember so clearly being a freshman in high school. It seems like yesterday, and yet it also seems so far away. It’s strange.

Sometimes I look back at the last five years of my life and feel like they happened in just a few weeks. I’m sure everyone has had this feeling before–you look back and wonder where all the time went, how everything happened so fast… How could you could have grown up so quickly and yet feel as if you haven’t changed at all?

I’ve had an unusual education. During my 9th grade year, I went… a little mad. It was not a happy place to be. I convinced my parents to allow me to leave traditional school to pursue other venues. During what would have been my 10th grade year, I did very little except read. Obsessively. And as soon as I turned 16, I took my GED and passed with high scores. That year, I took my first few college classes.

This fall, I’ll be starting my third year at my local community college. Had I stayed in high school, I would have been a senior last year. I never had a graduation ceremony, never went to prom, never had any of those normal high school experiences.

I can’t say I regret what I did. I enjoy college immensely. I no longer dread waking up each morning, and my grades have made a dramatic recovery. I’ve always loved learning, and I have that back now. Shortly after I left high school, my dad looked at me one day and said, with surprise, “You seem so happy now.” And I am, comparatively. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I’m not sure I would have made it out of high school alive and sane.

But I still wonder if I made the right choice–if my parents made the right choice, letting me free. I want to get a Masters degree. I want to learn as much as I can, but I’m afraid I’ve shut off too many opportunities, because I never got my high school diploma, because I never took my SATs, because I’ve never been normal. Maybe if I’d have stayed in high school, I could’ve figured it out. Maybe I could’ve been happy without having to be so… different. I’ll never know, now.

I guess it’s just kind of a reality check, turning 18. Things seem more real now. I’ll most likely go away to a four-college the year after next, and with luck, I’ll have my bachelor’s degree in another two. I’ve led a very sheltered life. I’m a naturally shy and introverted person, and my parents… are not. Maybe they sheltered me too much. I’ve never had a job. I’ve been working on it, yeah, but they’re hard to find, especially when you’re timid, and I’m pretty timid.

I’m happy, most of the time, but the future seems so threatening sometimes. I don’t feel old enough for this–don’t feel old enough to make decisions that could effect me all my life. I doubt I ever will. Does anyone? I guess I was just cruising along before, in my happy little home-town community college classes that never gave me any trouble a little obsessive studying couldn’t fix. But now things are happening. I have to decide what college I want to attend, what career I want to purusue, what I want to major in. It’s scary.

I know this thread may seem a little self-centred, but I feel like I had to get all of this out, somehow. I know there are Dopers who’ve done unusual things here–people who can sympathize a bit, perhaps. And everyone can sympathize with teenage anxiety about the future to some degree, surely?

Any comments or reassurances would be most appreciated–and thanks for reading this little attack of narcissism. I feel much better now. :slight_smile:

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I can’t offer you much reassurances and I don’t mean to sound snarky ('cause I don’t mean it in that way at all) but welcome to the real world. I’ve wanted to go back to being a carefree kid ever since I became and adult three years ago. This growing up stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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good for you. tbh, i would have loved to have been able to finish high-school early. i’d be happy without memories of graduation and the prom (both sucked) i myself am coming up on 19 near the end of this month.
I’ll warn ya now, introspection at 18 is never a good thing. you shouldnt worry about the sats or the diploma because that’s all in the past now. i’ve done too much worrying about this sort of thing, so i thought i’d just pass on the advice before you go crazy mulling it over…

4

just wait till you turn 30.
your twenties will feel like baby years…so enjoy it:)

5

To somewhat butcher “The Road Less Traveled”:

You took the toad less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.

I did not enjoy much of high school. At all. I took SATs and was largely bored by them. I went to exactly one dance and that was so I could say I’d been to one. I was required to play sports, so I did (I would have done baseball and track anyway). I was stuck four years in a lot of stuff I didn’t want to do, and most of it I could have done without. Spending that time here would have been a lot more helpful to me.

Point is that just because you didn’t experience things many other people in this country experience doesn’t mean you’re less-off, or harmed, or anything like that. The stuff most of my peers enjoyed I didn’t like, or couldn’t do, or something like that. So I did my own thing, and I was able to enjoy myself a lot more than if I’d been with them.

