Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[3man75]

So i'm going into college {picked a random major} and im doing the regular college classes starting this January.

An really i'm lost i don't know what i want to study or do for life. I wanted to join the army but they DQ'ed me {no reason given unfortunately} and
game design seems like a bad career choice. Can anyone pass a bit of exp/knowledge?

[Cthulhu]

It's pretty normal to have doubts about what you want to do.  That being said, college is very expensive and will take up four years or more of your life.  Don't pick a random major and go in with no idea what you want to do or if you even want to go to college.  We've gotten it into our heads that you have to go to college and that's not true.

[3man75]

It's pretty normal to have doubts about what you want to do.  That being said, college is very expensive and will take up four years or more of your life.  Don't pick a random major and go in with no idea what you want to do or if you even want to go to college.  We've gotten it into our heads that you have to go to college and that's not true.

but how do you make a living without studying? i mean i have a job {cleaning toilets at Marshall and for some reason female's bathroom is always the worse one} but it sucks monkey balls idk how to get anything else without a degree.

[Lectorog]

It's normal. It's certainly not good, but it's normal.

[LordBucket]

Is it normal not to know?

Yes. It's completely normal. Lots of people graduate high school and then suddenly get hit in the face with the realization that they're an adult and now have to go live a life. In fact, it's one of the better reasons to go to college. It gives you time to figure things out.

Can anyone pass a bit of exp/knowledge?

Couple schools of thought:

1) Go to a school far away from home, live in a dorm or share an apartment with a fellow student. This gets you the full "college experience." Many people look back and say their college years were the best of their lives. Enjoy them.

2) Go to a cheap local community college in your are for the first two years, then transfer to a "real" school. It doesn't matter where you do general ed. If money is a concern this option may be preferable to the above. If you have parents who will hand you 50k/yr for school, do number 1. If not, consider this instead. Life is easier if you start it without debt.

Whether you do 1 or 2, you'll most likely be doing general ed for your first two years. That gives you two years to figure out what you want to do.

3) Go to a trade school instead of college. This is probably the most efficient option in terms of time and money, but it does require you to make a decision about what to do, and it generally means less partying.

Can anyone pass a bit of exp/knowledge?

Don't pick a stupid major.

Don't assume that what you major in needs to be what you spend the rest of your life doing. It doesn't. I know a history major who runs a print shop. I know a biology major who manages a computer OEM production department. I know a business major who sells industrial lighting. Doctors, attorneys and accountants need to have a degree that matches their field. Most others don't.

Don't assume that going to college at all is absolutely necessary to lead a fulfilling life. The guy who who makes $10/hr part time operating a ski lift, with no degree, no debt, no particular skills, but spends his days off skiing and seducing sexy ski girls probably leads a more fulfilling life than the guy who spent 7 years putting himself $125,000 in debt in order to get a law degree so he can spend 60 hours a week in a law office with plans to buy a house so he can put himself in even more debt and pay it off slowly over decades.

[3man75]

Is it normal not to know?

Couple schools of thought:

1) Go to a school far away from home, live in a dorm or share an apartment with a fellow student. This gets you the full "college experience." Many people look back and say their college years were the best of their lives. Enjoy them.

2) Go to a cheap local community college in your are for the first two years, then transfer to a "real" school. It doesn't matter where you do general ed. If money is a concern this option may be preferable to the above. If you have parents who will hand you 50k/yr for school, do number 1. If not, consider this instead. Life is easier if you start it without debt.

Whether you do 1 or 2, you'll most likely be doing general ed for your first two years. That gives you two years to figure out what you want to do.

3) Go to a trade school instead of college. This is probably the most efficient option in terms of time and money, but it does require you to make a decision about what to do, and it generally means less partying.

Can anyone pass a bit of exp/knowledge?

Don't pick a stupid major.

Don't assume that what you major in needs to be what you spend the rest of your life doing. It doesn't. I know a history major who runs a print shop. I know a biology major who manages a computer OEM production department. I know a business major who sells industrial lighting. Doctors, attorneys and accountants need to have a degree that matches their field. Most others don't.
[/quote]

I'm going to  a public community school and it's the goverment paying for it but i'm still working for extra dollers in my pocket. BTW looked up college exp and..partying all night isn't my thing unfortunately. I'm more lonerish too party that long but i do like to dance {terribly} with all my might

[nenjin]

From my experience, you're faced with two overarching choices:

1. Embrace your studies and strive to be what you're majoring in.

2. Do enough to get it through it with 'a degree'.

That's really the two groups I saw people fall into during college. And you'd be surprised how many people are in the latter, who now hold jobs totally unrelated to their major. I'm one of them. Lots of people in the last few generations have gone to college not really ready to pursue a career, but because it's expected for us to not have bad jobs.

