I hate it. I hate the classes, I hate the people, I hate this god awful town.
I hate being forced to take stupid ass classes when I want to be creative. I hate the fact that I will undoubtedly switch majors again because nothing I find here is interesting.
I hate that there’s no way I can possibly transfer, because my GPA is abominable.
I hate that I was blatently lied to about my housing situation which caused me to reneg on an important commitment to my family. I hate that I was blatently lied to about my registration status, and because of their incompotence, I have an F on my record for a class I NEVER ONCE ATTENDED.
I have never been more miserable in my entire goddamn life than I have been the past six months.
I hate myself for being so goddamned apathetic towards all the crap that I hate.
So I’ve made a commitment to myself.
One more semester of this crap. Easy elective classes. No more calculus, no chemistry, no compsci. Get a job. Last time I had a job I liked I had a good time. Work for a few months, transfer to a good school. Or keep working.
But seriously, I hate college too. I don’t hate the experience. Actually, I love it, and I love a lot of the people in my college, but I despise the skool itself. Most of this stems from the time when I was falsely charged with possession of a controlled substance under the college judicial system. The dimwit of a Judicial Coordinator found me Responsible (their counterpart of “Guilty”), despite that fact that, from my viewpoint at least, the evidence was in my favor. My sanction was to be kicked off campus and forever banned from all the residence halls, but I appealed and got it reduced to community service, but it still burns me.
You need to do something. You are wasting the best years of your life in hate and anguish. Wait until you have to work a job you hate because you have commitments that you have to meet and you dont’ have a choice. Right now you have that choice. If you have to get a job to get into another college then do it, but don’t stop until you have that college degree. You can’t even get a job as a maintenance man now (and that’s is in no way meant to sound degrading to anyone) without a degree, unless you have years and years of background knowledge.
friedo- please dont take this the wrong way.
get a grip of things, now. If you want to get out of there, as ultress says, put in the work. Put up with one semester of crap so that you can do the rest of your college life doing a course you WANT to do. You are smart, as your posts suggest. wasting away doing nothing is not going to improve anything. Throw yourself on the grenade and bear its terrible brunt for 1 semester and be proud of yourself when you get out and doing what you want to do.
Sometimes you got to wallow in the pig pen before you can roost in the hen house.
I had to do the same. I had to sity through 2 years of a course I didnt like before I qualified and got a job that I do like.
Keep your head up.
Here is a little something about colleges I have learned (I have not only spent most of my adult life as a student, I also work at a large university, and my husband teaches as an adjunct). I hope this helps you get through this last semester.
Truth #1: Being obedient, complacent, or accepting of your fate (or simply seething about it in miserable isolation) does not get you anywhere. This was a hard rule for me, the inherent Rule-Follower. But it’s the people who are persistent who manage to get into the closed classes, who get the aid office to work with them to revise their package, who get the glitch on their record corrected. I don’t mean you have to be a burr in someone’s side–pleasantness DOES count–but you have to be proactive.
Truth #2: If you keep asking, you might eventually get the answer you want to hear. This was also a revelation for Rule-Following Cranky. When I read in a catalog, or heard from someone, that “this is the rule, it’s the way it has to be,” I’d say shucks and give up. After all, they gave me an absolute answer, didn’t they? But the amazing thing is, asking a different person, a different office, or just asking on a different DAY often gets a different answer. It’s shocking, really. This goes hand in hand with the persistence thing.
I hope you find a way to get through this last semester without going nuts.
When I first started university, I failed every course I was in (mostly because I didn’t attend classes).
If you’re not ready to go to college, don’t go. Don’t let yourself be pressured by family (or whoever) into going when you’re not ready. Since the time I was 16 years old, I’ve preferred working for a living over going to school. There’s no shame in wanting to leave if you’re not having fun and (more importantly) not learning anything.
BTW, some years after my disastrous start, I returned to university, had my prior record expunged, enjoyed myself (mostly), learned, and gained the respect of my profs and classmates (mostly). I graduated second in my class - because I went when I was ready to go, and not when someone else told me I should go.
You’ve got your whole life to be miserable. Relax and have some fun while you’re young.
kudos to you Pipeliner - you did it the hard way. I have always thought that it is much easier if you follow the standard pipeline (no pun intended), and go straight from school into tertiary education. It gets much harder if you have to make a choice about leaving a job, and forcing yourself back into the system. Congrats.
friedo - I don’t think that many people who leave, planning to come back later, ever do (WAG) - so make sure you know what you want to do.
Russell
I’m with Pipeliner. There was never any doubt in my and my family’s minds that I was going to college (between my sister and I, I was “the good one.”) I had the grades, I had the smarts, and I enrolled, but I wasn’t emotionally prepared for it. I was irresponsible and had personal and family issues I needed to be dealing with, so after two years, I flunked out. (High school GPA: 3.8, College GPA first two years: 1.67)
So, after I had been married for a couple of years, and was stable, and mentally prepared to commit, I went back to school, finished, and got a decent job that has served me well for four years now. (My wife, bless her heart, worked full-time while I attended classes. For a while I went part time and worked part time, then I quit my job and went back full time.)
