Students around the country, including students in our own community, all face difficult decisions about what they will choose to pursue after graduating high school.

In the Monte Vista area, most students that go through high school are expected to continue on the route to college, with no second thoughts. In a district such as SRVUSD, graduation success is high, as is the rate of students that attend a college.

In other areas around the country, and simply just in California alone, many families have never had a member that has ever attended college, because the expectancy rates are not as high as it is in such pressured success areas such as Danville.

What has become the “norm” in many areas of the Bay Area, is for students to graduate from high school, and to continue on their educational path by attending a college.

As many students push themselves to be the best, junior Domi Dattola realizes the challenges students face in our own community as well as others.

“College is now an expectation,” junior Domi Dattola said. “If you don’t go to college, people look at you in a different way, like that you have something less than them. Society now is more focused on the resume that you have. College is one of those steps that you need to take if you want to fit in the standard.”

It has become an obsessive drive for parents to push their children to be the best, to succeed, to have a major role in society. Many students here at Monte Vista feel the pressure building up on them.

In addition, the pressure that the students face against the constant feelings of whether they’re good enough, or if they face failure. It puts  stress on family relations for students such as junior Sam Dela Rosa.

“It doesn’t allow family time,” Dela Rosa said.

For many families in the state, their children are the first to be attending college. It almost seems to be more of a rarity for people to actually being able to go to a college than readily having the option or opportunity.

Also, for many families unlike areas around Monte Vista, families are not able to afford to send their children to college, so they have little to no options of letting their child get an education, especially when it is so expected now in this time period.

In this community especially the school puts a lot of pressure on its students to strive, especially in order to get into a university. Junior Kiera Hooper struggled with making the decision whether to take a college suggested course, or a class that would be more enjoyable for her interests.

“College affects the classes that I am going to take senior year, for example I wanted to take forensics because it interests me even though it counts as an elective and not a science,” junior Kiera Hooper said.

Students have to sacrifice the classes that they are interested in and want to take for the specific class that will better their chances of getting into a prestigious university.

“My counselor suggested that I take a science besides forensics because it would improve my chances at getting into a good university if I had 4 years if science,”  Hooper said.“Instead of taking a class that would be engaging and interesting to me, I’ll probably take a class I won’t enjoy as much in order to get into a prestigious university.”

College and the ways to get there is definitely not an easy path, but students try to prevail to get their education.