Happy 18:)

6

Er…introspection during high school (and really still going on) was one of the things that stabilized me … or at least kept me a lot more stable than I otherwise would be. Considering why you are where you are, and if you made a mistake, and where you might be … these are not necessarily bad things.

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I’m coming up for 25 & went through a long bout of clinical depression starting at 19 & ending around 21; I can sympathize with the issue of leaving school, though I went back after a couple years. I used to look back & wonder, “Where would I be now if I hadn’t had problems then?”. I now realize that worrying about the road not taken is pointless. Concentrate on forging your path.

BTW, I never went to prom, either. Truthfully, I don’t regret it a bit. I went to graduation, but that was…eh. It was hot, is what it was.

Time does go by quickly, as you said… I was recently talking with my closest friend, whom I’ve known since the very beginning of college (Fall 1997): We talked about how much we’ve changed in some ways, how much we’ve remained the same in other respects, and how quickly the time has passed. How can we be 24? But here we are, pretty happy.

And you know what? We’re anxious about our futures even though we’ve chosen career paths. “THE FUTURE!” can be a scary thing. I think that until you’re out there doing whatever it is that you’re doing (working, choosing a major, etc.), you’re nervous about the prospect. You still have time to grow & change - try to relax your brain a little. I think it’ll do you good.

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Hello from another high school dropout. Actually, I’m a high school dropout/college graduate.
I left HS the first time in my Jr. year at age 16. Re-enrolled the following year because my mom insisted that I do so. I tried to have a positive attitude about it, but after the first day, I could tell it wasn’t going to work out. Six weeks into the school term a wonderful thing happened. I turned 17, at which age I could withdraw from school without parental consent. So my birthday present to myself was leaving high school for the final time. That was one of the better things I’ve ever done.

Don’t worry. In spite of all the people who told me I’d spend my life digging ditches or driving a garbage truck, I’ve had to do neither.

I got a GED first, then entered a Community College. They put me on academic probation for the first two terms, then that was removed after I made the required grade-point average.
At no point after that first entrance into Junior College has the fact that I dropped out of HS had any bearing on anything. With the Jr. College diploma, you can get into just about any State-supported university that you may wish to. I didn’t want to continue my education past the bachelor’s level, but if I had wanted to, dropping out of high school wouldn’t have hurt my chances of getting into graduate school.

I have applied for and been hired into a number of very competitive positions since college, and my history of dropping out of high school has never hurt my chances of employment.

The only thing in your comments that gives me pause is that you seem to be staying at or very close to home every day. My advice would be to get out, get a job, learn to deal with your shyness and meet people.

All this is not to say that, in general, I recommend dropping out, but high school isn’t for everybody. There are a few of us who do better by leaving it and getting on with our lives.

Good Luck!

9

You are about to experience a new feeling, the disappearance of time. You will likely wake up tomorrow and be 32, not knowing what the heck happened to your 20’s. And from what I hear it gets worse after that. Good luck!

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You have a great story. I think it takes a lot of personal will to be able to recognize that what you want is not a mainstream desire. Welcome to the world. I think that you recognize some of the challenges that you will have to face, the timidness for example.

Somethings we have to do to get forward in life are not fun. For me it’s personal finance. I hate that, I wish I’d made good habits early on.

Get out, do different things, there are other worlds to discover within books, but books are not the world.

Don’t feel like there is a college, college major, career domino effect. There isn’t, although many people will try to make you feel like there is. Yes, you will have to decide these things but they don’t lock your future in stone.

My advice to you is to try to learn useful things in addition to the fascinating things. History is fascinating, but often useless. How to balance a check book or a general ledger on the other hand…

11

Oh to be 18 again…
enjoy yourself while you are young. Aim for the stars and remember you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it!

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Thanks everyone, for your comments. I do need to do other things. My parents are constantly nagging me about how I should “expand my horizons,” do more things, get out more… They are quite right, of course. :slight_smile: And I am making plans and filling out job applications–it just gets to be a bit too much, some times. But it always looks better in the morning, I find. My parents are really supportive and that helps a lot. Both had pretty non-traditional educations, so they understand a lot of my concerns.

I really appreciate y’all sharing your experiences. Thanks.