A few weeks ago, when I was helping the advisors out with a Turing recruitment event, I noticed something slightly concerning -- that all of the people asking questions about professors and finding out whether or not CS 311 or CS 311H should be taken weren’t the students, but rather their (far more engaged) parents. While their children were getting dorm tours -- which isn’t unimportant, but certainly less important than knowing what classes you’re going to take for the next four years -- or worse, sitting next to their parents quietly, the parents were bombarding the advisors with questions, learning important information about their child’s next four years.

I have no problem with letting your parents make some important decisions for you. In middle and high school, autonomy is next to impossible, since most middle- or high-schoolers are typically fairly myopic. In college, though, while your parents might have some intuition about whether to take AP Biology or regular Biology freshman year, it’s fairly unlikely that most parents will know (with any degree of certainty, anyway) about whether or not taking Emerson’s verification class will help with finding a job or getting into grad school more than Qiu’s networks class. That’s something you have to decide for yourself -- that degree of newfound autonomy is as important to the college experience as living alone, cooking your own food, or managing your own money. This doesn’t mean that you should stop seeking out help from your parents entirely. My parents continue to be an important source of advice on a lot of aspects of my college experience. Knowing what classes I’ll take, on the other hand, is something I do by myself -- my parents won’t be sitting next to me in the advisor’s office.

The problem is that it’s pretty shockingly easy to let your parents make all of your decisions for you. I was once told a story about two young men who lived with their mother as adults, who waited on her hand and foot, and who ended up being incredibly socially awkward. Perhaps un-coincidentally, this is the exact plot of Psycho. I don’t mean to imply that listening to your parents or relying on them for advice makes you a murderer (or, perhaps advantageously, Anthony Perkins), but you do yourself a great disservice to let them live your life for you, rather than going out and exploring the world for yourself.

Perhaps the greatest pull of letting your parents make decisions for you is that the chance of error -- the chance that your parents will lead you astray -- is slightly less than the chance of you making mistakes on your own. They have more experience and often have gone through what you are currently going through. There will, however, always be situations in which you must act for yourself, independent of anyone else and certainly your parents, and independence will always better prepare you for those situations.

So if you’re just starting your college experience, take this moment to take control. Be your own person, seek advice from others judiciously but not over-frequently. Keep, as Ender Wiggin might say, your own counsel, and you’ll find yourself far better prepared for the challenges of college and the real world as a result.