EP 14: I Changed My Mind About College & I'm Not Sorry | Choosing Your Own Path After High School

A few months ago Harper was all in on college. Now? She's questioning everything — and she's talking about it out loud.

In this episode of Rarely Said, Harper gets honest about why the traditional college path stopped feeling right for her, what she actually wants her life to look like, and why success doesn't have to come with a diploma and a mountain of debt attached to it.

This isn't about telling you not to go to college. It's about giving yourself permission to actually think about whether it's right for you.

We talk about:

• Why Harper changed her mind about college almost overnight
• The pressure to follow everyone else's path after high school
• Real alternatives — podcasting, cosmetology, entrepreneurship, community college
• Why student debt scared her more than starting over
• Her mom Tera's story — hair school first, degree at 50, successful salon owner
• What it looks like to build something on your own terms

Your path doesn't have to look like everyone else's to be valid.

If you've ever felt judged for not fitting the college mold — or just quietly wondered if there's another way — this episode is going to feel like a breath of fresh air. Drop your thoughts in the comments. 👇

Transcript

0:05

Welcome to Whirly Said, the podcast where we talk about what everyone feels but not everyone says. I'm your host, Harper, and I'm so excited you're here. Today we're gonna talk about my thoughts and kind of my decision on why I don't want to go to college. I've kind of been going back and forth with this because just a few months ago I was like, I am going to college, like that's what I want to do. And recently I've been kind of like changing my mind with it and kind of wanting to not go to college now. And there's like a lot of reasons for that, but I think like my biggest reason is I feel like I'm not hating, but mm, I feel like people mostly want to go to college to like party and get with people and do all that kind of stuff. And I feel like I've already really grown out of that phase of life, and I want to start my life early and start making money and not like be at school another four years. I literally hate going to school, so I feel like me going to school for another four years would be absolute hell. Yeah, I think that I want to start a life early, and I have a lot of different paths I feel like I can go in at this point. Obviously, I have my podcast, my mom owns a hair salon, so I could kind of go in that path of doing cosmetology school or apprenticing someone. I think if I want to end up going to college, I would do the path where I go to community college for two years and transfer in somewhere local. I don't really want to go anywhere far. I used to want to go to ASU super bad, but I feel like the people there are kind of degenerates, so I rather stay here and if I want to go, go for an education, but not to do all the other crazy stuff. I feel like especially in my area and where I go to school, it's kind of normal to go to college. Like literally everyone goes to college. I don't really have or don't really know anyone that is like, no, I don't want to go to college, like whatever. But everyone at my school goes to college. A lot of people around me go to college, everyone's committing to college for sports and doing all that stuff. But for me, school, I've never really had the greatest grades. Like I'm not a genius, I don't do a sport, so it's just like I'm not really sure what I would go for because in my life I just want to make a lot of money, so it's not like I'm going to do sports or learn. I just want to make money. I think being successful doesn't mean you have to go to college. I've definitely heard people saying, like, oh, well, you have to get a degree if you want to do this or do that. But I honestly don't think you need to do that. Personally, I guess it really depends what you want to do. Obviously, if you want to like be a lawyer or do something or a doctor, you like you have to go to school for that. But with me, I don't want to be a doctor or a lawyer. Like, if anything, I would want to do social media or do hair, so obviously, like I don't need a degree to do that unless I'm just like going to hair school or cosmetology school. But if I were to give like a little piece of advice for people that feel judged because they're not going to college, everyone has like their own path and their own thing that they want to do. And like that's okay, that's good to be different. If you want to be different and not go to college, then and you have a path that you want to go down that doesn't even require college and you want to start your life early, then I think that not going to college is a good option. Also, college is expensive, like very expensive. I think I rather start making money than go to college and like be in debt because then that's just another setback. Obviously, there's a lot of alternative paths, so you don't have to go to college, like being an entrepreneur, you can do social media, content creation, you could be a hairstylist, you could do all that stuff without going to college. And also, like what my mom did, she did hair school, she now owns a hair salon, and she decided to do college when she was 50 online, and she like fully graduated, and it was great. Like you could always decide when you want to go to college and wait till you think you're ready and you think you want to learn or you have a passion and you want to learn about it, then I think you could always do that. It's not like right after high school you have to go to college, you can start your life and just get everything ready until you feel like mature enough and like you want to learn, like you want to actually put effort into the school, and then you could do it at a later life. I feel like with me, I have literally no passion to learn anymore because of school. Like I literally hate going to school. And so I think if I find a passion and I want to actually learn about something later in life when I'm more mature and have had quite a break from school, I feel like I would be a lot more successful in getting good grades and everything than if I were to go next or in I guess in two years after my senior year. So that's my look about college and how I don't want to go. If you're listening and you already feel seen, then this podcast is doing its job. You don't have to have your life figured out to be here. Just noticing is enough. Thank you. Talk to you again soon.