When you hit the age of 18, everything changes. Honestly, I would start at 16 for me. When I was 16 I got a job, started practicing for the ACT (because that's definitely stressed), and I started dating. This all happened at once, and let me tell you...it wasn't easy. You think that growing up is so exciting and liberating, when in all reality it just makes life so much harder. When I was 17 I got my first kiss. NO, I am NOT a prude. I just wasn't ready. When I was 16 I got my first job. It paid a good amount, but I've now worked there for two years and I've come to realize that you can definitely know your co-workers too well. I just hit 18 not too long ago, and it changed my life. Now you think 18 is great...you can buy lotto tickets, buy porn, you're officially "legal", and you can even go see R rated movies. The biggest thing that came into my life when I turned 18 was the expectations of college. I was expected to know where I was going and what I was doing. Now how can an adult expect that out of a child still? It's scary, thinking about your future without your parents, room, and even your little furry friends waiting for you at home EVERY day you get back from school. You look at your job, boyfriend, and even the ACT that you took last year and think, "Man...haven't I been through enough?" We all must go through this, and I have no complaints. I'm thankful to get the chance to go to college, and even more thankful to be able to decide my future and how I want to live it. You can't throw an 18 year old into the real world and expect them to know what they're doing. I wasn't blessed with the mental capability to judge what I'm best at. Things change, people change. What if one day you want to be a nurse, and then the next you see an engineer and think, "Whoa, that looks so cool...maybe that would be better." The stress put on knowing your career and college is crazy. If you ask me, it's just blown way out of proportion.