You know....

[chaoswolf]

I know you all hate seeing these kinds of posts in my LJ. I really know that you hate watching me rant. This is just in general. I hate college. It bites. It is a waste of time and money, and I'm currently unemployed. I want to learn to drive. I want to get a job. I want to not go to school...I seriously don't feel I'm getting anywhere with it. I think that those are pretty fair requests, don't you?

Jobs = good thing. Money = good thing. Being broke & unable to drive = bad thing. Having parents insisting you go to college dispite you hate it = even worse. Fuck it all!!!!! I dispise college with a passion. I dispise having to deal with perfectionist teachers who fail to appreciate the essays that I turn in. Dispite the fact that they are slightly different from what they wanted, they capture the essence of the characters from the story. I am ready to blow it all to hell, and I can't because my mother's being an anal bitch about it. No offense intended, but I don't believe she understands how I feel. I don't think she cares how I feel. I don't think she wishes me to leave college at all, and I believe she doesn't notice the fact that it's making me more depressed.

Fuck it all. Fuck it all. Fuck it all. Fuck it all.

Comments

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should come back later with my response. At the moment, you aren't listening to anyone but yourself right now. So go ahead and stick your fingers in your ears and tell yourself nobody understands you, but that isn't going to help the situation. It hasn't helped any of the previous situations--with your girlfriend, with your current boyfriend, with your family--and it is not going to help now.

So. If you're not going to listen to the considered advice of your friends, who are trying to help you, and if you're going to go into every confrontation with your parents with the attitude that they're not going to help you at all, then you're not getting anywhere. You're hamstringing yourself. If you reject everything we've suggested out of hand, what then?

College? You're saying it doesn't work.

College elsewhere? No, it's college that's the problem.

Trade school? No, parents won't let me.

Get a job? Parents won't let me.

Well, fuck that noise, kiddo, because you're running out of options beyond sitting on your ass playing video games all day, and your parents won't consider that kosher, either. So you're going to need to have a talk. Say you're not accomplishing anything in your frame of mind and you need time off. Say you'd like to try trade school. Say you're totally switching majors and want to do economics. I don't have a stake in your future, so I don't care what it is, but do SOMETHING because sitting here attacking everyone on livejournal isn't getting you out of De Anza and into a place you want to be.

If you have no motivation to improve right now then you need to find something you're motivated to do. It's out there. Go grab it.

[chaoswolf]

Parents are beginning to understand now, after I've chatted with them. I'm working on it. It's going to be a bit tricky.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

See, yeah. You'll get there. Just don't be dismissive toward your friends here; we're really trying to help you find solutions. If you have to just take a while before responding.

[chaoswolf]

I know....I appreciate it.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I think my own response was motivated in part because I come from a tradition and school where the schooling is partly an end in itself; I mean, my first thought when someone decides to leave academia is "What, you don't want to learn as much as you can?"

And I realize a lot of the time, you can learn a lot just by reading through the local library or doing research on your own, but again, I'm a science major, and I consider hands-on research and guiding voices integral to an education. That means some sort of structured learning environment, whether it be as an apprentice or in an institution.

And I definitely wouldn't be able to concentrate on as many different subjects as I'm doing--over the course of my Reed education, I've taken classes on English lit, linguistics, all sorts of chemistry, solid state physics, Greek and Roman literature/art/history, early modern Europe, and film--without the time to devote myself to my studies in a societally accepted way. It's actually amazing that it is perfectly acceptable for people our age, prime workers, to blow off practical labor for at least four years to sit and write papers on Aristotle. You know? It's a societal investment; society doesn't get our benefit to GNP for a while, but we come out better able to enrich society. Maybe it's work ethic, maybe it's cocktail party conversation, whatever.

I guess my point is that I really hope your "college SUCKS" experience is a localized phenomenon. There are a lot of different colleges and universities out there. If the intellectual posturing and academic bullshit isn't your thing, I really do urge you to try a trade school or to try transferring to a school with a reputation for less of the stuff you hate. You get a very different mix of people at a 4-year than a community college, a university than a state school, a private college than either. I'm not saying that I think you should come to Reed(I think everyone should come to Reed, but in full disclosure it's kicking MY ass academically and I was considered hot shit at my high school.) I think that even if you leave school right now and decide to jump right in the workforce, you should give it a shot sometime later.