Life is about opportunities and choices. The more opportunities you create for yourself in life, the more options you will have at any given time. Gaining control of your options and opportunities is the key to personal and professional success. Simply put, if you want to become the master of your own destiny, you must go to college.

Here are the top five reasons why you should choose to go to college:

1. The bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma

Once upon a time, college was completely optional. Even today, smart and hard-working people can build great careers and stable lives without the help of a college education. College is by no means required, but when you’re ready to start building a career for yourself, you’ll increasingly find that a college degree is a prerequisite for many entry-level job opportunities.

Companies and organizations want to hire employees who demonstrate commitment and perseverance. A college degree will show your future employer that you are dedicated to achieving your goals in life. Whether justified or not, a job applicant with a degree will be more valuable to an organization than an applicant thinking of forgoing college. If you want marketable job skills, higher wages, and the stigma of being smart and qualified, then choosing college is the way to go.

2. College will satisfy and expand your curiosity

If you have a general curiosity about how and why the world works the way it does, then you owe it to yourself to attend college. Education is a personal project. If you want to develop your mental faculties and increase your knowledge base, then you have to go to university. If you feel like you’ve learned everything you can in high school, if you don’t think there’s anything else you need to absorb, then don’t go to college. If you are passionate about improving understanding, then college is a must.

3. University is a process of continuous maturation

The university is freedom. When you attend college, you are free to live on your own, according to your own priorities. As you create your own personalized learning and living experience, you can’t help but grow as a person. College is a time for self-improvement and development, so if you want to grow and mature as an individual, college is the perfect playground for personal advancement.

4. College is all about networking

In college, you have the unique ability to create lifelong associations in a structured environment. Networking is important, but it can also be difficult. If you want to build relationships with students and teachers, you have to put in the effort. Unlike in the real world, in college, it’s easy to combine your individual interests with supportive allies who subscribe to those same interests. Take advantage of this environment and build relationships that will help you in the future.

5. College exposes you to things you wouldn’t normally experience.

As you begin to choose your path in life, it’s important to remember that finding yourself is as much a process of elimination as it is a process of discovery. Just as you seek interests and identities, you must discard certain life choices and frames of mind with which you disagree. College exposes you to new risks, rewards, people, places, ideas, lifestyles, eating habits, and career choices. The exposure is critical. You can’t form a genuine opinion about something if you’ve never been exposed to it.

University is a place to improve yourself, to satisfy your curiosities, to grow up, to interact and to be exposed to new things. University is an important and irreplaceable experience in life. Going to university is highly recommended.