WolfAtTheDoor

i am nearly 19 years old. I have thus far been involved in 3 different college courses,about to embark on a fourth. I still have absolutely no idea what to do with my life, but not in the 'oh im so young and I have no direction' sort of way, in the 'im very close to finding myself' sort way. That being said, I find others tales of failure leading to success very comforting to hear.

This thread should act then as a collection of true underdog stories, rising from the ashes to snatch victory in the jaws of defeat. Or, if you are that way inclined, maybe you do not have a success story and your life has been entirely comprised of disappointments. That'll also suffice. As long as you haven't had year upon year of success stories. Because if you have, then I would rather pretend that people like you do not exist.

Freebase Dali

I'll bite.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug. So I joined the Army in 2003. Spent six years in Germany, and got out in April of this year. Now I'm going to college for free, for the next 4 academic years, and getting paid living expenses to do so.
So I don't need a job, and all I do is study and drink beer.
Simultaneously.
The next 4 academic years are going to be boring, but after 6 years of wasting tax payer money in the Army, I figure I'll milk 4 more years of America's livelihood for my own betterment.

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mr dave

i'm the latter and rather than post a long and whiny gripe i'll just say this.

i went to college because it's what people expected me to do because i understood how to get good grades in high school (memorization != learning). this left me with a pair of pieces of paper that i wouldn't even use to wipe my own butt with and an $18 000 debt that ended up costing me over $30 000 by the time i finished paying it off. i've had to spend so much time working other jobs to pay off my debt that my 'education' is now archaic and worthless.

i now work a job with a guy who barely finished high school in a call center that hires people who have barely developped the motor skills necessary to handle a freaking pen. yay college!


(for those that don't know, college in canada is more along the lines of technical schools where classes are streamlined for specific programs and courses generally run for 2 years).

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i am the universe

SATCHMO

I ate a lot of LSD. It made me who I am today...that and the marmot.

Farfisa

Well ever since I moved to Perry Hall my life has sucked, I haven't been able to have a steady relationship with a girl, I've had one "real" friend since I dropped out, I have to work a job in construction to pay for health insurance, and I don't even have my learner's permit. Yeah, my life is a ****ing mess, I should just start smoking crack because it really can't get any worse.

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

mr dave

this is the best advice no guidance counselor will ever grow the balls to give.

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i am the universe

VeggieLover

where did my life go wrong.... when i was born maybe?
wow thats an emo thing to say....
when my dad died??
nope, i had a happy childhood for 2.5 years after that
when my mom remarried?
mmm possibly. but that probably just seems so bad because it coincided with the beginning of pre-teen rebellion.

I'm gonna go with my life is actually pretty good considering all the random **** i've gotten myself into. I'm one lucky bas.tard.

I just have to survive the next 2 years....then the real **** will hit the fan.

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"Not remotely! Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

WolfAtTheDoor

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

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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i am the universe