<p>First, let me introduce myself. I am a sophomore at the University of Maryland: College Park and intending to major in Business with a focus on entrepreneurship (which is a limited enrollment program). </p>
<p>I have been taking prerequisites for about two years and have no interest what so ever in any of my classes. On top of that, the social life at the school is not fun enough for it to balance out my extreme disinterest for the academics. Due to this problem, I got prescribed adderall. If you did not know, it is a stimulant to help you study. </p>
<p>The problem is I need an extremely high GPA to get into the Robert S. School of Business (Limited Enrollment Program). Since I have a strong dislike for the school, thus having no motivation, I take adderall often to make me study. Taking adderall consistently takes a huge toll on my body and mind, I become a cynic who has to force himself to eat.</p>
<p>My question is, should I force these drugs down my system and feel like ***** all the time, or should I not take the drugs, feel content, get average grades and lessen my probability of getting into the business school? </p>
<p>The significance of this is that I am tired of going to sleep discontent about life every single night that I take these drugs, but I feel like I need them to pass. How do you all feel about this issue? What would you do if you were in my shoes? BTW I am not diagnosed with ADD, I just don't have any motivation when I'm off the meds.</p>
<p>Ditch the drugs for sure. Instead, eat your fruits and veggies and get some good exercise EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just try it for one month. You might be surprised that you feel a lot happier and can study better to boot.</p>
<p>Get off the dope, I mean “perscription” meds. You do know that adderal is a controlled substance right? You do know that when you decide to get off it you will have to go through hellish withdrawels? Bet you didn’t consider that one…</p>
<p>It seems to me like your smart, but very immature. You do lack discipline. You seem to be more focused on getting your degree than you do with your health. Which is very common, and quite pathetic in my honest opinion. </p>
<p>First focus on yourself, for without personal health, everything else is impossible</p>
<p>You all are right. Honestly I think it all boils down to me not liking the school my parents chose for me. I wanted to be in a city. Instead I got college park. Same ol maryland, same ol kids from highschool, same ol environment. Oh well, here I go and study for classes that probably won’t help my future out.</p>
<p>You need to find your motivation. You shouldn’t be needing to pop pills in order to get in to the Smith school… I have a competitive GPA for getting in (doing the application song and dance this semester) and I’m no genius, not by a long shot! What I do have is motivation. I know what it’s like to fail, I know what it’s like to throw away opportunities, and I know that it sucks and I don’t want to ever face that again. </p>
<p>You might want to consider transferring though. If you don’t like it here then you gotta go somewhere you like! Otherwise you’re gonna hate being in college and you’re gonna do poorly.</p>
<p>Last semester during finals I was eating Adderall like candy. I like it as a drug probably a little more than I should (I would even take it to go out, which is amazingly fun but a bad idea), and I was doing it really consistently last semester, which was really bad. It definitely makes you want to take it a lot and take it to do the smallest things, and you just have to not get tricked by your mind.</p>
<p>Try to just cut down. I think a huge problem with taking Adderall is your mind thinks, “Oh, it would be better for me if I just took one to do this minor thing, I’ll get it done better,” which might be true…but you’d be perfectly capable of not taking it and doing just as well, it just might take longer. It’s better to use Adderall (if you’re just using it for studying and nothing else) for occasional 11-hour study days or when you have a paper or huge test coming up. Don’t use it for everyday stuff. If you use it less, you will have less problems with it and you’ll feel more motivated to study without it.</p>
<p>Oh, and bigtexas, Adderall does not have “hellish” withdrawals, just fatigue and a big appetite, and sometimes a short attention span. Basically the opposite of the effects of the drug. It’s not terrible and many other drugs have much worse comedowns/withdrawals.</p>
<p>Take something fun. Some sort of fun class. Let yourself take a few days off every once in a while. Make it a point to find something about these classes that you enjoy, or something that’ll keep you going. For example, I go to my math discussion every morning just so I can see the TA mess up on drawing graphs. I go to my ICS class because I have a friend in that class. Also, find people you can study with. Even if they’re not studying the same thing, just being around other people who are studying often helps. In fact, it’s better (at least for me) if they’re studying a different subject. So that way you can’t get distracted with side conversations. A lot of my friends are taking a humanities class and study together, but since I’m not, I just grab my laptop and work on my ICS homework in the same room while they discuss the Qur’an together. It’s a way of keeping others accountable while they keep you focused. They make sure I don’t go onto tumblr while I work, and I make sure they don’t go off subject. And this way, we can all tell when our “study muscles” are getting tired, so we take breaks together, whether it be a quick walk, going to grab lunch, watching youtube videos or whatever, and it just re-motivates you for the next leg of studying. And try to cut down on the meds. Not totally yet, but just keep count of how much you’re taking, and just lower that number a little bit at a time. Maybe day by day, or week by week, but try to reduce your dependence on it.</p>
<p>i know this is out of left field, but who do you hang out with?</p>
<p>maybe it would help if you hung out with people who really loved the academics and the atmosphere and could introduce you to cool people and events,</p>
<p>hopefully their enthusiasm would rub off on you too</p>