college sucks

Bourbon

I have no idea what I am doing with my life

College sucks pretty bad, I don't know what to do. I hate it, a lot. The only reason I haven't given up on it already is because my parents guilt me by saying how much money they spent on me. I only went because I wanted to impress them with my "intelligence" but I don't even want to be an engineer. I just picked it because it sounded like a reputable occupation and pays good money. But it's not what I want to do.

I just want to go and get a job and just live in the city awhile... get sorted out and find out what I want to do. I just need to get away from school awhile. It hardly feels like I am away from home because my parents call me a couple times a week, and they even monitor my spending somehow... they also check Smogon and Facebook all the time to see what I am doing... what I write, when I write it, my pictures, etc. It bothers me. I just want some freedom but no matter how hard I try I can't get away from them.

My friends Remy and Alex got it together. They share a house with two others guys, but it's a nice, big house. They just work, hang out, and go have fun on the weekend. It looks like an awesome lifestyle. I want to get a job (or two if I have to) and just sustain myself for a year until I can actually afford to get an education myself... that way my parents don't have to worry about if I am doing good or not, and they can't threaten to cut off my education on me.

They also don't want me to get a job because I need time to study or something... but they only allow me to have 200-300$ a month to buy everything... clothes, laundry, food, house stuff... I usually eat once a day, maybe two times if I am lucky. They have no concept of how much it costs to feed an 18 year old guy. Their reasoning was that I should be able to get by with 2$ a meal, but seriously, that's peanuts. Sometimes I steal leftovers from my roommates but they are OK with it.

There are a lot of girls at college, hot girls, but most of them are kind of... meh, I dunno. They just want to have drunken sex and move on. That's not what I want. I want like an actual girlfriend but girls don't seem to go for that kind of thing anymore... like a relationship takes too much responsibility or something. It's just lazy. I don't like it. My friends brag to me all the time about how many girls they have had sex with, and usually it doesn't get to me, but lately it has been for some reason. In my opinion it's not that big of an accomplishment to have sex with drunk girls, in fact, I have turned down quite a few of them... but still, it is better than getting nowhere at all.

So yeah, that's pretty much my rant right there. I just had to tell someone, and I dunno, I am most comfortable posting it here, because I don't have to explain the fine details of my life to you guys. That, and I trust ...some of you... that's my life right now, and I don't like it.
 
Is it safe to assume that you're trying to let your parents know how you feel, as you posted this here and you say they check this board?
 
There was an anonymous and confidential Nightline service at my university, where you could just walk in and have a chat with someone face to face. The volunteers were there to listen and not offer advice. There must be something similar at your college... I think you would benefit from it. Posting here lacks that personal touch and the empathy of real life interaction.
 
Skiddle I know you're from Calgary. What school are you talking about? It might help those of us familiar with the Alberta educational scene to give you suggestions on what is what.

Edit: I'm gonna guess Ambrose...
 
I am not in college yet, but most of what you say hits home with me anyways. I have participated in an Engineering honors program throughout high school, which pretty much accomplished the feat of making the entire class hate engineering. I am happy that I don't have to worry about making the mistake of being an engineering major in college, its not for me, maybe for some, but not for me.

My parents are not as anal as yours, but the girls I can relate on. My friends sometimes brag when they get ass, but after two failed relationships that should have just stopped as one night stands, I'm just looking for a girl I truly like, not just a fling. I'm finding it to be harder than I imagined, but I console myself with the thought that maybe I'll find someone at college.


I would say tough it out in school and finish, because if its your parent's money getting you through, that is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up. Paying for college yourself will set you back quite a lot. Their restrictions on you I can see are vexing, and I can see why. 2$ a meal is not possible, if my parents checked smogon to see what I posted... our relationship would never be the same.
As far as leaving college, getting a job and someplace to live in the city. It sounds good on paper, but may not work out the way you planned it, and then your in a shittier situation than before.
 
Yeah, it definitely sounds like your parents need to back out a bit. A part time job (20 hours or less per week) actually benefits most college students, and it offers employment history and networking (which are both pretty important in any job that you may get in the future). Try looking up some statistics and presenting them to your folks like an adult.

And, as for the checking up on you and stuff, that indicates more of a lack of trust and/or they're extremely overprotective and are trying to make sure everything is going good with you. The only thing I can say to that is to try to *make* them realize that you're responsible enough to be trusted with your own life. Having a job will help pound this realization home, as will good grades... but the end result is that you do have to take control of your own life at some point; and the consequences of your decisions are going to rest completely on your head.