Follow what your instincts tell you to do. Some people just are not ready for college right away.
I hated college, too. I stuck with it anyway because i figured that maybe i hated it because I was depressed, and I would be depressed wherever I was, college or not. So I figured that it was better to be depressed and get a college degree out of the deal.
Besides, I liked the part where we got to learn things. I just hated the stupid people there.
You know what, though?
It gets better once you graduate (depending on how you chosse to live your life, I guess).
I don’t think I would feel so good about myself now if i dropped out though.
I had this very conversation with a kid in a religion class. He HATED everything about school. Very disillusioned. I felt bad for him–as I do for you. Here he was, young, bright and basically open to life. But sick to death of day-in, day-out classes.
There I was–probably closer in age to the prof than to him–telling him to make some firm decisions. Don’t float. If your gut tells you that higher education is not for you, get out and clear a desk for someone who is dedicated. If you’re just sick of the here and now of it, please allow me to give you a little perspective. I WASTED my first two years of college when I was college-age. WASTED them. God, I could kick myself now…
It took three kids and eight years of being someone’s mom and someone’s wife to mature me to the point of actually wanting to go back. It was so incredibly hard. Not just the school work. But the task of teaching myself to learn again. The three jobs I had to take to help pay for things like daycare, school expenses, life. Not to mention the unbelievable pressure and stress it put on my wonderful family to have the stay-at-home person gone most of the time. I look back now that I have a job I NEVER would have gotten otherwise, and can’t believe it was me. I’m so amazed at what I was capable of. Graduating from college was probably one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I can’t express to you how much it meant to me. How much I’d given myself.
Yes, I waited and went back and it was hard. But I loved it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but I won’t do it to my family.
I’m rambling and I apologize–but please take my most sincere and heartfelt words as they are meant and not as criticism. Your job right now is college. Treat it with the ambition and dedication with which you’d treat a 75k job. Make the people at that college work for you–they DO you know–and put things right for yourself. If you’re sure stopping to work is your answer, be very aware that life can complicate things for you. It gets harder and harder to go back the longer you’re out. If you want to transfer–look into it NOW. Get on the phone with the people who make things work and start explaining your situation and your goals. It may not be as bad as you think.
You have my undying support and confidence.
struuter
Geez, I loved college and was annoyed that I had to graduate. Of course, it was in Santa Barbara, I never studied, drank the whole time, and felt up hot chicks every weekend.
Hmmm…maybe I should rematriculate as a freshman in the fall. Naw, those boring lower div. courses aren’t worth it.
Friedo, Friedo, Friedo. You’re going about this all wrong.
Do you own a bong? If not get one.
Do they still play D&D in college these days? If not find some meaningless activity that will keep you up all night, forcing you to skip your morning classes.
Have you put on the requisite 50 pounds yet? If not start ordering out for pizza for every meal.
Have you been beaten up by a gang of frat boys yet? If not go down to the Alpha Chi house and scream out a few obscenities questioning their manhood.
Have you been rejected and publicly embarrassed by the homecoming queen yet? Make sure you have a big wet spot on your crotch and go ask her out while she’s conversing with the football team.
I think the problem is your just not getting the true college experience for your dollar.
College is too FREAKIN’ expensive and hard for you waste time hating it. There are 1,000’s of schools in the country. If RIT is not for you, some other place is. Transfer NOW. Get the professors in the classes you enjoyed and did well in to help you out. You do well in the classes that you enjoy.
To get your record fixed, be persistent and do EVERYTHING in writing. Make your letters polite, firm, and don’t be afraid to go up the chain of command - if the person at the desk doesn’t help you, send a letter (along with copies of previous letters) to her boss, and then her boss - doing something about it will make you feel better. Bureaucrats like politeness, dates, and documentation.
It’s OKAY to take time off. Don’t let family, friends, the university pressure you into anything. I tried to take time off when I was in school - I wasn’t sure the program I was in was right for me, I felt like I wasn’t approaching the work with the right kind of enthusiams and dedication, I wanted to take some time off, get a place and a job, and get my head together. I let myself be bullied into finishing by my family (who admittedly, were making huge financial sacrifices for me)and by the university, and I think it was a bad decision. I wish now I’d taken time off and explored a passion instead of completing a program - I know I would have gotten my degree eventually.
It’s YOUR education and YOUR path, and you’ve got to trust your instincts. You’ve got to trust that things will come together when the time is right. Your plan of taking some electives to get your grades up, working to earn some money, and applying to other schools sounds good. Now DO it.
