It’s June, and this weekend hundreds of local high school seniors adorned in their caps and gowns will be graduating and deciding what to do with their new-found freedom. I am by no means full of wisdom, but as someone who went through the same thing not too terribly long ago, I’ve decided to honor these graduates with a few pearls of wisdom from someone a few years older.

• Keep your options open.

When I first left high school and started attending college, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. (In fact I only figured out the newspaper might be the way to go when I saw the job opening posted last year.) There were many different courses to pursue in college and I considered quite a few of them. I even considered being an economics major, but after realizing I couldn’t even balance my own check book, I decided that might not be the way to go, plus I hated the math courses – too many numbers and graphs and letters that stand for things, ugh. I took courses in earth science, astronomy, philosophy (which made my head hurt), calculus (which made me cry) and a million other topics before I realized what I liked and what made me want to crawl in a hole and hide, so let yourself explore a few things before you make any life changing decisions. You never know what might spark your interest.