I'm a recent grad, 22, marketing major, currently unemployed. I went to that school out of fear of ending up in a shit job somewhere and out of lack of mathematical skill(the credit goes to my elementary and high school math teachers, mostly). For the past year, I studied maths and programming on my own, hoping to get to a Bachelor CS program, and pursue a career in programming, which about a year ago I grew to be interested in after I took some online courses, unlike marketing, which I majored in only because the other major was finance, and there was a lot of... math involved in that. I dropped out of that CS program after three weeks. The math was just too much. I couldn't even get the high school basics covered, others were doing it with their eyes closed and one hand behing their back, and were eagerly awaiting the real stuff to come. I knew I could never even memorize all that many formulas and procedures and whatnot, let alone use them. I know that you're not supposed to learn math like that, that it should look more like a system, a roadmap(which my more capable classmates at that school confirmed to me), and not a stack of formula upon formula, but it just didn't click for me, not even after a half year of previous study.
So I started out sending resumes, and quickly found out that I by far didn't learn enough programming to get paid for it. Almost everybody wants experience, plus you have to know like five other technologies, just Java itself is not enough. Then for about a month and a half, I applied to any job that remotely fit my resume and demanded college education in roughly my specialization. From the entire hunt, I got three measly interviews. One of the interviewers was kind enough to be blunt about what my chances were. The other applicants were two 30sh guys with Masters in CS and a decade of experience, plus a bunch of released project each. Applying for a job which's requirements fitted a fresh grad. Keeps the hopes up, really. My parents gave me an ultimatum: either I'll have a job by the end of the year, or they will get me one, even if that meant cleaning toilets. I don't see how much that will help me get anywhere.
The weird thing is, nobody I know from the college seems to have screwed their life up as bad as me. They're either going for a masters in economics(no way I could do that, shitton of higher math) or having a job you'd expect from a business college graduate, i.e.: they're in private equity, consulting, PR, or marketing somewhere. All of them did better at school, too, and I don't mean just the GPA. They won competitions that I wasn't even aware existed, they grasped all the technical stuff on statistics and math courses much quicker than me, all of them are able to socialize without a problem, while I mostly end up hearing evey fourth word of the conversation and getting bored. Everybody seems to have this knack for life, some kind of opportunity-locating laser sight that I lack, like a user's manual to the world that tells them where the jobs are, how to do math, how to do work more efficiently, how to direct your life, and what to write on a test.
The worst about this is the pattern that emerges when I look in the past: High school for example. True, a lot of people there were annoying jerks, but then again, I wasn't able to develop any significant friendships with the majority who weren't, nor did I find another way to spend my free time with than playing videogames. I had no other hobbies, no consistent desire to develop any of my skills, nothing. I tried to go places and meet people, but it always ended up somewhere from "Meh." to varying degrees of horrible(standing there and wanting to be home playing videogames, drinking too much, getting into a fight, getting slapped for some good reason, etc.) Sure, a few times I got to make out with some random girl who then I texted with for about a week before we found out that we don't really have anything to say to each other and the "relationship" whithered away, but other than that... I don't even hang out with the dudes that I met during that time. Too many conversations I can't relate to and too much club-going. I tried to learn to program, draw, speak French, and make 3D models at that time, too, but in all cases, the excitement fell off pretty quickly and I was back to my time-wasting self within one or two weeks.
The elementary was pretty much the same. Outcast kid, sucked at sports, mediocre grades, no interest in anything, videogames(or books if my parents kicked me off the computer). Now, I'm from a quite well-off family, I have never even seen my parents arguing, and they were willing to pay for any school I wanted to go to. They were really liberal, too; since I was like 15, I could do whatever I judged best, so long as it didn't get them into trouble. Drugs, cigarettes, alcohol... all that was mine to enjoy as I saw fit, the parents just gave me a short lecture about the pitfalls of each those things, and I never had any real trouble with any of them. From time to time, they would try to talk me into studying more, or doing something outside of school, like sports, or joining a club, or learning another language. My father even once offered me to introduce me to a guy who could teach me how to program, but out of shyness, laziness, or parhaps stupidity, I somehow weaseled out all of those offers. I remember that they were all made in a slightly irritated tone: "You just play games all day long, why don't you do this, why don't you do that, you're wasting your time." I always got this weird gut-wrenching when my father talked about something that I screwed up or wasn't good enough at(e.g. school, life, or even some minor thing like leaving the door open or having a confusing desktop layout on my computer when he urgently needed to use it). He calmed down pretty quickly and never resorted to violence, but talking to him felt like talking to a crate of dynamite. I never knew what thing that I did or said was going to turn him into a condescending prick for two minutes before he got into his normal self. I guess I just wanted those conversations to end ASAP and didn't hear the message over the messenger.
And so here I am. From a jump-start better than anyone could wish for down to a sub-average, unemployed slob. And the best thing is, I owe all of this to yours truly. Nobody else stood in my way. For some reason, I deliberately worked into making myself into the most unfit-for-life person imaginable. No network of friends, next to none technical skills, no vision, no great ideas. I'm a rock, basically. I ask this: What the hell is wrong with me? What could have caused me to systematically nose-dive my life into the shitter over the past ten years? And how do I fix it? I need to identify this flaw, otherwise, I think it's pretty reasonable to suppose that the pattern will repeat itself. So I ask you this: Why do you think I suck at life so much?