To finish the 2023-2024 school year and welcome next year’s seniors, a survey was conducted to ask the Class of 2025 about their goals and career aspirations for the future.

As the year comes to a close and the juniors watch the seniors say goodbye to their school life and prepare for adulthood, they inevitably begin to wonder what their future will look like as their last year of school approaches. To learn more about our future seniors, fellow journalists asked them to fill out a survey about their hopes, dreams, and plans for the future, aiming to understand their attitudes and expectations for the coming years.

“I am really excited for the upcoming year. It’s scary but inspiring to start thinking and planning for the future. One always wishes for this day to come, but then you can’t believe it when it actually does,” eleventh grader, Veronica Urdaneta, said.

With such excitement and nerves come great expectations and fears. The greatest expectation for most students is to be happy, though each has their own definition.

“I want to have a life where I am comfortable and happy. To me, being happy is feeling comfortable, safe, and not stressed. Being successful is knowing what I am doing and enjoying it,”  eleventh grader, Samuel Zuñiga, said.

Teenagers’ expectations and desires for the future are significant, yet we know our dreams are not magically fulfilled but need to be worked for. Some of the ways in which our future seniors are planning to achieve their goals are:

“With a lot of dedication, consistency, and discipline,” eleventh grader, Emilio Mesa, claimed.

When talking about the future, one inevitably thinks about having a family. In the modern era and given the current adolescent developmental stage of 11th graders, one might expect few students to be thinking about forming a family. Yet, this is not the case for The Columbus School’s 11th graders. Nine out of ten students interviewed were planning on having a family.

“To be happy, live a long and successful life, and have a good and successful family,” seventeen-year-old, Thomas Bernal, said. This is his greatest wish and primary goal in life, just like many other students who not only wish to have a family but also see themselves with a family in the future.

When considering the future with or without a family, it is important to think about how you will provide for yourself and others. Hence, the juniors were asked what they were planning to study or what career path they would like to take.

“Business,” answered the majority. “Chemical engineering,” eleventh grader Maia Gallon, mentioned. “Literature,” Urdaneta, declared. “Odontology,” Zuñiga, announced. 

Many other students responded with varying fields, careers, and jobs they wanted to undertake. All with one focus in mind: enjoying their work and having their work sustain them and their families comfortably.

Regardless of everyone’s different and varying plans, they all had one thing in common: the desire for happiness. In their unique way, and with their own definition of happiness, this was the ultimate goal and desire for the juniors, and they were all willing to work hard to achieve it.

“Dying fulfilled,” is the greatest wish in life and the greatest accomplishment, Urdaneta attests.