For the girls... I don't really have any advice. But a lot of the problems you seem to be having is the type of girls you are meeting. Stop going to the same functions/stop hanging out with the same people. The only way to meet new people is to change up your social scene, so go for it. Please note: I'm not saying to leave your current friends in the dust, but you don't always have to hang out with the same people, especially if hanging out with them isn't meeting all your needs...

As for the financial bit... getting a part time job is going to help with that. It'll also help lighten the burden on your folks, and maybe some of their more annoying habits have to do with the stress that paying for college puts on everyone's budget.

The end result: Don't make a drastic decision, talk to your folks, try to make a few small changes. If it doesn't help, then maybe look into what other options you have. Right now it sounds like you're just in a rut; 90% of the time small changes will help you get out of that.
 
Surgo said:
Is it safe to assume that you're trying to let your parents know how you feel, as you posted this here and you say they check this board?
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That's what I was wondering. If they're checking Smogon (and even know what it is) they're being far too intrusive. If you don't want to be an engineer, then spending money on becoming an engineer is more wasteful than taking time off or taking a bunch of electives to try and figure out what you do want to do.

At least 50% of people switch majors at least once in their university careers.

$2 a meal is the most unhealthy thing I can think of. They need to stop thinking that unless they want to be responsible for killing you. I do know that students are cheap and will take the cheap route over healthy any day, but that's pushing it to extremes.
 
I'm not a regular here, mostly lurk these parts, but your post reminded me of an essay i had to right regarding whether it was better to take a year of or two after highschool before going to college or heading to college right afterwards.

I don't remember the statistics to well but, most kids now in days spend around 6 years in college instead of the intended 4, mostly due to not knowing what they really want or having trouble in school, or failing classes.
College isn't for everyone. At all. Not everyone has their dreams planned out neat and perfect, and even if they do not everything works out as planned.
Honestly your wasting your time and your parents money. If you have no interest in what you're doing your not doing a good job in it, like a little boy playing with dolls, he wouldn't enjoy that(On average they wont) he would much rather be playing with cars or fighting, so he's going to play with them half-heartedly.

Your parents seem to be brainwashed with what most colleges what you to think. Don't go to college and you'll be a loser. This isn't true at ALL. Like I stated earlier most of us don't even know what we want to do without our lives. If you keep attending college now, one of two things will happen.

A) You'll end up graduating with a degree you have no interest in. Find a job you have no interest in. Go every day to a job you have no interest in. (Yayyyy fun)

B) Change your mind, and finally decide what you MIGHT want to do and end up another 4 years of college to get your bachelors degree in that Major. Wasting more of your parents money.

I say take a break, just because you decide not to continue college doesn't mean you won't go back. It may be better for you to take a year of from school, live your life. Job hunt find out what you like to do, what you don't, and what might interest you. Not only do you save your parents money, you gain experience in a job, along with about the same amount you would waste on college. (If you work for the full year).

After a year or so go back to college, not only will you be better prepare, you'll have that fun you wanted, without the need to worry about studying, party if you want. You'll have more job experience because you may be working full time, not like college kids who have to deal with part time, and stress about homework and other activities. Most importantly, you'll have some idea of what you want to do.

As for your girl problem, dont expect to find girls in a college party that want a relationship. Either they have a boyfriend or they just want to have fun, which means they don't want a guy to be tied down to. If you want to find a girl look somewhere else, Join a group in college, look for them in malls/library, somewhere other than just a party.
 
Okay, from a 25-year-old who's been on his own for three years... tell your parents to back the fuck off. And I'm dead serious. They are pushing you into something you don't want, and if you go through with it you will most likely end up working a job you hate for the rest of your life just for them.

LIVE FOR YOURSELF, NOT OTHERS.

I have always been extremely independent, so I know what I'm talking about. A job gets you money, teaches you how to balance/good time management, and like Anita said it looks good on a resume. How do you explain at your first job interview after college that you NEVER worked before? Looks terrible.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tell you to quit college. You can go to class and work at the same time. But if you don't like your major, you'd better change it, and SOON. Don't get 3 years in and then decide you want to do something else, because not all of your credits will carry over and you'll have to stay even longer.

