When you consistently can’t pay the rent, can’t put gas in the car and can’t scrape enough money together even for Raman Noodles.
And it WILL happen. It’ll happen when you least expect it. It will happen right AFTER you’ve bought the $28,000 car and maxed out the credit cards furnishing your ever so cool pad.
Live your academic life with abandon, byte-boy. Once you’ve got the diploma, consider working at a pizza place and going back for the Master’s and then the Ph.D - at least you won’t have to leave the world of school then. Otherwise, get ready to strap on the armor and do battle with life the moment you flip that tassle to the other side of your mortarboard.
When your girlfriend’s pregnant, you’re STILL in school, your folks can’t afford to pay your way anymore, your car’s in the shop and they turned off the electricity today at the place you just got evicted from. One kid needs braces and the other wants their own car.
Oh, and your wife wants a divorce. Not to mention alimony/child support. (w/a shrub as Pres.) Your secure job place went bankrupt.
Any and/or all of the above, anything less is a piece of cake.
Life will soon get very difficult. Going to college and getting good grades is not the end-all, be-all challenge of human existence. One day, something very, very bad will happen to you. It happens to all of us. Things change. Economies falter. People die.
The cost of living keeps getting higher, with no end in sight. 3 out of every 10 of us will contract cancer.
You need to realize that living a safe and sheltered existence in college will in no way prepare you for the struggle you will face every day from the day you graduate 'til the day you die. This struggle is what we call life. It is difficult, frustrating, and absolutely wonderful. But it is not living in a dorm and eating pizza with your buddies for the next 50 years. I have news for you, kid- that gravy train is about to pull into the station.
You have amazing oppurtunites that 95% of the people in this world will never have- access to good education and a chance at a high-paying job. You live in what is statistically one of the welathiest nations in the world, lead a sheltered existence, and when you get hungry, all you have to do is open the refridgerator. Instead of being cocky and arrogant, why don’t you realize your amazing good fortune and thank your deity of choice every day for the great advantages you’ve been given? Then prepare for the coming apocalypse which you will surely face when it dawns on you that mom and dad will not be footing the bill forever. :rolleyes:
A freshman in college thinking his life isn’t so rough? What a shock!
This statement gets me. If you’re so confident that the future is going to be rosy, you’re setting yourself up for a huge disappointment.
Older, wiser folks, answer me this: is it always going to suck this bad? I’ve been in the real world (more or less) for a while now, and I think it sucks. It’s all stress and work. I admit I goof off quite a bit, but it’s only to maintain my sanity, which I’m barely doing.
To the right we have GOOD TIMES, FLYING HIGH and CAN DO NO WRONG. To the Left is MURPHY’S LAW, REALITY CHECK IN THE FACE WITH A COLD DEAD MACKEREL and COULD IT POSSIBLY GET ANY WORSE?
The pendulum, according to Shirley, usually wavers in the center with gentle (or extreme) pushes either direction when you least expect it.
More aptly put, if you want to enjoy the rainbow, you gotta put up with a little rain.
( If you think life sucks now, wait ten, twenty years…you are in your salad days of your life…don’t act like you have diverticulitis…)
For some reason this thread reminded me of that strip where the PHB asks Dilbert to show the new guy the ropes, and Dilbert immediately brings out a noose.
chula, I don’t know if 30 years old is old enough but I can say it’s been a gentle downhill slope from 18. Are you on the housing ladder yet? Will you ever be? Got kids yet? Think you’ll manage to avoid getting seriously ill in your 40s or 50s? Who’ll look after you if you do? How will you pay for your medical care? What about your pension? You want some sort of retirement don’t you? Because if you’re not saving now, you’re later life is certain to suck like it never sucked in youth.
And that’s just the selfish “me” parts. Factor in the stress and worry about our devasted environment, terrorism, crime, an expanding war in the Middle East, nukes in Pakistan, economic meltdown, Africa’s unstoppable AIDS epidemic, etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
You know, that last paragraph made me realise I can’t actually remember the last time I felt good about something I saw on the news. Maybe I should start an IMHO thread about that, see if it’s just me.
Oh, if you think the world is just going to pot around you because of the beating to death instant news coverage of depressing subjects…turn off the TV for a week. Your entire viewpoint will change. Trust me.
Pythagras/dturnbul:
Dude! I’ve got McQuain for 1044. Scary, yes. I am getting a 95.6 in the class. Plus, the guy who sits next to me is transferring to Business, and acts all outraged whenever McQuain drops “If you don’t get this, you should be in business.” Great fun.
OOC, how much harder will things be getting? I mean, I’ve completed the first 4 1044 projects in enough time to get the 6 extra credit points (Though I only got 3 on project 4. Thank you, McQuain), and still have enough time to do all my other work and post here. If I am willing to give up my shallow vestiges of a social life, daily postings here, and sleep in lieu of runs to Deet’s
place, how hard can they be?
I’m rliguori. Was never one for pseudonyms. Be seeing you around on the CS forums.