I'll pass on the wisest thing ever uttered to me by a teacher in college. Pity it was late in my senior year when I'd long checked out.

He said: "You get out of college what you put into it."

And it's totally true. A good college furnishes you opportunities. Clubs, jobs, highly talented and knowledgable people, potential employers, some practical experience and just the opportunity to absorb as much as you can, do as much as you can.

You can choose to make the most of that, and make school your life. Or you can do what a lot of other people do. And that's pick and choose what you want to be involved in (if anything really at all.) I look back and do regret that I just passed on most of the opportunities my school gave. But knowing I didn't want to be my major, I was just ready to get out.

So yeah. Define your level of commitment and expectations about what you want to get out of college.

[Tiruin]

Career pathing, did you try that? The course you take would generally focus on what you're going to be doing later on post-college, and shooting randomly isn't...a good idea. Do what you find interesting and appealing to you and hit that course, then develop yourself and your skills thereon (ie Invest in yourself and utilize your talents and interests), is what I say bluntly.

[Mephansteras]

I'm going to  a public community school and it's the goverment paying for it but i'm still working for extra dollers in my pocket. BTW looked up college exp and..partying all night isn't my thing unfortunately. I'm more lonerish too party that long but i do like to dance {terribly} with all my might

Partying isn't the sum total of the college experience. In fact, I loath that sort of thing and I still had a blast in College. Mostly because I had lots of free time, made a great bunch of friends, and was at that sweet spot of responsibilities and freedom. Money was always tight, which is normal, and I wouldn't want to live that way forever, but I have great memories of my time.

My advice is to figure out things out in this order:

1) Is there anything you love to do, and really want to do for the rest of your life as anything other than a hobby. Music, Art, History, those sorts of things rarely pay well and should be done for passion rather than practicality. You don't go into those for money, you do it because you love it.

2) If not that, then what is your goal for college? Do you want to prepare yourself for a particular career path? Or do you just want to get a degree?

  2a) If you want a particular career path, then do some research. Figure out what's hiring well, what kind of lifestyle you'd think you'd like outside college, and what kinds of things you'd be ok doing. Work is almost never something you really enjoy, unless you get really lucky, but you can at least shoot for something you won't hate. Generally speaking, careers that pay the most are either difficult, require lots of time to learn, only really fit certain personality types, or a combination of all three.

  2b) If all you want is a degree, I recommend business of some sort. Generally pretty easy to graduate in and opens up doors in many places, since most employers are businesses and someone with a broad knowledge of all aspects of business is pretty useful to have around.

One really good idea is to talk with people from lots of different majors. Engineers have a different experience from Scientists who have a different experience from English majors, etc. Their practical experiences about what is good and bad in their major can be quite helpful. I moved from Computer Science over to Information Systems based on what people in both majors where telling me about how things go as you move further into those majors.

[Imperfect]

Speaking from my experience(22, graduated this spring, majoring in Marketing, also went to college with no freaking idea what to do, I just didn't want to end up in a call center selling phone tariffs. I've been unemployed for quarter a year now, since I can't get that damn first real job, and I've applies for ones where just high school education war required.) What I'd do differently:

1. I'd go to a tech college, ideally to study programming. Even if you don't want to do it afterwards, it's still a nice safety cushion you can always fall upon, and programming skills are extremely transferrable. You can move to another side of the planet and do almost the same job for almost the same money. It's also much easier to find a junior programming job than a non-tech one when fresh out of college. It's bound to pay better, too, and having some technical expertise never hurts. You can study some programming for free on coursera, udacity, etc. It's free, but it will take around a year of full-time study, and you still need to know about like 4 or 5 other technologies that they want even on junior level. Check job postings to see what language and technologies to actually study, they might differ in your area.

2. Get eperience while in college. The competition for job openeings is insane these days, degree alone is a must, like reading or writing. When you graduate you'll be pitted against kids with 4 years of job experince, shining reccomendations from their superiors, 4.0 GPA, several won competetions, and a bunch of completed projects of their own. You'll need do even better than that if you don't want to end up in this dead-end limbo that I'm in right now. This applies on other areas of study as well.

3. If you're not living in a decently large city, move. Even if it will mean living with roommates, supporting yourself, and having to do stuff around the house, do it. It sucks of you have to walk/drive/take a bus/all three from some shithole every time you want to do anything, meet anyone, or go anywhere, like I always had to. This is important because...