As for women... dude, just fuck the drunk girls. I'm dead serious. I went to a shitty nerd college where I didn't have that opportunity, and I missed out on a huge part of what college is all about, and I wish I had had the chance to hook up all the time, but now I'm past my sexual prime. Just make sure you use protection, that should be a given. Trust me when I say that about 75% of college girls don't want lasting relationships, that comes in the mid- to late-20s when they actually start thinking about the future. Enjoy your youth now while you still can.
 
It's not that I haven't told my parents about how much I hate college, it's just that every time I bring it up, the conversation goes something like this:

Me: I hate college, I want to quit and work like Cody or Remy and those guys...

Dad: You cost us like 6000$ dollars though, you need an education, etc etc

Me: but this isn't what I want to do with my life

Dad: money money money

And it goes on like this until he guilts me enough to keep trying. But it's not working anymore. I'm so down, I feel like I've got this huge burden in my chest and nothing makes it go away. No amount of "motivation" can keep me going anymore. I just want to cry or something but that won't fix anything... besides real men don't cry...

I feel so out of place here, I mean, I was a slacker in high school, I basically went to hang out with my friends, did nothing in class, then I muscled through the final exams and passed with 55-70% in all my classes. That's pretty much what I did the whole four years of high school right there... just enough to get by. I didn't care about marks, they're arbitrary. Do you actually think that I will need to know about shakespeare or quantum mechanics when I design complex machinery... no.

I don't want to be an engineer either. I wanted to be a video game concept artist, making up cool characters and locales, leaving a mark on my fellow nerds. I got a bunch of brochures for it and stuff, and I was so psyched about having such a cool job like that... but my parents wanted me to get a real job. Anyways, when I was small, like 10 years old, I used to play with knex a lot, and build battlebots out of it to play with my friends, and we would go in the basement and build them and then smash them to pieces... so I decided I wanted to build robots as a child so I asked my dad what job would let me do that. He said "robotical engineer" so I guess that's where I got the idea to say I wanted to be an engineer from. I really don't like that stuff anymore. Drawing is really what I have always liked doing. You know when you win in Starcraft as the zerg... I could draw that hydralisk freehand in grade 6. I always loved being able to do that.

I don't even know why I am telling smogon people this anyways. I just need to write it down somewhere. I've already told everyone who matters to me. But yeah, whatever, I'm a failure in the eyes of my dad, and I don't even care. Everyone always thought my little brother was smarter than me anyways, so it's not like I've let them down too much.

I mean I love my parents, they make mistakes but they're really good people... they just don't understand what the world is like anymore. They don't understand how I need space, how I don't have enough money, and how hard it is to keep doing something I hate so much. How are you supposed to live your life if you hate 5/7ths of it. In theory I should be getting awesome marks and impressing everyone, but I never counted on my morale failing me after only five months. Everyone around me seems like they got it together, why don't I?
 
If you wanna do concept art go for it. Do NOT listen to your parents on what you want to do with your life. Quite honestly, something tells me you're asian.

Tell them the video game industry is growing every year. Concept artists DO have a future. Get out your notepad and draw regularly. Get into art school or see if your school has something related to what you want to do. Those credits you did will be there when you come back from work if you decide to take that route. They don't reset or anything. You can pick up where you left off.

I have friends who want to become concept artists too.
 
Like DM said fuck them.

Change your major to something you want to do. This isn't their life, its yours. Your the one going to like or hate your life, your the one who has to pay for the consequences not them.

The definition of job usually means labor done for profit which includes Video Game concept artist. and if your parents honestly say money money, fuck that. You could be making about the same amount of money in a year, then what your parents have to pay for college, alot more actually.

If you don't stop doing what they want you do to, what's going to happen when they're gone? Who's going to make decisions for you? Certainly not you if you keep listening to them.
 
You guys are right... I respect my dad's opinion, and he'll probably hate me for quite a long time when I finally summon up the courage to tell him, but I think I'd rather have that happen than be miserable for the next few years.

See, I want to do stuff like this:

http://www.sc2blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/starcraft_samwise035c.jpg

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t151/mystichobo69/ultralisk.jpg

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2659/archilfw5.jpg


Not doing stupid sine graphs and calculating force and whatnot... or calculus. That's crap. And that's pretty much all engineering has entailed so far is doing math, which is the one thing I hate more than anything in the world.
 
DM gives good advice, but I have to starkly disagree with his advice of "just fuck the drunk girls". If you want a meaningful relationship, look for it. You'll find it, quite possibly at college like I have. But you won't find it at a party.
 
