Seniors are going through the hard decisions of choosing a college for the next two-plus years of their lives. College decisions carve a path into adulthood and the rest of their lives.

Seniors struggle to pick between the many options of colleges and often want to have a second choice to fall back on.

Arianna Finch plans to attend the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “If I didn’t end up going to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, I would go to Fisk University in Nashville because I’ve dreamed of going there since fifth grade.”

Ultimately, Finch decided on UTK. “I love the idea of going to college in a big city environment and it’s one of my cheaper choices.”

Finch wants to become a therapist to help people struggling in their day-to-day lives. “I plan to major in psychology and later become a therapist to become the listening ear I never had,” Finch said.

Uddhipti Basnet is also about to graduate and head off to college. She talks about the struggles and hard decisions she has had to make recently.

“I plan to go to college out of state at Texas Woman’s University because my family lives nearby in Texas,” Basnet said.

She wants to attend this college because they are well known for their dentistry programs.

“After I graduate college with a dentistry degree I want to go straight into the dentistry field,” Basnet said. 

She says she wished she had more opportunities and time to consider her options. “If I could go to any other college, I would go to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.”  

Some people from West Creek prefer to stay close to home, like Ronnie LaBarge. “I chose to go to Austin Peay State University because it is close to home and cheap,” LaBarge said.

At APSU, he is going to major in cybersecurity. LaBarge chose this major so that it would look good on his resume and get him into a job quickly and easily. “When I graduate I want to get a job in Cryptography, or become an ethical hacker,” LaBarge said. 

If he had another opportunity at college, Ronnie says he would want to experience it in a different environment. “If I could attend any other college I would go to Nashville State Community College.”

Thinking about doing it all over again, Ronnie wishes he could go back through high school one last time, remembering how it prepared him for college.

“High school was easy and quick because I had good enough grades to not take my ACT,” he said.