Do people who didn’t go the traditional 4 year college route ever get over it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m sure this is just my small sample size, but two people I know really can’t seem to get over that they weren’t traditional college students and seem to still be bitter about it

Me: I was a typical traditional college student. Graduated high school at 18, went away for school to a state university (my last choice, long story) and did my 4 years with decent grades, a lot of studying, but plenty of time for parties, late night dorm bull sessions, and campus organizations.

My friend ‘G’ had serious problems after being outed in high school, dropped out, got the GED, got into a university in his hometown (definitely didn’t go away from his hometown as he’ll constantly mention) had to WORK, never a single second for partying or socializing or late night bull sessions, all study and WORK. Did I mention he had to WORK his way through college? Spring Break was for WORK, no wild stories.

Ok, I’m being a bit sarcastic, but even now every time I mention something about my college life, he has to mention how hard he had it. And I get it, I’m lucky. My parents had a college savings plan set up before I even left the hospital as a baby. Dad PhD, mom BS so it was assumed from day one that I’d be going to college. And, while family relationships weren’t perfect, it was just the typical high school crap, no arguments more serious than my boundaries and curfew.

I try not to mention anything about college to G but I’m very active in my alumni association so it’s often on my social media and it does occasionally come up in our casual conversation.

So, is this common among the school of hard knocks folk? Or, is G an outlier who is still really bitter?

Don’t need answer fast, this kinda always pops up around this time of year.

2

I am gonna take a WAG and say it depends on why someone wasn’t a traditional college student and how successful life has turned out for them. People who are unhappy with where they have landed are more likely to have regrets than people who are happy with the way things have turned out.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

3

I’m mix of both you and “G”. I was definitely expected to go to college. I also started working when I was 13. I worked all the way through college and took out student loans to cover the costs. My dad’s opinion was that kids should leave the house and move away (not the same town - heavens no) after they graduated high school.
I definitely had some resentment about having to work, but I got over it. I now have the opinion that a gap year is a wonderful thing. Party, hang out, and work minimum wage so that you understand the value of college. Some people are going to discover that a trade or some other non-college route is the better choice for them.
I would suggest having a straight conversation with your friend. It sounds like you’ve fallen into a bit of a repeating pattern. You say “X”, he says “Y”. Talk about it. “I’ve noticed that when you hear anything about my college experience, you do [fill in the blank]. This makes me feel [blank]. I would like to discuss this so that we can move past it.” If you can’t resolve it, I would avoid discussing the issue with him at all. If he mentions it, say something like, “This is a sensitive issue for you. I sympathize but I will not discuss it further.” Stick to that.

4

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that ‘G’ is also bitter about a whole host of other topics related to their early life, choices that they made and that were made for them, and parental relationships.

Perhaps you could suggest to them that talking to someone (some sort of counseling) could help them move past these constant negative feelings?

5

I’m going to go out on a different limb- I’m a little more like “G”. I didn’t get a GED, but after I graduated from high school I went to the local public university, lived at home and worked to pay my tuition. And I’m fine with it - most of the time. Right up until people start talking about their fraternities/sororities and where they used to go on spring break and how much fun dorm life was. That’s fine with me, ( as long as it’s a group conversation, not just with me) - it’s when they say “oh, you didn’t go away?” in that pitying voice that I get annoyed. How exactly does it come up in casual conversation? I mean, I get that you’re active in your alumni association, and it comes up on your social media but that doesn’t explain how it comes up in conversation with “G”. I’ve been active in organizations that come up on my social media, but they rarely come up in casual conversations with people who aren’t also members. I suppose I might say I can’t do something a particular evening because I have an XYZ meeting but that’s it.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by

Does he say that when you mention how hard it was to get through calculus? Or is it only when you’re talking about some social aspect of going away to college? I’m kind of wondering how that conversation goes- you tell him some wild story about something that happened on spring break. It’s obviously not a shared experience and you mentioned the college aspect for some reason since you didn’t simply tell a story of something that happened at some unspecified time when you were on vacation. I’m not saying "I HAD TO WORK over spring break " is an appropriate response but I am sort of wondering what sort of response you’er expecting.

6

Perhaps we could rephrase the title of this thread to :“Do people who went the 4 year college route ever get over it?”
:slight_smile:

7

I was going to say “do people who went the 4 year college route ever stop talking about it”?

Rhetorical question; I know they do, or at least most do. Makes me wonder how old the OP and his friend are.

As one who only went to community college, the only thing I regret is not be able to command a higher salary, despite being just as talented as many of my coworkers. I get it; that’s the way it is. They put in the time, blah blah blah. I’m just saying the experience itself does not seem like anything I would have even remotely enjoyed.

