Am I ruined?

College Life
1

I have a strange father. He is very overprotective and made me go to my Supersafety that I applied to to practice doing applications. The program for my major is really small, no intern or volunteer activities at the university or my home related to my major, and the professors are from low ranked universities and are unapproachable and not used to someone of my ability or ambitions.

I am also at my 4th choice of major, as choices 1-3 are very hard to do well in or aren’t offered. For example, Economics here is Accounting by another name.

My father has said he will not help me transfer (I tried all this academic year to convince him) and my EFC is ~25k so I am not getting financial aid. Because of IB and AP, I am already a sophomore, going onto junior in the fall, and I am in senior level classes for my major; my classes taken will not transfer.

2

What IS your field of interest? What’s closest to your field of interest that IS available on campus or near your home that you can work or volunteer doing? Sometimes you have to find what’s near enough or similar enough rather than a perfect fit.

3

I wanted to study economics, chemistry, biology.

I had an interest in pre-med or pre-law or economic science.

The science and math classes here are very hard (weeding for such low rank university?) and economics is not economics.

I live in cornfield soybean country, so there are no internships near me for anything.

I am currently a Sociology major and I am going for my distant third career choice of pre-law. I am not gaining anything from these classes and it is a waste of time in my opinion.

4

Does he think you’re going to spend the rest of your life living at home or something?

5

You are only ruined if you continue with your whining, negativity, narrow outlook and indecision.

Let’s get one thing over with – you say the professors “are not used to someone of my academic ability or ambitions” and then you admit that the science and math classes are so hard you can’t handle them, and you have so little ambition you aren’t willing to try so you bypassed your top three choices of majors. So don’t think too highly of yourself. You are not above the university you attend, or the professors who worked hard to get their jobs, in a time in which about 1 out every 200 PhD holders succeeds in becoming a professor. If you were truly of such superior ability and ambition, you wouldn’t let some weed-out classes weed you out, unless you discovered that your interests truly lie elsewhere.

You still haven’t figured out what you want to study. The topics of “economics, chemistry, biology, pre-med, pre-law or economic science” are all over the place. The types of internships and volunteer activities and research one pursues in college if they are set on medical school are vastly different than what is appropriate if someone has their sights on law school or an economics career or science PhD. You need to pick a direction and be focused to get the best results.

It doesn’t matter that you are stuck in corn and soybean country. You can complete a paid summer internship anywhere in the world, or even virtually. Savvy students apply to summer internships at cities around the USA and abroad. The internships are advertised starting early in the fall and continuing until early spring. They also seek out research opportunities on campus or in the community. And if their university doesn’t have a club they like, they start a new one and become the president of it, developing leadership skills. They also participate in competitions to try to win recognition for their abilities, and they often publish their work online, start businesses, blog about their interests and do all kinds of things.

I suggest that you take some career aptitude and interest tests online or at your career services office, to try to narrow down a suitable path and major. Then brainstorm over the possible things you could do to gain experience while you pursue your degree. Use your imagination. Ask your advisors, professors and others for suggestions. Read about top students at your university and what they have achieved. Look up student profiles on LinkedIn and elsewhere to get ideas. Once you have more focus on a specific path, it will be clearer to you how to proceed and find the best opportunities. You can always attend a more prestigious university for graduate school.

In the meantime, try to be more positive and optimistic. If you are down in general, it may be that you are depressed and it really has nothing to do with your university, in which case you should seek out counseling. Depression can blind people to what is great in their lives and to all the possibilities, and also lead to indecision. So be sure to address your emotions as you also figure out your path with academics, activities and career.

6

Yes. It is too bad that you didn’t have more say about your choice of colleges but the comments about your ability and your inability to handle popular majors don’t make sense.

And regarding the professors with the degrees from non-prestigious universities - it is pretty hard to get a professor job and having a prestigious degree probably matters more for professors in research positions than for teaching at smaller colleges.

Economics might include some business courses – that is very common including at some top schools.

7

@CheddarcheeseMN @mommyrocks

I said “The science and math classes here are very hard”. I did not say I can not handle them. You assumed that because I said something was hard, I must be failing them? Such negative people you are!!! Your help is not needed, if you can even call it that.

