“People between 20 and 34 are taking longer to finish their educations, establish themselves in careers, marry, have children and become financially independent, said Frank F. Furstenberg, who leads the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, a team of scholars who have been studying this transformation. “A new period of life is emerging in which young people are no longer adolescents but not yet adults,” Mr. Furstenberg said” (Cohen, P., 2010, ).

I’ve always followed my grand life plan to adulthood, not letting one thing get out of place: get accepted to college, finish and graduate in four years, get a teaching job for the following school year, and move out. Done. I grew up having this plan in mind, thinking that once I graduated college, I was an adult and had to act as such. This wasn’t from any particular pressure from my family, but just what I thought should be expected of me. However, as I have begun teaching adolescents, I have found their goals and timelines are much different than mine and the “adult” stage of life seems to have been complicated in its definition. As Frank F. Furstenbeg mentions in this article, timelines are more different than even for people. From discussions with my students, it seems that adolescents are taking the opportunity to wait on college or entering the job market to explore more of the world and learn more about themselves. I have a student who plans to take a gap year before college to travel the world.  In our multicultural world, there desire to see new things and new people is greater than ever and perhaps a new goal among adolescents. The “get married and have babies” mentality of adulthood is outdated. So when does the adult period of life begin? Perhaps it is rather a state of mind. The post-adolescent pre-adult stage of life is when people can explore their world and begin to discover their identity and what they want from life. Adulthood begins when they can act on those discoveries.