What to Do After High School: Practical Advice For Grads and Parents From A Mom Who’s Been There
The kitchen table was sticky with melted popsicle juice last June, when my 18-year-old Lila pushed her unopened state university acceptance letter across the table and said, “I don’t want to go. Not this fall, anyway.” The AC was on the fritz, the box fan in the window was blowing old junk mail around, and her graduation tassel hung off the edge of our key bowl. I’d spent 12 years packing lunches, chaperoning field trips, and nagging her to study for the SAT, and I’d never once considered this answer.
“We already sent in the deposit,” I said, my voice tighter than I meant it to be. “What are you going to do instead? Sit on the couch and scroll TikTok all day?” She sighed, picking at a loose splinter on the table. “I don’t know what I want to do. That’s the point. If I go now, I’m just gonna pick a random major, rack up 30 grand in loans, and switch after my sophomore year anyway. That’s what Mia did, remember?” Mia was her cousin, who’d switched from biology to education in three years, and was still paying off the credits she’d never use. She wasn’t wrong.
I called Lila’s high school guidance counselor the next morning, panicking. She told me she sees this every year: 70% of the kids she works with don’t have a clear plan when they graduate, even the ones with perfect grades. For decades, we’ve told kids the only “successful” path is four-year college straight out of graduation, but that’s never fit everyone, and it fits even fewer now. After a couple weeks of talking to other parents and sorting through my own panic, we landed on a set of simple rules that worked for us, and I’ve passed them along to half a dozen other parents since.
First, we set three non-negotiables, no exceptions. One: 30 hours a week of productive time, either paid work, volunteer work, or shadowing. No full-time unstructured leisure. We didn’t care what it was, just that it got her out interacting with people and learning how to show up somewhere on time every day. Two: one small “taste test” of an interest every month. That could be a 2-hour workshop, a one-day job shadow, a $100 intro class at the community college, whatever. No requirement to stick with it if she hates it. Three: 10% of every paycheck goes into a dedicated “next step” savings account, no touching it for concert tickets or new sneakers.
Lila got a barista shift at the coffee shop down the street first, which she liked okay, but hated running their Instagram account. That’s how she figured out she never wants to do anything with marketing or communications, which was her original planned major. First month’s taste test was a graphic design night class, which she hated, said it was too much sitting still and following other people’s rigid rules. Second month, our neighbor who runs a local dog walking business went to Europe for three weeks, and Lila covered his routes. She loved it. By the time he got back, he offered her a permanent part-time spot. Her taste test that month was a weekend animal first aid workshop at the community rescue, which she aced, and came home talking nonstop about how interesting it was when one of the dogs had a bee sting reaction and she helped the instructor treat it.
This framework works for kids who do want to go straight to college, too. My friend’s son knew he wanted to work in engineering, so they used the same taste test idea: he shadowed a civil engineer at a local construction site for a week the summer before orientation, and figured out he hated outdoor site work and office meetings, so he switched to computer engineering before he started any classes. That saved him a whole semester of wasted credits. If your kid is set on going straight to college, one small concrete thing you can do is help them pick gen ed classes that count for multiple majors they’re curious about, instead of jumping straight into major-specific classes their first semester. For kids who know they don’t want college at all, help them look into local union apprenticeships or trade programs—my neighbor’s son graduated two years ago, refused to apply to four-year schools, and is already a fully qualified electrician making a steady wage with zero debt.
It’s been 10 months now. Lila cut back her barista shifts to one day a week, and she’s starting the part-time vet tech certification program at the community college this fall. She still doesn’t know if she’ll go on to a four-year degree in animal science to become a vet, or if she’ll just get her certification and work at the local clinic or open her own dog boarding business someday. I still catch myself checking four-year tuition websites sometimes, and worrying that I’m letting her make a mistake that will mess her up later. But last week, as we were loading her own dog into the car for a walk, she told me that if she’d gone straight to college like we planned, she’d be 15 grand in debt by now studying something she hates, and that’s way more of a waste than this year.
Last week, a mom from Lila’s old high school texted me, asking what advice I had for her own kid, who just graduated and says he has no idea what he wants to do next. I didn’t send her a long list of steps or a motivational quote. I just sent her the three non-negotiables we used, and told her that it’s okay to not have it all figured out at 18. Most of us don’t have it all figured out at 40, anyway.
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