This is going to be a short one, because honestly, if you're in this chapter, your path is already pretty clear and most of this course is going to be less useful for you than it is for everyone else.
There are some careers where the traditional academic path is just the path. There's no shortcut, there's no trade school equivalent, there's no internship that's going to get you there instead. If you want to be a doctor, you're going to medical school. If you want to be a lawyer, you're going to law school. If you want to go deep into engineering or research or any of the harder sciences, you're going to need the degree.
If that's you, and you're genuinely called to it, then congratulations. The discernment of what to do is mostly already settled. Your job now is to commit to it, do the work, and try to come out the other side without losing your soul to the grind, because those paths are notorious for burning people out.
A few things I'd still want you to sit with though, even if you're sure.
Is this actually your calling, or is it your parents' calling for you? Because medicine and law and engineering tend to attract a lot of kids whose parents have been pointing them toward those careers since they were in middle school. And if you're heading down that road just because it's what was expected of you, you're going to end up a really miserable doctor or a really resentful lawyer, and you're going to have spent ten years and a lot of money to get there.
Have you actually shadowed someone in the field? Have you seen what the day to day looks like? Because the version of being a doctor in your head is probably not what being a doctor actually looks like most days. Same goes for law. Same goes for academic research. The fantasy of the career and the reality of the career are very rarely the same thing, and it's worth finding out which one you're actually signing up for before you commit a decade to it.
And finally, are you actually built for it? Not in a "do you have the IQ" kind of way, although that matters too. More in a "can you handle eight more years of school, then residency, then the lifestyle that follows" kind of way. Some people genuinely thrive in those environments. A lot of people don't, and they only find out after they're already too far in to back out comfortably.
If you've sat with all of that and the answer is still yes, then go for it. The world genuinely needs good doctors, good lawyers, good engineers, and the fact that you're willing to commit to that path is a gift. Just go in with your eyes open, and don't lose sight of why you started.
For everyone else, the rest of the course is where the actual decision making happens.
