By that I mean college.
It pains me to say that despite the money and effort I put into college it really isn’t for me. But the thing is that I don’t really know what else I can do, not to mention the loan debt and what my parents might say. This has pretty much been the only route I know of to be “successful” and it’s nor working out. IF that doesn’t work then what else is there?
Do you have any idea of what you want to do, job-wise?
Others will likely have more informed answers, but (assuming that you’re in the U.S.) if you don’t feel that college is for you, and you want to get jobs which require more than just a high school diploma, your options for how to get to those jobs might include:
What are you majoring in, and what kind of career are you aiming for?
It would help if you could describe why it isn’t working out, what you’re good at, and what you enjoy and aspire to do with your life.
You could try for a Thiel Fellowship, “a two-year program for young people who want to build new things. Thiel Fellows skip or stop out of college to receive a $100,000 grant and support from the Thiel Foundation’s network of founders, investors, and scientists.” Note that the Wikipedia article mentions that the selection rate is less than one percent, so you’d have an easier time gaining admission to Stanford, with a selection rate of about five percent.
Walmart is paying truck drivers about $87,000/year:
Training to become a truck driver takes a couple months.
“Success” is what you make of it. Some people define it by how much money you make and the “class” of people you are associated with. Others define it by how happy you are in a singular moment in time no matter how much money you have or how secure your future is. I personally think the average of these viewpoints is more reasonable than either is individually.
Two of my siblings have found success without a college degree. One trains baggage handlers for a major airline and the other drives a truck.
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Well the first major was an interdisciplinary studies degree with a focus in sociology. Now it’s engineering but I utterly despise the math and programming classes.
I took one of those career interest tests and the largest score was in the category of “artistic”, which made sense to me since I played with legos as a kid, drew a lot in my spare time and even in class. I loved the topics of sociology and psychology because I was fascinated by the way humans interact with each other. Neuroscience was also a bit interesting as well because of how the brain works and impacts our lives.
But I was told that sociology had no money in it, the same with art. Neuroscience would take a while to complete. In short the stuff I REALLY wanted to do had no money or “future” in it. So I ended up struggling in courses and majors that, if I am to be honest, didn’t give a damn about but did anyway because that was were the money was. Since my parents were helping foot the bill at the time I wasn’t really in a position to argue with them.
SO here I am at 27 and somewhat stressing because I don’t really know what else to do or how. I guess I distract myself with philosophical nonsense to cover up the fact that nothing else in my life has any measure of control over it. I get the sense that I am supposed to achieve or reach some kind of height or goal, but to be honest I think it’s more like I just want to feel a sense of agency or control over my life, because right now I live on the mercy of others and it sucks to me.
Based on experience I would place a little more on how happy I am since I have had a lot of money at one point but my life was pretty much empty at that point. No friends, hobbies, or other things makes the money seem more like the paper that it is.
Have you thought of going into a skilled trade like welding or carpentry? There’s a lot of room there for smart people with an artistic bent. And the pay is very good.
ISTR reading in another thread that Walmart requires a minimum of 3 years of commercial truck driving experience to be one of their drivers.
Why not do whatever it was you were doing that let you have a lot of money, and then use that money to do something meaningful in your life aside from the job? Plenty of people find meaning and satisfaction in life outside their job.
You might want to look into going some tier of finance to get some direction in your life.
There’s a lot of ways to be successful without college. However, it’s harder to just jump into success. A college degree will open a lot of doors that put you a few steps up on the ladder. But that may not matter if you don’t like what you’re doing. Without a degree, you may take a more wandering path. For example, maybe you start helping a woodworker in his shop doing some sanding or whatever. After a while, he has you building some of the jigs or whatever. Eventually, you may get enough experience to create furniture or whatever. Then you go and start your own woodworking shop. Over the course of years, you build up practical experience and get paid more. But you started at the bottom and worked your way up.
I’m not clear if you’re still in college or not. Do you have a degree? If not, how close are you to getting it? If you’re close, it’s worth graduating even if you never use your degree. Just being a graduate can help you in other jobs.
Does he have any income other than what his parents give him?
But that doesn’t answer the question. Do you want to do what you want to do, even if it means bartending or driving Uber on nights and weekends, do you want to work a reasonable set of hours in a reasonably comfortable setting for a reasonable amount of pay, or are you willing to put everything aside and concentrate on getting rich?
Life offers an infinite number of choices, but people find out most of them aren’t the choices they want.
Many employers don’t care what your degree was in, just that you have one. Why not study something that gives you pleasure? Talk with your career center about the kinds of work people with your career type enjoy–the technical language for this is to ask to see the VocBios for people with your RIASEC type.
Well, my response to this depends somewhat on how long you would have to graduation. Whatever the subject, a college degree has some intrinsic value - you learn how to think and to apply yourself, your mind matures; your resume improves, any college degree shows that you have at least basic smarts and that you applied yourself to something diligently. So if you hate your new major so much that you’re on the verge of dropping out, but you could switch back to the prior major that you enjoyed, knuckle down and graduate in perhaps 18 months without excessive financial hardship - that might be a sensible course. If you’re still 2-3 years away, maybe not - that’s a much bigger chunk of your life and a big financial commitment if college in general just feels like the wrong environment.
Of course, in the U.S. there’s usually much more flexibility in leaving for a while, keeping existing credits and coming back, perhaps to a different college right? But I think I’d only do that if I had a clear and specific plan about what I was going to do. Just dropping out without any clear plan doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Technical Schools offer certificates.
You coiuld look into the Merchant Marine.
There is a Global shortage of welders.
How did that happen? I remember watching a skilled welder make a bike frame for me many years ago, very pleasing - like watching a skilled bricklayer or plasterer. Seems like it could be an aesthetically satisfying job. Or is most of it just mundane quick-and-dirty stuff?