The battle between college and life

[Teb8807]

I’m currently taking my last semester in college. Although I’m excited to be earning my first college degree (associate’s degree), I’m feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. I’ve been going to college for 2 and a half years, with only taking a couple of semesters off, which was either because my finical aid didn’t go through or there were no classes I needed to take towards my degree during that semester.

I fell in love with college when I first started attending. I loved meeting new people on campus every semester, always having something new to learn, and most importantly, becoming trained in my field of study. But the closer I got to my degree, the more demanding my classes and coursework got, and the less of a personal life I had, honestly. I’m not going to say my hard work hasn’t paid off, because it really has. I’ve won more awards than I can count on my fingers and have been invited to official dinners hosted by the college to be acknowledged for my achievements. I have a GPA of 3.76 at the moment, which it may be a little less than that by time this semester is over to be honest. So, I’ve been busy and I’ve put my life on hold to work my ass off in college.

While attending school, I lost my girlfriend and the relationship ended really badly, lost my apartment that I loved (I couldn’t afford it on my own when we broke up), and was forced to move back in with my parents. I also haven’t had any luck finding a job. This summer, I worked at an internship without pay, and it was such a horrible experience, like most peoples are. I worked 5 days a week from July 9th until the weekend before the new semester started on September 4th. Now I’m working at the college and going to school full-time. I make $7.40 an hour and can only work 16.5 hours a week. Not a good paying job, and it will end when the semester is over in December.

Lately I’ve been really depressed, have lost a decent amount of weight, and I’m having all sorts of anxiety left and right. I feel that the things that I’ve had to put behind me to focus on my studies and to get my degree are finally catching back up with me. I’m not really over what had happened between my ex, I haven’t had the time to seek new relationships, and my friends have been missing in action, which most likely has something to do with me not having much time to hang out, and because they have their own life issues to deal with. So, I’m a lonely mess at the moment! And to be honest, I’m so tired of slaving away at homework and waking up to go to class on 3 to 4 hours of sleep. My life is well…taking off, yet going downhill at the same time. If that even makes sense.

I should be happy at this moment in my life, because I have so many accomplishments under my belt and I’m about to get my first degree! But the only thing I can think of is how I have to transfers to a four year college and earn my bachelor’s degree, but I’m so worn out! There is a huge part of me screaming to take a year off of school before I go back to get some of my personal problems in check. Get healthy, have some time to spend with my friends, seek new relationships, and to get a job so I can move the hell out of my parents’ house! After doing some research, most people don’t take year off after the first degree, and apparently it looks bad on your resume. *Shakes head*

A part of me feels…weak. Like why the hell can’t I just continue college like everybody else, or maybe like I’m just running away or something. Most people say to me when I bring this up, “Don’t do that, you’ll have a harder time going back!” I know I’ll go back, because I do love the college and I’m not finished. I’m just not in the right state of mind at the moment. I’m not happy, and even though I’ve made it through some tough life shit while going to school, it’s becoming harder to push this shit under the rug any longer. I need to get my life together!

This semester, I'm dreading my homework and going to school. Although, I do like my job even though the pay is bullshit. I don't really know what to do at the moment. I feel just stressed, pressured, and forced to do something my heart is telling me to take a break from, but my "professional" side of me is saying, "Man the fuck up, pussy boy. This is life!"

 

[B_Evie]

Internships are really only good to gain a little real experience, meet new people, and make connections that can lead to future successes. School is hard work. Relationships are hard work. Living at home is not the coolest thing to go back to. You are not alone in doing that and not being able to find a job. A business associate of mine recently was hiring for a position in his company and received 400 resumes emailed to his HR person on the very first day the job was advertised!

I can only say that things are very very tough right now but they will get better. You will get out of your parents house when the time is right. A lovely new girl will enter your life when you are ready for it. School, however, is here and now. It might help you to take a vacation for a week or so and really get away. Go camping or something that is inexpensive and just hang out and do nothing. You are only 24 and have a really long life ahead of you. Make it the best it can be. Just know that once you get out of school and start working, life is still the same. You still have day-to-day challenges and hardly ever get to do what you really want or feel like doing.

On the other hand, if you're a risk taker, drop out of school for a while. It might really change your life for the better. It's possible your career path will change altogether and you'll never want to go back. That's the great thing about taking risks. You never know what's going to happen and anything is possible. It's your choice and that's the most important thing about your situation. Good Luck!!

 

[rbkwp]

Culmination of your lifes work & studies thus far, coming to an end huh
Happens to many i imagine. achievements can come at a price also aye?
Next Goal?
Usually travel for some, whatever
Guess you can always be thankful that phase has been successful, despite
Be interesting what you get into for the next huh?
Try and remain Positive matey, brush aside the ole depressive mode if you can
ALL the BEST

 

[Ohioguy]

I would say first and foremost go get laid! That will help a whole lot of things. See if you can get an "RA" position at the 4 year school that you chose to go to. That will get you out of your parents house. The third thing I would try to do is get a part time weekend job in a "college bar" working as a bartender, as a bouncer, doorman or PR on the street. You will meet tons of girls, get laid, have some cash in your pocket and free housing! Do that and you are going to feel great about yourself.

