Page 1 of 1 [ 8 posts ] 

Whitecrow323
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 4 Apr 2009
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 56
Location: Williamsport, PA

06 Oct 2011, 7:23 pm

Over the past few years, I have been feeling more and more dispondent about my overall situation in life. With the amount of social anxiety I feel, College has been a living hell that only gets worse whenever I have any doubts about my major. I was previoudly in information security, but I had to switch because Calculus is about as pleasent as sticking one head in a meat grinder. After that, I switched to accounting, which has been nothing but binding on financial journal entries prior to tests and then purging after the tests are over. Even if that nots what like the actual field is like, I still don't know whether that I how I want to spend the rest of my life. As for switching majors, I'm within 4 semesters of possibly graduating, provided I don't f**k anything up so any change in major would only mean more suffering and more of being a financial burden to my parents. Even if changing a major was possible, I doubt I could evev find a major I could feel enthusiastic about. The only other option other then trying to get through college by repeatedly banging my head against a concrete wall would be to drop out which would doom me to a life of menial dead end jobs with other lost souls who are twice as old and half as intelligent.

Ontop of all this, I have to live near freshmen roommates who act like drunken babboons who belong in a frathouse where they can waste their parents money floating their livers because they should never have entered college in the first place

Additionally, I'm so mentally exhausted after completing what is needed that I have little time to do anyting but stare at a computer or tv screen. Even when I do have that energy, the crappy weather that has been pervasive in the northeastern US has put a damper on any plans. And even if neither of the first two are present, I'm reluctant to pursue my love of photography due to high gas prices and concerns that some tin badge come or security goon will accuse me of being a terrorist of a child molestor.

So every week, its just a question of when I come with-in inches of total meltdown requardless of how much clonopin I've chugged.
Additionally, every 'professional' on the matter says I should, to the effect, just act 'normal'. I don't know how much more I this I can take before death looks more attractive.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,798
Location: the island of defective toy santas

06 Oct 2011, 8:40 pm

^^^
you made it this far, you can handle 4 more semesters. after you get your shingle, as a CPA you can work as long as you can stand it and save yourself a nest egg for early retirement. then you can go back to school and learn what you really want to learn and not just what career track is best for short-term income.



Last edited by auntblabby on 06 Oct 2011, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

lelia
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Age: 73
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,897
Location: Vancouver not BC, Washington not DC

06 Oct 2011, 8:40 pm

My goodness, you are depressed. I'm sorry.
I could give you advice of a sort, I suppose, but you might not hear anything I say as possible. Or so it was with me when I was depressed and unable even to think one positive thought despite all my efforts to do so.
But what the heck, here goes:
My husband changed majors 4 or 5 times before he settled on pre-med. And then he never did get into medical school. In hindsight, we are much happier he became a dentist. He was an accountant major for one quarter.
If it takes more than four years to get your degree, that's no big deal (big money maybe). The average now is five years because of scheduling conflicts. It took one of my sons six years to get his degree because the new university kept changing its requirements. And circumstances made him take a different career than the one his degree is in.
It might not hurt to put a gap or end or change to your college. You could try to be an apprentice somewhere, or volunteer, or take on-line courses, or spend one quarter taking only stuff that interests you with thinking about uses for jobs.
At my age, I know only a few people who have kept to the same career their entire working life. My husband is one, but even he has changed settings, from doing it in the Air Force, to group practice, to finally just before retirement, setting up his own practice, and when he retires he hopes to be a math or history teacher.
Did you know that radio and television stations and zoos are always looking for free labor? So are a lot of other organizations that could lead you to find the thing you have a passion for. And if you're lucky, the thing you have a passion for could pay.
I know you feel trapped, like there is only one agonizing road to walk on, but that is not true. I wonder if your parents feel the same way? Do they also feel that if you quit college, you can never ever go back again? Do they feel that if you don't go to college you will never find worthwhile work? Do they think it's impossible for you to start your own business and work for yourself? I bet you would give yourself better hours.
I'm going out of town for a few days, so I can't come back and check on you for those few days. I'm sorry. But I will come and see how the thread went next week.
Best of thoughts to you.
While I was typing this, Auntblabby posted. Hi Auntblabby.



Whitecrow323
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 4 Apr 2009
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 56
Location: Williamsport, PA

06 Oct 2011, 10:27 pm

auntblabby wrote:
^^^
you made it this far, you can handle 4 more semesters. after you get your shingle, as a CPA you can work as long as you can stand it and save yourself a nest egg for early retirement. then you can go back to school and learn what you really want to learn and not just what career track is best for short-term income.