Typical SAT scores, according to admissions website, were 1200 out of 2400. Typical ACT is 18. GPA is 3.0. University is RNP on US News.
I had a 35 ACT and 3.7 GPA. I think I have a right to be disgruntled about going to a university where no research happens.

8

If you don’t want our help, why did you make this post.

9

When you’re making a post saying someone “can’t handle” classes because they said they are hard, you’re not helping. You’re lecturing based on YOUR bad reading comprehension skills and a very negative presumption of who you are talking to.

If you think lecturing someone based on your faulty logic in a very patronizing manner is “helping” , you’re messed up in the head. It’s not helping, it’s called being a dick.

I’m the one who is going to the university, that I haven’t even named, yet you guys act like you know so much about it and I am the one who must be wrong. Apparently first hand experience takes second place to your over-inflated egos.

You guys are full of BS and don’t intend to help.

Thanks for kicking me when I am down. Should have known not to come to this website.

10

As for “going to a university where no research happens,” who cares? That doesn’t mean you can’t do research. My daughter traveled over 1,000 miles while still in high school to do paid summer research for a government agency. Now that she is at a university, she has done research on campus, but this summer she is traveling hundreds of miles again to do paid research at a different university. Just like summer internships, summer research positions are advertised most of the year and occur all over the USA and the world. There are virtual research positions, too, and research studies you could start on your own and do online. The only person stopping you from doing research is you.

11

I don’t have the privilege of being able to afford to travel thousands of miles for an internship, and research and internship for humanities majors is scant as it is.

12

Just wondering, did you attend this supersafety school, as you call it, because it was the most financially obtainable school?

13

Finance was a key reason, yes. Spot on.

However, there were multiple colleges that had similar financial packages that were very much better in all ways.

14

@IncidentalOrange You need to do two main things: (i) Figure out what you want to study in graduate school; (ii) Get straight A’s, and as much as is humanly possible nothing but A’s. It would also help to learn the material very well, since you will need a lot of it going forward.

If you are that good a student, then you should be thrilled that “The science and math classes here are very hard”.

You opportunity is to do well enough to get into a top graduate school (or law school or medical school), hopefully with significant financial aid. In most cases people accomplish great ambitions through years of just plain hard work.

There are a lot of honest, hardworking good people in cornfield country.

In a quiet moment you might want to read “My Hockey, Gordie Howe, my story”. It is about someone who made it to be the best in the world in what he did through hard work and sticking with it, in spite of not growing up with much.

15

I want to study Economics, but it is literally Accounting, not a few business classes as someone wrongly assumed, with some Social Studies thrown in. Not my thing. Soooo boring.

I want to study Chemistry or Biology, but the classes are graded so hard that I get B+'s for almost everything. Not graduate school level GPA.

I am doing Sociology now because it is an Easy A for law school. There is zero interest for Soiology outside of its ease. I’ve given up on the above majors and career goals. My talents definitely are not suited to law school (never worn dress clothes before, rough voice, stutter, aspergers and social anxiety, uncharismatic, facially scarred) but it is the only thing I have an interest in that remains open to me.

I’ve thought about dropping out and getting a laborer apprenticeship such as an electrician or plumber, too. It seems smarter to do, financially. I already hate my university and life here, at least I’ll be earning money to hate my life at the very worst.

16

I don’t think we can help you. I am vaguely reminded of two posters elsewhere on this site who only post negative things. Two other trademarks that become clearer the more they post is that they don’t take advice and refuse to consider other perspectives. They might be a bit depressed – depression can do that, narrow a worldview to the exclusion of all else. And that’s a bigger problem than random strangers on the internet can fix.

17

Can’t take advice when you guys aren’t offering it.

18

There’s advice in this thread. Either you didn’t bother reading it or you’ve resolved to ignore it. Either way, we can’t help you.

19

Yeah, one poster had some advice, that I responded to by the way. Way to be pedantic and pretentious as hell. See ya’ll later, you’re useless. Don’t know why you bother commenting when you have nothing of assistance to say.

20

Conversely, why did you ask if you didn’t want opinions?

“You don’t give advice!” “Okay one person gave advice but I didn’t like it!”

Like…what kind of response do you actually want?