 

[Teb8807]

Internships are really only good to gain a little real experience, meet new people, and make connections that can lead to future successes. School is hard work. Relationships are hard work. Living at home is not the coolest thing to go back to. You are not alone in doing that and not being able to find a job. A business associate of mine recently was hiring for a position in his company and received 400 resumes emailed to his HR person on the very first day the job was advertised!

I can only say that things are very very tough right now but they will get better. You will get out of your parents house when the time is right. A lovely new girl will enter your life when you are ready for it. School, however, is here and now. It might help you to take a vacation for a week or so and really get away. Go camping or something that is inexpensive and just hang out and do nothing. You are only 24 and have a really long life ahead of you. Make it the best it can be. Just know that once you get out of school and start working, life is still the same. You still have day-to-day challenges and hardly ever get to do what you really want or feel like doing.

On the other hand, if you're a risk taker, drop out of school for a while. It might really change your life for the better. It's possible your career path will change altogether and you'll never want to go back. That's the great thing about taking risks. You never know what's going to happen and anything is possible. It's your choice and that's the most important thing about your situation. Good Luck!!

I probably made it sound like I just wanted to take a year of to be...well, lazy. I'm just going through a lot of personal struggles at the moment, and it's not mixing well with school. I would like to see a therapist as well. Even tough this is "online" and not "real life", it's hard for me to lay everything out there like it's no big deal. Haha

Like I said, I love college and I will go for my next degree. It's not really considered dropping out, since I would have my first degree and would be taking a year off to earn my next one. It's just hard to work the kinks out while giving my full attention to school. Kinks that I should have worked out years ago, honestly. I feel that going back to school with a more positive and fresh mentality would benefit my studies and not hinder it, yet taking a year off sounds kind of scary.

Like you said, I'm still young, but I'll always have that fear of making the wrong choices that could make my future less than what I expect, which I think is what makes this whole decision frightening. I worked so hard to get to where I'm at right now and I know I have a bright future ahead of me, but I don't feel like that's the case with how I feel at the moment.

So no, it's not just about relationships, friends, etc. It's just part of the bigger problem I guess you could say. I wish I could say more of what that bigger problem is, but I'm kind if a private person, and I would hate to have somebody I know find out this is me.

 

[xmarksbreakdownx]

I can totally understand this. Before I started college, I was so excited to go. After I had started, however, it became a burden in my life every day. Actually made me depressed. I'll message you some details, way to long to go into here.

 

[D_James_A_Farafield]

Internships are really only good to gain a little real experience, meet new people, and make connections that can lead to future successes. School is hard work. Relationships are hard work. Living at home is not the coolest thing to go back to. You are not alone in doing that and not being able to find a job. A business associate of mine recently was hiring for a position in his company and received 400 resumes emailed to his HR person on the very first day the job was advertised!

I can only say that things are very very tough right now but they will get better. You will get out of your parents house when the time is right. A lovely new girl will enter your life when you are ready for it. School, however, is here and now. It might help you to take a vacation for a week or so and really get away. Go camping or something that is inexpensive and just hang out and do nothing. You are only 24 and have a really long life ahead of you. Make it the best it can be. Just know that once you get out of school and start working, life is still the same. You still have day-to-day challenges and hardly ever get to do what you really want or feel like doing.

On the other hand, if you're a risk taker, drop out of school for a while. It might really change your life for the better. It's possible your career path will change altogether and you'll never want to go back. That's the great thing about taking risks. You never know what's going to happen and anything is possible. It's your choice and that's the most important thing about your situation. Good Luck!!

what she said.

 

[citr]

You remind me a lot of myself. I was in college, killing it, winning all kinds of nice awards, and several of my profs said I was the best student they'd ever seen come through the department. But I was fucking miserable. My senior year I tried to kill myself, wound up in the hospital for a long time, and eventually dropped out while I was just a few classes short of my degree.

Hibernated for a few months. Did not do much more than watch TV and get real fat. Watching all my really smart high-achieving friends go out and get hammered in the job search, and realizing how drastically unemployable my actions had made me, I figured I'd go into business for myself, since in that case no one has to tell me whether I'm good enough to work for them. I just either sink or swim.

One really big thing I've realized is I think it's extremely important, right now, to either know how to start profitable businesses, or to hone some freelance chops. Because while those standard full-time-w/-benefits job slots are really scarce right now, there is still a TON of demand for labor. Half the time I spend working is in just trying to figure out what freelancers to hire, and that need only increases the further I scale my business. I don't fully understand why "career track"-type jobs have shriveled up, but my heart breaks a little when I see young peeps like me limiting their search for work to basically "I either have a full-time [or part-time] position or I don't work at all." I think a freelancing business needs to be the ace-in-the-hole that any young person has right now, because full-time stuff simply isn't reliable right now.

