College - the people are more frustrating than the work

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Almajo88
Deinonychus
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05 May 2012, 5:30 pm

For context I'm currently attending college, completing an Access to Higher Education course (comprising English Lit, Psychology and Sociology) with the intention of moving on to uni in September.

I've been increasingly getting frustrated not by the workload, but by my fellow students. I look at them getting along and talking and although there are people I hang around with, I feel like I'm an outsider, I don't trust them and frankly I might as well be alone. On its own that would be frustrating yeah? But the problem is when it interferes in my ability to do work. I've been spending most of my lessons hiding in a toilet cubicle. I often can't stand to let people see my face, I think I'm suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. I miss a lot of lessons and although I'm capable of doing well in spite of that I get upset over the loss of potential because I know I'm capable of doing much better than I am. Even in class or when working I can't focus properly on what I'm doing. College support is worse than useless and the doc gave me some medication for anxiety but no anti-depressants until next week, and they won't kick in in time to help with college.

I can't help but feel like this is a self-indulgent rant. Well, I'm interested in hearing if anybody else has similar problems in college or similar?

e: I forgot to mention that on Friday I walked out of class and bashed my head against a door hard enough to make me fall down, couldn't stand the feeling any more and I didn't want people to continue ignoring me. I remembered this now because I just realised some guy deleted me on FB since :/ feel like I've gotten to the point where I just want to hurt people now.



melmaclorelai
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06 May 2012, 6:46 am

I'm currently at university. I started earlier this year and I'm doing four classes (Spanish, Anthropology, Gender Studies and Legal Studies).

I'm not frustrated with all of the other students. Some of them are very nice and don't ignore me for my oddness. I know that there's probably others who think I'm too odd to socialise with, but the uni I go to has several hundred students, so there's plenty of other people to socialise with. I tend to get along better with the mature age students as I've found that the majority of the ones my own age are only interested in partying and drinking.

I find the workload fairly easy to manage most of the time although I goofed off during the Easter break and let it slide a bit. Since then, I've found it a little harder to get through, but I'm still doing all the important things that I'm going to get assessed on.

Have you carved out specific times in your day/week to get your work done? I find it much easier to get mine done when I write a list of what I need to do in my diary and assign myself a certain block of time to do it in. Something like: "Spanish Revision: 3pm to 4pm on Saturday."

I understand that your feeling quite hopeless and overwhelmed right now, so maybe it would be best to start small. Set yourself a small goal that you can easily achieve and keep building them up until you have the confidence to do well.

In terms of social stuff and making friends, I find it easier to talk to people at uni then I did at high school, but I'm so used to being quiet and not saying much (and having a complete poker face :silent: ) that it's easy for me to fall into myself and ignore other people. I have to psyche myself up during the day. I have to convince myself with thoughts like "I will talk in my Gender Studies tutorial today". I still have a bit of an issue with eye contact, but I find it helps to just speak up a little bit, so people don't think I'm mute.

I hope I've managed to make some sense within this post (feel free to ask me to clarify something if I haven't).

I also hope I've been able to offer some sort of assistance and comfort. University can be tough and sometimes I wish I had a mentor to guide me through it.


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"Sometimes you kind of have to die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person." - Gerard Way.