The problem is that I'm not sure whether I would want to go thought the even worse meat grinder that is the CPA exam only to regurgitate what I had learned the moment I left the room. Besides if there are any set backs with my current plan, this will only serve to make a bad situation worse. Simply put, I don't know whether I want to get into accounting, a major I chose in a stressful situation when I realized I can't do the calculus that was required of my previous major. This is my forth year and as it stands I'm looking at a december 2013 graduation assuming nothing goes wrong.



Whitecrow323
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 4 Apr 2009
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 56
Location: Williamsport, PA

06 Oct 2011, 10:36 pm

I'm honestly not sure I could find an apprenticeship where I live since the nearest city with more then 100,000 people is 30 miles away. Even if I did land one, it would probably be that of a legal slave whose sole purpose is to pass papers and buy Coffey with money that is already eaten up by commuting costs. The fact that I'm entering my 5th year only add to the pressure . Even if I some how managed to come back after a one or more semester hiatus, I'd be surrounded by even more immature freshmen whou I would love to open their arteries. SImply put the only options I see are suffering or death.

lelia wrote:
My goodness, you are depressed. I'm sorry.
I could give you advice of a sort, I suppose, but you might not hear anything I say as possible. Or so it was with me when I was depressed and unable even to think one positive thought despite all my efforts to do so.
But what the heck, here goes:
My husband changed majors 4 or 5 times before he settled on pre-med. And then he never did get into medical school. In hindsight, we are much happier he became a dentist. He was an accountant major for one quarter.
If it takes more than four years to get your degree, that's no big deal (big money maybe). The average now is five years because of scheduling conflicts. It took one of my sons six years to get his degree because the new university kept changing its requirements. And circumstances made him take a different career than the one his degree is in.
It might not hurt to put a gap or end or change to your college. You could try to be an apprentice somewhere, or volunteer, or take on-line courses, or spend one quarter taking only stuff that interests you with thinking about uses for jobs.
At my age, I know only a few people who have kept to the same career their entire working life. My husband is one, but even he has changed settings, from doing it in the Air Force, to group practice, to finally just before retirement, setting up his own practice, and when he retires he hopes to be a math or history teacher.
Did you know that radio and television stations and zoos are always looking for free labor? So are a lot of other organizations that could lead you to find the thing you have a passion for. And if you're lucky, the thing you have a passion for could pay.
I know you feel trapped, like there is only one agonizing road to walk on, but that is not true. I wonder if your parents feel the same way? Do they also feel that if you quit college, you can never ever go back again? Do they feel that if you don't go to college you will never find worthwhile work? Do they think it's impossible for you to start your own business and work for yourself? I bet you would give yourself better hours.
I'm going out of town for a few days, so I can't come back and check on you for those few days. I'm sorry. But I will come and see how the thread went next week.
Best of thoughts to you.
While I was typing this, Auntblabby posted. Hi Auntblabby.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,798
Location: the island of defective toy santas

06 Oct 2011, 11:00 pm

Whitecrow323 wrote:
The problem is that I'm not sure whether I would want to go thought the even worse meat grinder that is the CPA exam only to regurgitate what I had learned the moment I left the room. Besides if there are any set backs with my current plan, this will only serve to make a bad situation worse. Simply put, I don't know whether I want to get into accounting, a major I chose in a stressful situation when I realized I can't do the calculus that was required of my previous major. This is my forth year and as it stands I'm looking at a december 2013 graduation assuming nothing goes wrong.


have you yet compiled a list of your other options? your other salable skills?



Whitecrow323
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 4 Apr 2009
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 56
Location: Williamsport, PA

06 Oct 2011, 11:41 pm

auntblabby wrote:
Whitecrow323 wrote:
The problem is that I'm not sure whether I would want to go thought the even worse meat grinder that is the CPA exam only to regurgitate what I had learned the moment I left the room. Besides if there are any set backs with my current plan, this will only serve to make a bad situation worse. Simply put, I don't know whether I want to get into accounting, a major I chose in a stressful situation when I realized I can't do the calculus that was required of my previous major. This is my forth year and as it stands I'm looking at a december 2013 graduation assuming nothing goes wrong.


have you yet compiled a list of your other options? your other salable skills?


Other then kwowlege of how to uses most the the features of MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, alittle bit of access, and two summers working night time cleaning crew, I cannont think of any marketable 'experiance. Even if that was the case, I can't do an interview ro save my life.'



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 114,798
Location: the island of defective toy santas

06 Oct 2011, 11:50 pm

^^^
you are doing better than me, believe it or not. you made it through half your college, i had to drop out after a year's worth of credit, even though i went two years. i also do badly on interviews, and the only reason i got hired with the civil service is because everybody else quit on them at this particularly unpleasant job that i got hired for. if it had been a popular job i'd have never been called. but i've met lots of very well-educated janitors and cashiers around my neck of the woods. i don't wanna say college here is a racket, but...
i wish you luck in any case, december 2013 is not very close, but the only way to get through something unpleasantly protracted, is one day at a time.