Skiddle's not asian. I would know.

Those are some cool concept art there. I dunno what to say though. I don't want to be an engineer either. Actually I don't know what I want to be. BUT I do hate math with a passion. I wouldn't mind living on a deserted island, or oh I could make my own zoo or public aquarium! :D
It is sort of unrealistic but I dun care.

I would design games but I hate typing codes. I made up some ideas as a kid but they are lame for the most part... but the concept of making a video game still exists. Every time I take a new computer class in school thinking it would be interesting and help me learn to program; it lets me know one thing I don't want to do... typing, drawing diagrams with lines, designing advertisements, making newspaper articles.... If anything I would design 3d sprites or landscapes for games.



OH PS: Parents already know, they were looking at it tonight. They check your posts to see when you are on. RUN! RUN!! They say you are lying about a bunch of stuff. Maybe you are exaggerating slightly (about what they said )but I agree with you for the most part. They said "hopefully you are setting the record straight," as I am typing this. They did say to eat macaroni and "mr noodle"

I suggest apples and bananas, they are like 22 cents.

Eh, that's my two cents.
 
Yeah this is an important issue to me heh.

Here's the thing. Everything in your life is gonna require work, unless you fall into celebrity/wealth for something easy and i'd like to note that that happens to only a thinblefull of people out of an ocean of regular joes

what im saying is almost ANY field you want to go into will have this feeling you're having of "man this sucks i hate sin graphs" if you want to get a meaningful job. EG if it art you're gonna be like "man i hate drawing naked dudes" . That's just the way higher education is, so don't expect a massive change to be a huge relief all over. if anything the more you care about a field the more you're going to stress over it.

More importantly though, though you need direction, and something to focus on for the future and you might not have the maturity right now to know what it is, and if you dont know what you're working for, that invalidates alot of the work.

You need to tell your parents that you need time to figure out what you're working towards, and then start getting an education. If they call it an investment wasted, you say "I'm sorry I'm only telling you this now, but this is how i feel now. I cannot change how i feel."

THe fact that they're supporting you is great, but they just want it to be a really easy process. you tell thaem that is sucks things didnt turn out that way, but the way you feel is the way things are.

Take a semester off, work, meet people, travel, gain some perspective.

you'll find what you're looking for.

this is not an unfarmiliar tale and one that resonates with mine alot r__r

I got into university on good marks in highschool after pretty much breezing through (as im sure alot of us did). I fell into chemical engineering on weak premises and i honestly just treated it like the next year of highschool, which it was pretty close to being (1st year is general science for all engsci freshmen)

Once my actual program started in year 2, i realized i hated it by the end. i've just finished taking a semester of chemistry/math, my fave classes, thinking i'd choose one to major in, but what i really want to do is try a bunch of humanities now, and that's if i go to school next semester.

Time/money started out as afterthoughts since ive always worked alot and had a good deal of it, and my family was helping out too, but now here i am after 2.5 years of university and i feel like i havent done anything important

luckily for me i am extremely supporting parents who tell me to do what i like as long as im not wasting my time.

i also just oppose the whole notion of regulating knowledge and letting it filter out to those who can pay for it but that' another discusion i guess
 
Gormenghast said:
ps your family is kind of fucked up no offense. i can't believe they're asking your brother to set it straight for them over the internet. are you people afraid of sitting down and talking to your son?
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I dunno... They said that as I was typing, not before.

They aren't that bad...
 
You guys really don't know how badly I'm getting F'd in the A by my college right now, although I've mentioned it once or twice on IRC as it occured.
 
Something that just occurred to me was that you might be having such a bad time because you are eating so poorly.

I survived on $20-$25 (American) a week for food for one summer while I was a research assistant at college. It's doable (obviously, as I'm still alive), but not only is it extremely unhealthy...but it absolutely kills the spirit. It's extremely monotonous, which kills the enjoyment of things you otherwise would enjoy (I haven't been able to eat an egg since), it's unhealthy and can cause other problems, and really...when you have nothing else to look forward to in the day, it's refreshing to be able to look forward to breakfast or some other meal. That's something I've done numerous times, and it's gotten me through some tough spots. I can't imagine not having that. There is a reason that summer was the worst of my life.
 
Boy, am I glad that I'm not in college yet. Plus I don't have parents like that too.