8

Your friend is trying to explain to you how lucky you are. He also feels sorry for you, he has a gift you’ll never have, he has the knowledge that he took on the challenge and succeeded all by himself, nothing spoon fed to him. Your friend is making you feel insecure because you’ll never know if you would have been able to do the same, that’s why you’re bringing this up.

9

I went to a local state university, worked through college, and lived at home with my folks. Part of why I chose that particular university was because it had almost zero fraternity life, no football team, and no dorm culture (because no dorms). Most students were there to get a degree and get on with their lives, and that was my attitude for the most part.

I could have attended a more traditional university about 90 minutes away; many of my friends did, and some of them eventually graduated, others wound up transferring to my state university, others dropped out without a degree at all, after using college as an excuse to socialize away from parental supervision.

The whole “4 year degree” thing seems to be something people sort of aim at and if they get out in 4 years, great, and if it takes a little longer because they can’t get the particular credit they need in the specific semester they need it, whatever. Nobody’s standing around with a stopwatch ready to kick you out of school once your four years are up. Certainly in my subsequent life, nobody cares at all about anybody’s university career; I guess there are people who walk around like Andy Bernard on ‘The Office’ reminding everybody they went to Cornell, but those people are rare in my life, thank goodness.

My alumni association keeps sending me junk mail asking for cash to fund their new football team. Not today, Satan.

10

I managed to graduate from high school, and started college on time. But I was unprepared (due to some family problems), and had no career plans, so I dropped out after a couple semesters.

When I went back several years later, I was focused and motivated. As the cliche goes, working crappy minimum-wage jobs (this was in West Virginia, during the early 1980s recession) will convince you to pay attention in class.

I was 26 when I graduated and got a professional job. There are times I wish I’d gotten started on the traditional schedule. But I don’t think my career advancement or financial well-being have been impacted. I’ve never been interested in the rah-rah, football tailgating, party-school life, so no loss that I had no time for it.

A bigger factor in delaying my long-term success was the fact that I took a few years to decide what to get my graduate degrees in at night school. But that decision–venturing away from my undergrad field (EE) into applied math and telecomms–gave me a broader background, which definitely helped my career in the long run.

Recently, upon the retirement of one of two colleagues with whom I started work on the same day in 1986, they offered the opinion that in our early days, they had looked up to me as being more mature and worldly (which came as a bit of a surprise to me). They were both basically freshly-minted grads, while I had been living on my own and self-supporting for several years. So there may even have been advantages to graduating college late.

No regrets here.

11

I notice that people who worked their way through college have a bit of a superiority complex about it. “Nobody paid for MY way. I WORKED. Through COLLEGE.”

Granted, it is an achievement. I was active-status (not active duty) National Guard during college in a unit that trained more than most. It was hard as balls. I envy people who didn’t have to do it. I envy people who “worked” through college with some bullshit job like swiping meal cards at the dining hall or giving campus tours. I had it harder, it took a toll on my grades and mental health, and I’m a little bitter about it.

But I don’t see any point in bragging that I paid for college all by myself. It’s like these teenagers who brag that they got after-school jobs to help their family pay for groceries. That’s just sad. Kids shouldn’t have to do that. Someone failed them. It’s not a life achievement for a teen to put food on the table when adults can’t.

College years are for studying and learning. If you were distracted by any serious amount of work, someone failed you. Your parents didn’t save, or your guidance counselor didn’t clue you into scholarships and financial aid. Or maybe you fucked yourself by not being proactive and preparing properly. (Me - all of the above). And, arguably, society should send every qualified student to college for free.

Basically, some people need to feel superior, and putting yourself through college is a flex for some of those people.

12

There isn’t any real need to take a dig at people who didn’t have to work their way through college, but it is certainly something to be proud of if you did. I did take a little dig at the OP, but he does seem to realize he was lucky. dalej42, hope I didn’t over do it.

13

I’m in my late 40s and I still haven’t gotten over it.

14

My only regret is that i don’t get to be around like-minded people. I work in a small manufacturing plant. Most of my coworkers are rigid thinkers. Even in my personal life, my social status has made it near impossible to mix with liberal minded folks. We may swing blue in my area, but that’s only because the unions used to be strong here. Almost all of my friends and coworkers are full of hateful disgusting opinions i have to tune out.

15

I don’t think it’s an uncommon phenomenon.

I have a friend I used to work with who didn’t go to college, but ended up having a long-term fairly successful career with the consulting firm we worked at. But he always gives me shit about “mentioning my MBA” every time we are out. I tell him that he is literally the only person who ever mentions it. It’s a consulting firm. Everyone in the firm has a college degree and most have an MBA, JD, PhD or some other advanced degree. He’s a really smart guy, hands-on technologist and great socially. But I do think on some level, he does feel that no matter how successful he is, he is judged by our peers for not having a degree. I also think he feels that many of our peers (particularly in senior management) are only in their position because they went to the right schools and checked off the right boxes and don’t have any real skills besides having the right connections and bullshitting really well. And I don’t think I disagree with him.

