I work with some teens and while many HS seniors are excited about going off to college for another 4-6 years of books and tests, many are not.
I cant blame them. I also was sick of school. I think the only reason I wanted to go to college was because I thought it would be like “Animal House” and I’d be away from my parents and get laid and all.
So what about you all? Were any of you also sick of school? Did any of you take some time off to go explore the world or anything before setting off for college?
Last two years of high school, I was really enjoying school for the first time in my life, and was looking forward to college.
About two years into college, though, I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do afterwards, and I wanted to jump off that train and do just about anything else for a year or two while I figured out what I was going to use the rest of my college for. Dad talked me out of that - in his generation, kids who dropped out of college rarely came back and finished, and he was worried that that might happen to me. So I stumbled around for several years after college instead before I finally found a path of my own.
After I graduated high school, my grandma made me go to the local community college for a year as a condition of my continuing to live with her. So I went, passed some classes, but still didn’t have any direction in life. When the year was up, I moved in with my boyfriend and spent a few years playing video games and getting wasted.
Then I got knocked up. I kept it a secret for about seven months, then called my mama to come get me. After living with her and working at McDonalds for a few years, I was finally ready to go back to school. :o
I was one that was tired of school. I worked as a diesel mechanic for a while out of high school, discovered I didn’t have enough knowledge to be good at that. So, I joined the Marines. Went to school to become an avionics tech. I ended up in school anyway.
I was tired of school too. I sucked it up went to college and graduated in 5 years with the lowest graduating GPA and a great job. Then I celebrated like crazy for 5 years. When I went back to grad school I wanted to be there and my grades were top of my class.
I was sick of school and didn’t want to go to college, but I soon discovered options were extremely limited for someone with no mechanical or sales aptitude. I sucked it up and went to college and grad school. i didn’t really enjoy it, but it was a necessary evil and it got me to where I am now.
I did s year in college before deciding that it wasn’t for me. I entered an apprenticeship in the local caqrpenter’s union and then the recession of the mid to late 1970’s dropped the bottom out of the building trades. I did a few things to fill in and then ended up with my present job in April of 1979.
I was sick of high school, but higher ed lived up to its promise that it would be more interesting. In the years between degrees, I learned that the jobs I could get with my level of qualification provided a strong incentive to go back to school.
I was kinda sick of school but to me, as I was raised, college wasn’t so much school as a job or task we were required (don’t ask - slightly longer story) to complete. I really did approach it more business-like and as a stepping off point and that made it a lot better for me.
I was sick of high school. I was excited about a new school. Likewise, when I was done with undergrad, I was so ready to not be there any more. But I was excited about grad school. Now the thought of more school is not appealing.
I was sick of school. I only took 4 classes my senior year, and the blizzard kept us out for a couple of weeks. I went to college and had fun. The place was really an awesome institutionally enabling under-age drinking establishment! Maybe living in a fraternity house at 17 wasn’t such a good idea, looking back.
I was sick of school. So, I joined the military. When I got out, job prospects were few, so I went to college. When I graduated, I was sick of school again. Alas, I had taken a degree in education. When I retired in 2017, I was really sick of school. I worked in security for a while, but it was boring and most of my co-workers and all of my supervisors were knobs. So I took a job as an instructor at a driving school. I feel myself getting sick of school again.
I hated high school. The day I never had to go back to that place was, up until that point, the happiest day of my life. I wasn’t enthused about college, but I had to do something, so I went to community college for two years. I wasn’t any better a student, but the best thing about going to college, even locally, is that you meet new people who haven’t known you since kindergarten, and you can reinvent yourself in any way you want. I got an Associates degree, and right after graduation I was offered a full-time radio job, and ended my education, a move I later regretted. Much later, when I was close to 50, I enrolled as a full-time student at a college nearby and got my BA. This time, I was a great student! College, as with everything else, is what you make of it.
High school was fine. I knew what I wanted to study in college and I knew what career I wanted to pursue. Going directly to college was not only expected of me, but I was looking forward to it. I went to the local state university and lived at home. I worked full time the last couple of years while in school full time. My senior year I had an internship as well as working and taking classes. I thrived on being busy. After my internship was over, I was hired on full time.
Such a “perfect story”…except that less than 5 years later I realized I did not love my well-planned life and made some drastic career changes.
In high school, I was one of those kids who enjoyed school for the most part, and the added benefits of (1) being out of my parents’ house, (2) not being subject to eating and sleeping schedules imposed by parental decree, and (3) being sexually active with a girlfriend who was going to school much closer to my college than my home made me very eager to go on to undergrad.
Not really. Actually, the last two years of high school were when I started to like school, since I was no longer being bullied constantly and most of the classes had actually gotten interesting. I figured both of these things would be even better in college, and I was right.
School was always fun in general, even if there were subjects I didn’t excel at. I had academic subjects that were fascinating to me, and there were always extracurriculars that were fun, like sports or quiz bowl. Going to college sounded fun academically- it was a bit terrifying to think that I was choosing a long-term specialization though. I really wish there had been more preparation and guidance for that starting much earlier than college though.
What I was sick to death of was living at home with my parents. I think had the options been to go to college and stay with my parents vs. enlisting in the military, I’d have very, very seriously considered enlisting. I loved my parents and brother, but we had a very small house, and they had some views/rules that I didn’t want to deal with, so I wanted out.