Undecided: navigating life and learning after high school

What You Need to Know

One alternative open to you directly after high school—or even now while you are still in high school—is service, otherwise known as volunteering. At the heart of this path is a desire to offer your skills and energy in support of an ideal that is much larger than yourself. That ideal might be educating people, or protecting the environment, or serving your country, but the willingness to do service comes from a drive to do something meaningful and big. Often this drive is personal, or it can be passed down to you from your family, your religious training, or a mentor who has inspired you. We live in a world that has great need for smart, energetic young people who care about making a difference. Because the willingness to do service comes from an internal orientation, it is also a way to work at things you like to do, which is different from a regular job or internship, where you will spend a lot of time doing things that other people tell you to do. Volunteering allows you more personal choice around how you spend your days, and if you go back to Part One and look at your temperament and preferences, you will probably know right away whether that is important to you. And if you don’t know whether or not it is important, service can be a great way to experiment with different educational and career opportunities. It’s amazing how much you can do if payment is not a priority.

You may think this advice is conflicting in regard to military or civil service, where mission and orders rule over personal choice. But think about it: if you love to work with animals or bungee-jump or take apart the microwave in your spare time, those interests can be cultivated—for free—as part of your training and service in these arenas. Sure, you will have to follow standard protocol, but since you are volunteering yourself, even the most rigid organizations are far more likely to work with you and your natural inclinations than if you were an employee.

Volunteering is a magic door-opener, and you can find yourself doing some pretty high-level stuff if you position yourself in the right place and work hard. Connections are essential to placement and advancement, no matter what field you wind up working in. Thus, in addition to work experience, you could gain a foot in the door at a point where normally you’d still be stuck outside, or stockpile a handful of killer references. It’s a tough job market out there, and every little bit helps.

Entering into service or volunteering in your community is also a fast-track out of the doldrums: If you’re bored, uninspired, or at a loss of what to do with your time, and the prospect of going straight into more school feels like the last thing you want to do, helping others can be the fastest way to help yourself. Doing a stint at a nonprofit or learning the ropes as an unpaid volunteer in a field that seems sort of cool is an easy means of expanding your perspective and your skills in ways you can’t anticipate now. It can also provide you the opportunity to find out what really matters to you and possibly to travel and learn in distant places.

Many people who are interested in service already have an altruistic bent. Whether they know it or not, they tend to value relationships, experience, and charity as their own kinds of compensation. Like I said, this bent may come naturally or may be passed down as part of your family’s value system. And it may come just from feeling fulfilled after volunteering a time or two—even if it’s just helping a neighbor unload her groceries or participating in your school’s food drive. No amount of money can buy the feeling of being the object of sincere appreciation and gratitude, and when you mix in the ideal of helping the common good—well, that is money (in a karmic sense). But not everyone who ends up doing service knows ahead of time that they’ll like it—nor do they have to be selfless. In fact, at this point in your life, doing service can originate from a place of real self-interest.

One of the hardest things for young people to acquire is experience. It’s a catch-22, because you need experience to get a job, but most jobs require people to have some previous experience. Going into service to gain some real, hands-on practice in the world is just as legitimate a reason as going in with high ideals. Let’s say two people volunteer to build houses for Habitat for Humanity. One is doing it because he wants to help lift families out of poverty. Another is doing it because she wants to gain practical skills and meet people, and helping a family is a nice bonus. Either way, the result is the same: A family gains a new home and the mission of the organization is served. The inner motivation of the volunteer is thus, in a way, almost beside the point. So don’t count service out, even if you don’t consider yourself the type. For those who have limited funds, it is a much less expensive way to gain knowledge and experience.

Dollars to doughnuts, service offers you the most varied, personally rewarding, and open-ended path into the future. What’s more, you don’t need a lot of skills to go into service. You will get your training on the job and in the field; more often than not, it is real-time, real-life training that will boost any kind of future résumé or application.

A 2013 report put out by the Corporation for National and Community Service found that volunteers have a 27 percent higher chance of finding employment over fellow candidates who did not volunteer. If you eventually want to go to college, taking time off to volunteer at an organization can be a real eye-opener that will help you focus on what you want to accomplish at school when you go back to your studies.

But this alternative is not for everyone, especially if you’re not the kind of person who does especially well with long-term planning or commitments. You need sincere passion and commitment to the organization or cause you are providing service for, for as long as you agree to work, because once you sign on, it may be hard to turn back—particularly if you sign a contract with the military or a civil service program. Also, many of these organizations are understaffed and overstretched, so they will quickly come to rely on you (which is, generally speaking, a good thing!). Start by talking to other people who have chosen a life of service, such as veterans, chaplains, social workers, civil servants, and Red Cross and other nonprofit volunteers. If you simply want to try volunteering, start now and start small. Different kinds of service are needed everywhere, even in your own neighborhood. To get you started, I’ve provided links throughout this section to the best online search sites for you to browse.