Oh yeah, I forgot the one true path to happiness :
Say “Dude” a lot and never actually think about anything beyond your own self-interests. Of course, if you don’t think about things in the first place, they can never bother you.
you start paying all your own bills, with no help from mom and dad. My theory is that, regardless of how much money you make, you’re going to feel like you don’t make enough and that you have financial problems;
you raise a child or two or few;
your wife has an affair or leaves you, you leave her, or one of you thinks about it;
you get to your late-30’s, assuming you live until then, and start realizing that your death, sooner or later, is inevitable and that you are terrified of it;
you are bored with your job because it’s too easy;
you are stressed out with your job because it’s too hard;
a parent or sibling dies, suddenly or after long-suffering lingering illness;
you suffer radiation exposure/anthrax/small pox/HIV or something similar as a result of stupid U.S. foreign policy/excessive dependence on oil/random terrorism or stupid lust
I doubt you’ll get to experience all of these options, but it’s probably a safe bet to assume that the majority will be a part of your future.
And I’m an optimist.
Have a nice day.
When you realize that your expenses will always rise to meet your income.
When you get married and a few years later your spouse begins to wonder if they made a mistake, but you already have a child.
When you realize that you don’t go to the movies much anymore, or buy many new CDs, or like much new music, and realize that means you are getting old.
When you realize that actors who’ve been around for years are younger than you (Winona Ryder is younger than me?!?).
When you start looking back on how your life is now and wonder what happened.
Oh, and I’m a programmer/analyst and, trust me, nothing is easy, nothing is guaranteed. Wait til you get to the point where you can’t stand your job, or your boss, or whatever, but you can’t even think about quitting because of your mortgage, your wife, your kids …
Jeez, and I’m one of the lucky ones. I think I’ll stop now. What a depressing thread.
Things will get much harder. I wrote most of my 1044 programs an hour before they were due. For 1704 and after I would get frustrated with myself if I didnt start the day after they were assigned.
Let me see the largest programs I wrote for class would probably be the OS we had to simulate in Operating Systems or the last program of 1704 where you’ve got a database with a GUI: http://filebox.vt.edu/users/dturnbul/images/WARP.jpg You’ll have plenty of work to do, trust me.
1044 is a cakewalk, dont sweat it, youll feel pain, er I mean challenge :), soon enough.
I’ll buck the trend here and say that it’s just possible you might find real life better than college. I’ve probably been lucky; I’ve almost always found work easier and less stressful than college or graduate school. Though I admit I fret about the threat of outsourcing (I’m also a programmer), and face day-to-day aggravations at the office, I still enjoy what I do and find it challenging and stimulating. What the heck, if I do get outsourced I imagine I can find something else to do. I hadn’t planned on programming either.
Hey, there, cousin, you say you can’t pull your car out of the mud and your in the middle of nowhere, and it’s pouring rain and you can’t get the top back up, and your pay check is all blurred and your foot went right through the gas and your girl is screaming bloody murder and it’s dark and a bolt of lighting just split your motor in half and your suit is shrinking up fast and you start up the windy road on foot and sixty yards of barbed wire hits you right smack in the puss and you fall down in the mud and a wild animal runs away with your shoes and your car blows up suddenly and the windshield wiper winds up in your mouth and you can’t move and the mud is rising up to your nostrils and your sinking fast and you don’t hear your girl screaming any more?
Actually, I found life started to suck way back in kindergarten, when nobody wanted to be friends with the redhead with glasses.
Then it got real bad when people decided that picking on the shortest kid in the school was a fun thing-- and had to be corrected on a daily basis that picking on me was an extremely painful thing.
Then everyone left me alone for eight years.
Then I started making friends late in high school, and abandoned them all to get laid on a daily basis. This was, in retrospect, a bad thing.
Then it got real bad when I wanted my friends back, to lose the girlfriend, and her dad died.
Then I broke up with her, but my old friends were busy. I spent my 18th birthday alone.
Then I got hit by an 18-wheeler. And life got better-- and has been bouncing between GOOD TIMES and CAN DO NO WRONG for the past 12 years. I’ve been in a dream relationship for 10 years. I had a fantastic time at Cegep and University. I’m actually working in my chosen field-- and 90% of the time doing stuff I love to bits. I get to write every fucking day My friends are awesome (and offer killer massages). I hang out at a naked beach. I ride a motorbike. I no longer have to deal with siblings or parents.
My life is doing pretty damn good, because I got through the hard stuff, and I learned how to keep it pegged on the good side.
Um, not to rain on your parade or anything, but that is flat out wrong. I know of 30 Computer Science guys who are out of work, some of them with 10+ years of experience unable to find a job at 1/3 of what they were making a couple years ago… Computer Science is one of the worst areas to get a job in right now, and more more graduates and adult career changers are getting into the field that they have heard is great. Many IT openings are getting 500+ applications for every opening, and only the first 10 applications recieved even get looked at. CS sucks right now, hopefully it will recover by the time you graduate, but the field is flooded and getting worse.
My friends are awesome (and offer killer massages). I hang out at a naked beach. I ride a motorbike. I no longer have to deal with siblings or parents.
