Major Life Decisions

[jain]

I'm not going to be returning to college this fall. My parents are not pleased, and my friends are concerned, and I'm feeling slightly guilty. The worst part is, this is such a recurring theme in my life. It took me five years to get through high school, and it looks like it'll take me at least seven before I get my fricking bachelor's degree.

On the other hand, I'm really hating being here. I hate my classes, I hate writing essays, I hate learning--and that's never happened to me in my life. I want to try doing something else for a while; ideally, I'll find a nice internship doing editorial work or something, but at the least I want to live away from my family for a while and do things that probably only I find impressive, like doing all my own grocery shopping and learning how to use public transportation.

I'm pretty sure I'm making the right decision, as much as it galls me to yet again demonstrate my inability to live a normal life. I mean, everyone else manages to finish college and get a driver's license and so forth with no apparent difficulty. But I can't countenance spending thousands of dollars to go to college when I'm not deriving anything of value from the experience, and doing the bare minimum in my classes while remaining unmoved by what I'm learning really isn't worth much.

Comments

[althea5000.livejournal.com]

Dude, Bryn Mawr's a tough place. I almost didn't make through on several occasions. When I stop to think about it, I'm still amazed that I actually made it through in four years. So don't sweat it. If you need to take a break, then that's what you need to do. And certainly don't sit there thinking "everyone else manages to...", because that's sure as hell isn't true. They don't. Many people don't graduate in 4 years and from much easier places than BMC. I think we should get special exemptions or something. =)

And dude, why didn't you tell me you got an LJ? Instead, letting me stumble upon it when I'm doing a random search through BMC LJs... come upon you and go "Wait, wait, wait! That person has me as a friend! Wait, *that's* who it is?" ::sigh:: Some people. =) Dude, I was down in Philly for the show! We could've met up!

(Okay, I apologize for the over-use of the word "Dude" in the this post.)

[jain]

I'd thought of telling you that I'd gotten an LJ, but then I wasn't sure if you'd even remember me, since we only met the once, and...just chalk it up to a minor bout of insecurity.

As for leaving school, all of my friends keep telling me about the same things that you did; by now I'm actually at the point of believing all of you. I'm thinking that by the time I'm ready to go back to college I might end up transferring--maybe to Douglass, especially if my brother ends up going to Rutgers...but that's still quite a bit in the future. Oh, and this summer I'm going to be staying with my girlfriend in Providence for a month--mid-May to mid-June; maybe you and I could find some day that we could meet in Boston.