Nowadays, the majority of high school graduates go on to college of some form. Whether it is a traditional four-year college, a two-year college, a career college, a technical college or an apprentice program, higher education is a necessity in our technology-driven world.

But for many people college is not what it used to be. Gone are the cookie-cutter degree programs that herd large groups of people into the legal, medical, business and academic professions. Now, there is a degree program for everyone with majors ranging from ethnography to choreography. The most recent addition to gain national attention is the degree in adventure sports.

“At Garrett College, a two-year school in Western Maryland, students can raft, hike and snowboard their way through a college education, receiving a degree in adventure sports. The program soon will be better, said Michael L. Logsdon, executive director of Adventuresports Institute, with a new center he hopes will be built on the other side of Deep Creek Lake, at the top of a mountain where students can walk out the door to the ski area, a white-water training course being constructed alongside and a 550-acre wilderness area.”

While most students will gravitate toward the traditional degree programs like counseling, business, education and health care, some students will seek more exciting career paths. Rather than forcing them into the current academic mold, let them explore to find the right program for them.