The relentless turn of ancient academic rhythms bears down hardest in April. At New College, students are putting on the last push in a long semester. Time and sleep are in short supply. No group feels more tightly stretched than seniors. Some await word of highly competitive fellowships, and others juggle options for the next year. Virtually all struggle to complete their theses, the capstone projects required to graduate New College.

Last weekend, as the current crop of New College seniors worked to finish up, a substantial number of the incoming cohort began. These are high school seniors who had been accepted to New College and were visiting to make decisions about the academic year to come. Like our graduating seniors, they are enormously talented. As a group, they are, as students before them, deeply committed as a group to the ethics of environmental stewardship. One has been heavily involved in project to restore oysters to New York harbor.

The students in the incoming class are true digital natives. Their entry into first grade coincided with the release of the iPhone. They encountered touch screens before entering middle school and have never been in a world without Google and social media. They were in seventh grade when Facebook surpassed a billion users. Many have never read a print newspaper unless it was assigned in a school class. They inhabit a world filled with metal detectors, lockdowns and emergency response drills. The 9/11 attacks occurred the year they were born. Columbine occurred the year before, and we know what’s happened since.

Common to both sets of seniors is uncertainty. They sense, correctly, that the decisions they are about to make could irrevocably alter their futures, but they do not have enough knowledge to choose with full confidence. Also common to both groups is that they can, with any luck, reasonably expect to live another 80 years. Eighty years ago was 1938. Who would have foreseen what has happened since? How would one have advised high school graduates then?

I know what I tell New College seniors. Finish that thesis. It is important that you complete and defend a major piece of work that you have played a major role in designing. Your conclusions may not be earth-shattering, but the experience will stand you in good stead over the next 80 years. You have learned to think critically, to defend your views, to learn, and to pursue a passion. These matter. You will likely hold many jobs in the course of your life, and those skills will be critical both to employers and to starting your own businesses. They will enable you to continue learning, whether in graduate or professional school, online or on the job.

To the high school seniors, I suggest they consider investing in themselves by getting a good education. Some students will not want to plunge back into four more years of schooling, and it is certainly okay to step out for a year or two to travel or to work. Some will be impatient to enter the workforce, possibly taking classes part-time, and that is certainly a viable option. But those able to study full-time for four years should do so. They should find a university, like New College (or the Cross College Alliance schools), that encourages them to explore what they love, what they are good at and what makes this world better. They should learn to think critically and to write and speak well. They should learn to work with others, to learn to learn, and to cultivate their curiosity. Such learning allows graduates to act upon and to shape their own futures in an ever-accelerating world and it leads to rewarding jobs. It provides the tools for life that allow graduates to write their own ticket and not have it written for them.

Dr. Donal O'Shea is president of New College of Florida