I really have to agree with Surgo and DM(except the girls) and you should tell your parents, because life isn't worth it if your can't do what you actually love.
 
seds said:
Skiddle's not asian. I would know.

Those are some cool concept art there. I dunno what to say though. I don't want to be an engineer either. Actually I don't know what I want to be. BUT I do hate math with a passion. I wouldn't mind living on a deserted island, or oh I could make my own zoo or public aquarium! :D
It is sort of unrealistic but I dun care.

I would design games but I hate typing codes. I made up some ideas as a kid but they are lame for the most part... but the concept of making a video game still exists. Every time I take a new computer class in school thinking it would be interesting and help me learn to program; it lets me know one thing I don't want to do... typing, drawing diagrams with lines, designing advertisements, making newspaper articles.... If anything I would design 3d sprites or landscapes for games.



OH PS: Parents already know, they were looking at it tonight. They check your posts to see when you are on. RUN! RUN!! They say you are lying about a bunch of stuff. Maybe you are exaggerating slightly (about what they said )but I agree with you for the most part. They said "hopefully you are setting the record straight," as I am typing this. They did say to eat macaroni and "mr noodle"

I suggest apples and bananas, they are like 22 cents.

Eh, that's my two cents.
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If you're still in high school, take an animation or modelling course so you know whether or not you should get into level design or character modelling ;) I'm actually working on a level for a class project right now. My friend did the environment and I'm doing the bot placement and (really really basic) AI.

I used high school to try and figure out what I wanted to do unlike many people. Electives in high school are a great way of getting introduced to things as are extracurriculur activities if your school has anything related. I took programming courses and thought I liked it at first, but when I joined the school's robotics team I found that it wasn't really my thing. On the other hand, I enjoyed my web design and journalism classes quite a bit and got a part time job as a blogger for a video game website. Loved writing about games and I like website design as well. I'm now in university studying media arts and communications =)

Don't waste high school!

Edit: Yeah I agree with Surgo. It's nice being able to have lunch or something to look forward to. If I'm stuck at school doing a project or something, it's always nice for everyone to take a break and run down to the food court for some food. Not exactly that healthy in this case, but having something tasty to look forward to is great.

Seriously. Mr. Noodles has like no nutritional value.
 
If there's anything I learned, it's that you really ought to go to college for something you know you like. A lot of people don't get that luxury. Take a break if you need to do some soul searching.

Many of my friends have either a) gone back to school after they hated what they were doing, or b) are still in school and majoring in something else with a huge debt on their hands.

No worries about girls. College is a time where everyone goes a little nuts. Just wait til you're nearly graduated--by that time a lot of people have stopped getting ridiculously drunk and sleeping around.

Good luck!
 
Firestorm said:
If you're still in high school, take an animation or modelling course so you know whether or not you should get into level design or character modelling ;) I'm actually working on a level for a class project right now. My friend did the environment and I'm doing the bot placement and (really really basic) AI.

I used high school to try and figure out what I wanted to do unlike many people. Electives in high school are a great way of getting introduced to things as are extracurriculur activities if your school has anything related. I took programming courses and thought I liked it at first, but when I joined the school's robotics team I found that it wasn't really my thing. On the other hand, I enjoyed my web design and journalism classes quite a bit and got a part time job as a blogger for a video game website. Loved writing about games and I like website design as well. I'm now in university studying media arts and communications =)

Don't waste high school!
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This is exactly my thoughts. This is why they actually teach you everything in school because why would you need to learn anything else other than math and some other miscellaneous subject if you needed to be an engineer? To introduce you to everything so you can find that true passion for something that you don't know about yet.
 
hey seds, tell them that I am not answering the phone for them. Or emails. I am tired of them trying to control me, I moved away to get away from that, and obviously it didn't work.

I don't even care if they "cut off the money" because I already have plans. I'm might not be finishing engineering. I'll see how I feel about it at the end of the week.


I am very offended that they snoop around smogon too :|
 
Skiddle just some quick words of advice for you that kept me going through school shit:

A degree is better than not having a degree. Even if you don't work in your field, it shows your potential employer that you are smarter than some non degree holder (even if that's not true, they assume), that you are willing to commit and work through the hardships of said degree and that you are motivated.

It also puts you automatically in a higher pay bracket, even if it's not in your degree. It makes you more valuable as a human being.

Just consider that before you go to the glamorous world of living on your own, like DM and I.
 
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