Where did it all go wrong/right for you?

WolfAtTheDoor · 10-04-2009, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xevious

I was pressured to go to college immediately after high school. But I really didn't know what I wanted to do. Although I had sense of my interests, it was quite large and I had no clue about what to choose. How do you pick one thing to be your career if you've many interest? Nobody around me was very helpful. I was good in math and science, so people instantly tossed up "Hey, go into engineering--with a degree like that you can do almost anything." Well, the engineering discipline can be quite intensive and not leave much room for exploring anything else. I hated it.

I was also stuck... didn't really know what to do. I switched to Liberal Arts in hopes of finding "my calling." It was then when I realized I was good with computer programming. But I could no longer get into that major, because of two things: in liberal arts (as an engineering undergrad, I could have switched) and my GPA was lacking. I was trapped... couldn't really see where to go from there. Accordingly, my GPA crashed and burned. I got lost in a sea of confusion, finding refuge with friends who were similarly distraught. I ended up on academic probation. And eventually, I had to leave. It wasn't because I was stupid (I had a 3.7 in high school)--I had horrible advisers and couldn't find myself.

What did I do? I joined the USAF. I "got outta Dodge" and left everything--parents, friends, and familiar surroundings. It was really one of the best decisions I ever made. I was able to be completely on my own and rebuild from the ground up. I ended up graduating from Univ. of Maryland with an excellent GPA in Computer Science.

The sad thing is that I really didn't need to go through all that. Had I taken time off after high school, I could have explored a number of avenues to discover myself. Instead, I wasted my time in college, blew it, and had to rebuild from scratch.

Anyway... enough about that. Hope you find it helpful...

~Xev

Wow. That gives me a large amount of optimism with my current situation, which is more or less exactly the same as the one you have just described except I took the initiative and quit college as soon as I realised I hated it and I had no direction...

I'm hoping that 2010 will be the making of me... that I will actually pick it up and find something that genuinely interests me and follow that. I've always been relatively successful with english literature but I've never found myself TRULY enjoying it. I more or less just enjoy the praise I get from being good in that field.

I'm determined not to be 'pushed' in any direction by my peers. I think in this day and age it's far too easy to 'jump the shark' and end up in a position where you'll be relatively well-off in your career in the future, but at the expense of losing a grip on all of the aspirations you had when you were young. What with the recession and everything, everyone is far too keen to find something well-paid and then stick with that.

I'm not in life for the money, I'm in it for the enjoyment. If it means I have to spend a large portion of my days sitting in a cramped flat eating ready meals just so I can actually enjoy getting up and going to work in the morning, then so be it. I guess I'll just keep going and quitting colleges until someone shoves the perfect job title right under my nose.

I'll get back to you in 20 years.

mr dave · 10-04-2009, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WolfAtTheDoor

I'm determined not to be 'pushed' in any direction by my peers. I think in this day and age it's far too easy to 'jump the shark' and end up in a position where you'll be relatively well-off in your career in the future, but at the expense of losing a grip on all of the aspirations you had when you were young. What with the recession and everything, everyone is far too keen to find something well-paid and then stick with that.

in my experience this attitude will cause you some strife in the not so distant, post-graduation working world.

unless you're studying medicine or some other highly specialized under saturated field, you'll likely find yourself taking whatever job you can get. regardless of the economy.

in terms of your aspirations, write them down somewhere or email them to yourself and save it in an archive. check them out again in 5 years or so. see which ones are really worth holding onto after a year or two of repaying student loan debt.

i know it's a rather pessimistic view but it's the harsh reality of the situation. if you're just getting a BA you're going to be competing with thousands of other grads, not to mention the tens of thousands of others who have the same piece of paper and who've accrued a bit of working experience.

in my view the real benefit and value to post secondary education is the life experience it provides the individual. and you get to study stuff you're actually interested in learning about while you're living it.

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