4. You need to network and get social. Really, if you don't have powerful friends inside a company, it's super tough to get a job there. Quantity counts as well, you never know if a cousin of a boss of one of your classmates was looking for a person very much like you for a well-paid job of you don't know that classmate and he/she doesn't know you. I'm now lost and alone because my college was in a large city 40 km from the Nowhresville where I live, and the bullshit(waiting, paying for accomodation, paying for taxis...) associated with getting there every time gradually discouraged me from socializing and going places where other people were going. At first, I tried to, but I was becoming more and more fed up with the commute and started to slack off more and more events. After 3 years, when I compare myself to my former classmates who live in the city, I'm light years behind them job- and network-wise. I think this was the biggest mistake I made. I sat home playing videogames, while other were busy participating in competitions, networking, getting to know people, and having jobs in a city I didn't have a base in. Sticking to my ruinous high school mindset seems to have consted me a decent job. While we are at it...

5. Don't think about college as you (probably) thought about high school. You're not there to just endure another 4 years so you can get a paper saying you're slightly more desirable employee than an averge serial killer. College is about actual learning and paving yourself the road to your carrer, not about surviving being locked with a bunch of teenagers in one room every day. As nenjin said, "You get out of college what you put into it.". Hang out with your classmates, or professors if it's a small enough institution, get into the picture of what's going on in your industry, participate in competetions, talk to people, work on projects, do stuff on your own, be proactive.

I don't know how much can you relate this to your life experience and education, but I hope some of it helps.

[nenjin]

That's the real kicker about college. You go in thinking course work is the most important thing, but it turns out to be a lot of the extracirricular things that give you the most benefit. Lots of people get mired in trying to pass their core curriculum that they don't actually have the time or the energy to pursue other things. Like lectures, social clubs, scholarships and grant work. While that stuff isn't actually necessary to graduate, it's what pays dividends later when you're selling your skills to an employer. (As Imperfect said.)

I personally passed on several opportunities to demonstrate my skills to employers. While I regret not at least trying, I don't regret not being the gem in their eye. That shit is high pressure and I decided mid-way through college what I honestly wanted: a simple, peaceful life (relatively speaking.) I didn't want to be rich, famous, respected or change the world. So that put a lot of the "Work your ass off!" mentality in college into perspective. I quit holding myself up to the highest common denominator in my college and started thinking, honestly, about what I wanted. It definitely wasn't "Work yourself to death in a soulless media environment doing three people's jobs for the pay of one." The answer ended up being "A degree, so I can get the fuck out of this place and away from all this. I'll figure the rest out."

Might seem like a huge waste of the gift that is a college education, but I derived value from college in the things I learned and the way it impacted my thinking, rather than the job it afforded me. (I got to sit around all day and listen to and talk about mythology. How awesome is that?) My degree probably didn't even help me get the job I currently hold. That I owe entirely to networking.

So hopefully between these different view points you can see there's lots of paths to approach college, and exit from it. Very few people know exactly what they're going to do. Fewer still actually do the thing they thought they wanted to do. Be honest with yourself about a) how motivated to succeed you truly are, b) what you're willing to sacrifice to do it and c) what you think you could be successful at doing.

[Lectorog]

The last two posts are really good. Not that you should ignore the rest of the advice here, of course.

1) Is there anything you love to do, and really want to do for the rest of your life as anything other than a hobby. Music, Art, History, those sorts of things rarely pay well and should be done for passion rather than practicality. You don't go into those for money, you do it because you love it.

Do note that while you may love to do those things, you may enjoy them only as a hobby. Doing it as a profession means you have to do it even when you don't want to, which turns out to be most of the time! So you'll want to, like, do a test run for a few months to see if you think you'd be okay with that.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

1: Go to a community college for the first 2 years, earn an Associate's degree, and transfer to a 4-year college. Tuition is cheaper, mistakes are easier to recover from, and you get a clean slate of second chances when you switch. Investigate which colleges offer transferable degrees and which accept those transfers. Don't attend a super prestigious college unless it's comparable in price to a state school.

2: Initially, take basic classes that you will need for all majors - college-level english, math, etc. Your college may require virtually everyone to take a language for example. Maybe after a couple quarters / semesters you will have a better idea of what major you want to pursue, and you won't have wasted any time.

3: Start taking difficult classes soon. They tend to require prerequisites, so you might need to take 5 math classes in a chain. It is best to take them consecutively, so that there's no break in between and so you don't take two at once. You don't want to have to extend your college years if you can plan ahead. These especially include language classes, because you tend to not need those as prereqs for later classes. So you can take 2 quarters of Japanese and then safely stop studying - no worry that a Java class 2 years later will need those skills.