So if you're good with a camera or something like that, get real serious and professional-like about it during your downtime until you could do a serviceable job for someone in whatever niche (I don't know anything about photography). Just focus on being serviceable, as you'll learn the rest as you go. And then check out some stuff on starting a freelance career. You don't have to set the world on fire, this just has to be a "hidden weapon" you have for when the job-search grind lets you down. Because it seems to be letting pretty much everyone down right now.

The "normal" route to work--where you just graduate college and plug yourself into some corporate machine as a full-time employee--is dysfunctional right now. When that happens, you need a way to "carve out" work on your own. There are more market opportunities out there at this very instant than I could do anything with in a lifetime, but when they can't be seized via the employee track, you need a way to still be out there and be "in the game."

As an example - at some point I'll have to step up my marketing game and put some promo videos together, or something. It's something I've slacked off on because the whole idea bores me. And I haven't really given it much thought. But sometime soon it will be the next logical thing to do, and so I'll go trolling for places where you can find good video-nerd types, and I'll go through a few people until I find someone where I can just give them simple instructions and get a serviceable video clip in response, and that will make me immensely happy and I will keep going back to him week after week because he makes my life easier. He hasn't done anything special or hard, he just makes himself available and does this service--which he probably learned from one of his hobbies--and makes the whole thing hassle-free. Maybe he's stuck in the job-search grind too, but there's nothing stopping him from setting up some crappy "I will make promo videos and stuff or whatever" website so that I can go and troll him for work.

Haha, so I have no idea if any of that was relevant at all. But I just think it will save you a lot of future stress and pain if you develop a shingle you can hang up for whenever the job search sucks. There's a huge demand for work, it just seems like that one particular faucet for it has dried up.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

First of all... you don't mention what you are getting degrees in.

You also don't mention what you want to be when you grow up.


That factors. I wanted to be an artist. I did not want to be an art teacher. Once I realized that, in the real world, no one gives a damn what art degree you have... they just look at your portfolio and who recommends you, it became clear that college, for me, was just an expensive way of putting off adult life and the start of a career for which a degree would be no help at all.
I dropped out and never looked back.

So the first question you need to ask yourself is "will the degree I am chasing actually be of any real benefit to the career I want?" your deep ambivalence toward the work of school may reflect a deep suspicion that you are wasting your time.

Another possible cause is that, deep down, you are still uncertain about what you want to do as a career. Maybe that internship gave you an unvoiced insight into the fact that the career you were contemplating kinda sucks.

While for some jobs ANY degree is beneficial, simply because it shows that you can finish what you start and organize your own efforts... for many careers you might want, having a degree in the wrong field won't help at all.

In which case, you might need to take some time off from school after getting your associates and try to figure out what degree you actually want to go for.


As to the pressures of school... school is ALSO a social opportunity. never again in your life will you be in a world where all the similar aged women, many of whom are still available, congregate in such a small and intimate setting.

There is a point beyond which working harder at school actually REDUCES your scholastic results because of the very ennui and loneliness that results... which you have experienced.

You have to schedule in SOME time to socialize and relax... believe me, relaxing the night before a test and a stiff cup of coffee in the morning actually improves test scores.
learn to be more efficient in your studies to lighten the workload.

For example... DO NOT TAKE NOTES IN CLASS. I know this sounds counterintuitive...
But the only thing you should take notes on are things like page assignments, books or periodicals you are supposed to get or read.... that kind of thing.

When you spend classroom time writing down what the teacher is saying, you are NOT thinking about what the teacher is saying, your brain is working on transcription, not comprehension.
When you go over those notes, later, if it turns out you don't understand them... there is No teacher there to ask to explain.

People do better if they spend class time Listening and actively thinking about the concepts being presented... if they aren't clear to you, you raise your hand and ASK the teacher to explain until they ARE clear to you. Information you clearly comprehend you will retain with far more detail and accuracy.

Later... after class, when you are doing the coursework in the books, THAT is when you make notes... and those notes should focus on recapping what you already understand... but more importantly on noting things in the texts that are unclear so you can ask the teacher at the next class.
This trick, alone, can make school half as much work.


beyond that... your feeling that maybe you should man up and face the fact that this is the way life is from now on is also very sound.

Career makes college look like vacation time in retrospect.

But, life from now on is gonna be work. So Now is the time to work on learning how to balance work with down time... with the socialization and relaxation that will make life feel more balanced... because you will need those skills in any career you take on.



oh, and one last thing... that shit job you think pays badly?

yeah... shut up. get used to it. You are not gonna come out of college making 6 figures.
You are gonna start at the bottom and have to work your way up.

While you are in college, you are gonna get paid shit.

Advice to get a job tending bar or other high tip paying nightlife jobs is useless... you are not gonna tend bar and accomplish anything significant in earning a degree.
That kind of life and that kind of money are only an excuse to NOT further your education.


First and foremost... determine if you need the degree... or if you really aren't sure you want THAT Particular degree...