Our future lies in passion and creativity

Opening our eyes to flaws in our society can open doors for passion and creativity to shine through (Photo via Flickr/Dima Bushkov)

The term helicopter parent made me cringe from the moment I heard it and it made the image of parents using drones equipped with GoPro cameras hovering over their kids pop into my head. From experience, pressure put on by parents to make their children do something only makes said kids want to do it even less. I agree with the idea of letting children discover what they love to do mostly on their own. Just as sometimes parents do too much, schools don’t do enough. During high school a complaint I often heard was that school does not prepare students for the “real world” and to a certain extent, I think they are right.

I choose my major because my high school economics teacher made the dismal science not live up to its name. Unlike most of my other teachers, she applied the subject to the real world. Although class discussions about economics and politics often took us on a tangent and led us to be several class periods behind, I thrived on the insight she provided because I could see myself using the ideas that I learned to solve problems and issues outside of the classroom. I think that is why a lot of people come to college undeclared or end up changing their major multiple times, they fail to discover their passion because of a school system that doesn’t teach them how their knowledge can be used positively in the world. Growing up, we are often taught to stick to the status quo, not to question, not push the envelope with our creativity and that only a certain path will lead us to success, however, change isn’t made by thinking inside the box.