4: Don't take two Phys Ed classes in one quarter. You'll be too tired to keep up in both unless you sleep your way through them.

5: Be organized. Schedule out all your tasks at the start of the quarter using the syllabus. Seat deadlines for yourself that are earlier than the actual deadlines. Take holidays into account, and even though you should work a little on the weekends you should assume that you won't in this calculation. Don't let yourself get behind - even in the reading, even if it's not being graded - and consider it a wake-up call if you miss your own deadline and barely manage to squeak it in at the last minute of the real deadline. If you miss one of your prof's deadlines, you need an intervention.

6: Show up for all your classes. Whatever you're doing isn't important enough to skip, even if you're ahead in the reading and have all your work done. If the class is actually a complete waste of time, complain to the dean. You might not get your money back but at least you tried to do something.

7: Actually work hard. Do the extra credit (you should have plenty of time, and you should be understanding your coursework enough). If something is difficult, it's not a sign that you're "not cut out for it", it's a sign that you need to work harder. You get better at something by doing it. Adults who are athletic and good at sports are so because they spent a lot of time doing it. College may be the first place where your natural talents no longer let you skate by effortlessly.

8: Try to identify the things you enjoy. These are the things you're more likely to work hard at, and thus the things you will get best at. Your quality of life will be better if you do things you enjoy. Be openminded about this: maybe you actually do enjoy coding, or legal research, typography, chemistry. The more things you try, the greater your chances of finding the things you enjoy.

9: While you're in college, you need to work and volunteer. Not as a janitor or food service - it's better to volunteer at something that'll teach valuable skills and look good on a resume than to make minimum wage at something your future self won't even include on a resume. If you volunteer very part-time, say 2 hours a week, throughout your college years you can put "4 years part-time volunteering at XYZ" on your resume which will look very good. You'll also have experience in the career you're going for, which lets you know if you need to run away very quickly and pick something else. And the time spent volunteering will be well rewarded by insights you can apply toward your coursework. Again, don't volunteer at the soup kitchen or the meth shelter. Humanitarianism may sound good but your employer would rather see pertinent experience.

10: Certain degrees are worthless. Don't go in for Middle English architecture, or Journalism, or Philosophy, or Politics. Our politicians have law degrees, and none of these ail land you a job. Once you get a nice job, take philosophy classes at night if you want.
Beware educating yourself as a teacher - are you so passionate about teaching that you will accept continual abuse from students, derision by childless taxpayers, minimal funding from the government, and extreme micro-management from all levels?
Really think about skilled trades. Being a plumber or electrician isn't so bad. I always thought I'd love to be an auto mechanic. Good money, but it's hard work and you go home dirty every day.
And consider your alternatives: unskilled agricultural labor / lawn care, temporary office clerical work / reception, food service / hospitality, call center, sales. You read about jobs that don't require a degree all the time, but these days it's getting to be that an Associate's degree is the new High School diploma.

11. Overall, take this seriously. You can goof off and make it through college, but all the people who worked hard and improved themselves are your competition. Let me tell you, someone with an industry-specific 4-year degree and four years of part-time pertinent experience stands so far above someone with a general 4-year degree, that there's simply no chance for the minimalist to be chosen. And they're both competing against a guy with 10 years' experience, a Master's degree, and a recommendation from someone the HR lady knows. All the previous tips may seem extreme, but if you don't push it every week of your college career you may be wasting 4 years of your life and $40,000 (plus interest).

[x2yzh9]

All these people, especially bucket, 3man, nenjin, imperfect, lectorog, leoleonardo, and what I'm about to say imo are all good advice. I think you should heed it well, but once again this post is all opinion and personal beliefs.

"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right".
Putting effort into your college experience, or heck even whatever you do when you get out of high school if you don't go to college, is important. It's a competitive world out there and others will leave you in the dust if you don't up and realize that, as some say, '2nd Place is 1st Loser'. I'm not saying to beat yourself up if you fail, but just keep that in mind.

And then, you know, imo I've always thought that you need to do something you actually enjoy. Imagine going to work for 4-6 decades after so many years of school and money, debt, etc. and hating every second of it. Nope, I know I'm not gonna live that life.

I could go on and on but hey I feel like I've been posting way too much in life advice when I havn't posted anywhere else for a while. 

[tykavanaugh]

I wanted to join the army but they DQ'ed me {no reason given unfortunately}

That's very odd. My familiarity is with the Navy/Marine Corps side of the house but I'm pretty sure (at least in the ROTC side of things) whatever event/standard you failed should have been made well aware to you. I'm asking because some medical DQ's from the military may not DQ you from LEO work.