College Blues

Applying to College
1

Hello. This is my first post. Not good with netiquette and grammar, bare with me.

I’m 27 now and had a good run in high school, I was semi-conscious/put some effort in high school. I joined the military and became diagnosed on a schizo spectrum. I’m considered INTP and my learning styles are logical and intrapersonal. I’m back in college having a hard time adjusting.

I’m currently in an engineering program, and it is very detailed oriented with the engineering professors and students enjoying building things. It’s how to solve problems mathematically, anyway. I’ve been really a free bird all my life with no guidance, never having inclinations for building things. These guys eat it up. I enjoy learning on my own and like to get the gist of things (rather be a laymen then totally devoted to one field), I almost prefer to learn on my own: soft skills, gymnastics, martial arts, and random academic subjects (nothing too advanced just the gist like psychology of motivation and memory).

What I REALLY want to do is get good at math (up to linear algebra/diff equations) and English (proficient at getting the gist of books, writing and expression.). Maybe master a few computer programs and be an informed citizen. Most of the degrees require mastery to doctoral level which is unrealistic for me. I rather spend 2 years get a strong associate’s degree loaded courses that improve reading, writing, and math. Maybe learn welding. I love to read on my own time and get textbooks for fun. I’m thinking of doing some projects like chemistry and electronics.

If I don’t do engineering, which is kinda of a grind and I don’t think I have a strong background as I thought I did (been 8 years since high school), then what else do I do? I feel I am letting everyone down. My friend is an engineer so I feel I’m as smart as him and should be able to do it too.

Getting a job is the kicker. If I do what would intrinsically benefit me as a human being, it would go against the college system of specialization and division of labor. I wouldn’t be economically viable.

After all that, I still struggle like a normal person would plus taking care of outside of school stuff like (home, gf, and my health). It’s kind of like bench pressing 250lb and struggling while adding 100lbs more and being mad I can’t lift it. Everything seems to go so fast and I have trouble keeping up. I either neglect my self, my housework or school… I can’t juggle all three.

Ce la vie!

Sometimes I feel I should be happy with what I do have and forgo college.

2

Both specialization and a broader general education benefit you as a human being. The problem is what satisfies your polymathic proclivities.

However, you already have the solution to that problem: self-education. No matter how specialized your collegiate studies may be, you always have the option of learning other subjects at your leisure. Why fret about something when your entire life thus far has taught both you and me (a complete stranger) that it is as needful of fretting as a 7-string electric bass in a fusion jazz band.

That leaves us with your belief that specialization is more economically viable, to which I say “Fiddlesticks!”. In many cases the pre-professional degree makes you more competitive, but in a smaller job market. Engineers may earn higher salaries than most other baccalaureates, but how many are actually doing so within their chosen field of engineering? How many have self-taught themselves into a tangentially-related career in software development, industrial design, quality assurance, or project management? How many of those really needed the engineering degree to be prepared to learn their ultimate field of employment?

As an English major who self-taught himself into a lucrative CS career, I can tell you the answer to the last question: not as many as you think.

My advice to you is the advice I wish someone had given to me years ago: start at the end.

Decide where you would like to end up in your professional life and backtrack from there.

If you want to be an engineer, great! You are on the right track, but you might consider transferring to a university that offers a 5-year dual degree program so that you have more freedom to explore other subjects while you’re at it.

If you want to be a history professor, a butoh choreographer, or a molecular gastronomy chef, you may be on the wrong track (although ChemE for the chef would be an interesting approach vector).

If you want to spend the rest of your life learning whatever you like in a university setting and be a perpetual student, take some classes in business and entrepreneurship and start your own business that is consciously designed to be efficiently delegated so that you can have time to study while earning enough to pay your tuition and bills. Or pursue a track that can lead to employment in university administration and get you free tuition wherever you work. Or move to a country where this kind of lifelong collegiate learning is both expected and financed by the taxpayers (this may require marrying an exotic foreigner - O woe! O calamity!)

If all you truly want is to improve your maths and English and get ANY good job, the first two are easily improved outside or inside college by hours of practice. Securing the job requires learning the skills employers most want in an applicant, few of which are taught well in college (except time management, of which any degree at all will provide dubious but acceptable evidence). Learn by any means necessary: teamwork, effective interpersonal communication, adaptability to standard policies and procedures, and the ability to make someone feel that they are your highest priority even when they decidedly are not.

I sincerely doubt that the preceding paragraph represents the truest aims of your heart. From one polymath to another, from one who is further down the path, let me caution you: do not let being a jack of all trades convince you that you must be a master of none. Allow yourself to focus. Allow yourself to see where you want to go. Begin at the end and work backward.

If I had done this 20 years ago, I would have realized that I wanted to be in a position to contribute meaningful change to the world. I would have strategized toward a career in research or policy or education instead of gliding smoothly down a career path that has been successful but well off the axis of that target. I would have made tougher choices sooner, knowing that despite my abundant interest in everything I would be better able to follow my own desired path by choosing to master something, accepting the inherent risk that doing so would mean sacrificing some other trades I might never be the “jack of”.

Begin at the end and work backward.

Or don’t and do as I did: begin where you are, learn as you go, and wait until later to look backward and realize it’s time to change course.