So yeah, I do feel like at least some people have an attitude that college is basically a 4 year daycare center for wealthy kids to screw around until they can land cushy corporate jobs. Then they join the real world and get paid too much money for mostly academic skills and have no idea about how their industry really works. I found this when I started my career as a civil engineer. I had a degree (which AFAIK is the only way you can become a civil engineer), but my first job I’m working at a construction site with no idea how shit really works.

16

I went the traditional 4 year college route but didn’t have the “college experience” that everyone talks about.

Never attended a single party my whole time there. Only went to one football game and didn’t enjoy it. The few times I stayed up all night was to cram for exams, not have fun. Didn’t get wasted or stoned or laid. Didn’t date. I spent just a few weeks in a club before I stopped going to meetings. I had classmates that I was friendly towards and I did have a little fun with them on field trips and the like. But I don’t have a whole lot of entertaining tales from those days, like I do for later periods of my life.

I have no regrets, though. I mean, yeah, sometimes I wish I hadn’t been such a nerdy weirdo, but that’s not because I feel like I missed out on anything important or fun. Maybe I would feel differently if I were unhappy with the way life had turned out for me, though.

I think social media makes it easier for people already prone to regret to experience it even more. I’m not on social media (except for forums like this one), so I am not exposed to shit that would bring out the insecurity in me. I have no doubt in my mind that if I was on social media and I was bombarded by everyone chatting with their college buds and taking strolls down memory lane,that I couldn’t relate to, I’d be feeling some kind of way. Which is why I stay away from stuff like that. Sounds like that’s what the OP’s friend needs to do.

17

I also thought the thread would be about people who didn’t go to college rather than people who ‘worked their way through’ college. People who never finished college and work in environments where most people did tend to be sensitive about it IME. And in many environments like you mention it’s pretty rare for somebody to have a ‘front line’ job (not administrative staff etc) with no college degree, often it’s people with 4 yr college degrees who feel looked down on by people with graduate degrees. So it’s only natural for those people to tend toward sensitivity about the topic, and deprecate the value of college in a sometimes exaggerated way IMO.

As to ‘worked your way through’ or not seems to me a more fuzzy distinction and I don’t recall knowing anyone who was sensitive or bitter about that. Non-geniuses (which absolutely included me) in the engineering program I did in college had to bust their asses non-stop or else flunk out. Having a part time job was out of the question. I worked summers, and we had to work apprenticeships winters as part of the program. I had full academic scholarship which was good. But I don’t see why I’d hold it against anyone whose family paid for college, or took a less rigorous course of study, or ‘worked their way’ in some more rigorous manner than I did. I don’t care much about other people’s stuff in situations like that.

18

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…

At the time, i thought the decision to go to college was very highly related to deferred gratification. I always liked school and saw it as preferable to working in a factory or the other few options available to me. “My high school friends are saying ‘Hell with school!’ getting jobs, buying cars, moving into apartments, starting their families, living lives…I’m staying in school, delaying all that, for a job I may or may not ever get.” Still, I went to college. By the time I graduated they were at least $100,000 ahead of me in lifetime earnings (which seemed like a lot at the time). I was lucky that school wasn’t nearly as expensive as it is today or the gap would have been bigger.

I think a lot of people are smart enough to get college degrees if they work at it but many aren’t interested enough and that’s fine. I wonder if others from my home town who didn’t go to college think it was like “Animal House” or “A Diff’rent World” or “Revenge of the Nerds.” What I saw of college depicted on TV and movies was romanticized, oversimplified, aggrandized, not what I experienced for the most part. I thought, ‘I must be doing something wrong…in the movies they don’t have a lot of homework and they party a lot.’

It sounds like you’re stepping on a nerve, OP. Sometimes I witness a snit on my FB. Those who stayed in my (small) hometown tell those who didn’t that they chose to stay because they like the laid-back lifestyle, lower crime, etc. Those who left to live in big towns now talk about the attractions and conveniences they enjoy, yadda yadda. I think some have a nagging feeling they made the wrong choice, paid a price that was too high, didn’t have priorities straight, whatever. So they talk about recipes and grandchildren instead.

19

As a man without a college degree, I don’t typically notice a functional difference between someone who walked to get a diploma at 22 and someone who went the GED+Working+Night School route (or the many other options in between).

It strikes me that any sheepskin-holder who does (and dwells on it) is not doing themselves any favors, psychologically speaking.

20

At work most have college degrees. The paths are all different. Some went to college right after school. Some went to the military first. Some went to night school. Most have 4 year degrees. Some have advanced degree and some have associates. I don’t remember hearing and conflict because I’ve never heard anyone telling stories about college except maybe at football time.