“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is possibly an adult’s favorite question to ask people my age. It’s also possibly my least favorite question to answer. I have a goal: to advance equitability and ethicality in data and technology. But that objective is incredibly broad. It’s an end without a means. A destination without a path.

And my ultimate goal is probably not the answer most adults are looking for. In general, people greatly prefer concreteness to abstraction. A response along the lines of, “I want to be a data scientist,” would likely be met with a nod, a smile, and a “cool!” instead of a puzzled look or a blank stare, as my current response elicits. Even if the person giving that response had no idea what a data scientist was or what they did, “data scientist” is something to hold onto, something to Google later. “Aspiring data scientist” rolls off the tongue far more easily than “aspiring person who advances equitability and ethicality in data and technology.”

But does one need to be a data scientist in order to meet that objective? I personally don’t think so. I’ve always loved math, and I’ve long been interested in tackling large-scale social issues such as economic inequality and systemic bias. I learned to program more recently, but it very quickly captivated me.

I want to intertwine those three separate ideas, but I don’t see any benefit to meticulously planning out every step of my post-high-school journey right now. I love formulas (self-professed math nerd, as I mentioned earlier, and proud of it), but interests are not the same as input variables. There’s no way to algorithmically determine the optimal career path. There isn’t even an optimal career path.

Here at Parker, we are fortunate enough to have a liberal-arts curriculum, studying across disciplines and making meaningful connections between subject areas. We have the opportunity to take Independent Studies to further explore our already-established passions and a wide range of electives to discover new curiosities. We have teachers who are knowledgeable in the subjects they teach but could have studied something completely different in college or study it now just for fun. It’s perfectly acceptable to take a deep dive into a subject we know we like, but we should also keep an open mind during these formative high-school years.

At this juncture in my life, I want to take advantage of having absolutely no clue what I want to be when I grow up. Technically, one never needs to feel siloed into a particular job or area––career change is possible at any time––but adolescents especially should be encouraged to dabble in everything. 

It feels to me as though teenagers are pressured to “specialize” increasingly early in life––but the opposite should be true. Exploration and youth are synonymous. Setting off in a general direction without a calculated route can yield a better end result than studying a map before you go––and it’ll be more fun along the way.