The title says it all. I’m a senior at a competitive public high school in San Jose, California and at a complete loss at the moment. A mixture of bad decisions and bad luck all throughout high school leave me feeling completely hopeless as to what I want to do.
Going into freshman year, I thought I was going to go into the Air Force. There was something about the way you could say “I’m in the Air Force” that was incredibly rewarding and I thought it was an extremely noble profession to be able to serve your country, but the conservative nature of the program didn’t sit well with my very liberal family and threw that opportunity out the window.
My sophomore year I took a film class and then thought I could go into filmmaking ever since I made a short film about my autistic brother that won several awards, but as I realized how expensive filmmaking is and the average salary of most film students, the numbers just didn’t add up and as I became more interested in more practical areas, it just didn’t seem worth it.
My junior year things really got screwed up. I only got two of the three AP classes that I signed up for, AP English and AP U.S. History; both of which were impressive and classes that I enjoyed, but didn’t push me in any particular direction for a major. Perhaps worst of all, instead of the AP science I signed up for, I got stuck in Zoology cause everything else filled up. It was basically a joke science that while interesting, I think severely limited my potential for further science-based careers.
I wasn’t always the best math student either, so I tried to redeem myself by taking a MicroEcon, Calc, and Comp Sci classes over the summer, but I had to drop the calc class because the teacher didn’t speak english, which made the brutal summer pace even worse. I liked the Economics and Computer Science though, and heard that I could consider both if I had a strong math background. Which I didn’t.
But I thought I could improve myself if I took Calc my senior year to challenge myself. But I got my schedule this year and was horrified; not only did I get AP Stats instead of Calc, I got AP Environmental Science instead of Physics.
I tried to change out of both, but they explained that each class had a waiting list that exceeded 50 people, and that I could not attempt to get in without screwing everything else up in the process.
So that threw not only Business, Economics and Computer Science out the window, but probably most sciences as well since I don’t have any physics on my high school transcript.
So here, I am. For the past 3 years I’ve spent every waking moment trying to increase my chances to get into college, but almost every time it seems that I do something wrong.
I’m absolutely paranoid; for the past year I haven’t been able to hold a conversation without bringing up colleges or admissions, I’ve overloaded myself on classes and activities all throughout high school and in the process, isolated myself from many of my friends and family in pursuit of my work. Almost to the point of self-destruction. I attempted suicide my junior year and spent three days in a mental hospital, and once blacked out in class after pulling three straight all-nighters and eating little more than 3 apples and a bag of grapes in that time. But perhaps the worst part is that even with all my efforts, I still feel inadequate with only a 3.58 GPA and only 2 AP classes taken so far.
I was a slacker earlier in high school, and have basically been tormenting myself ever since to make up for that, but every day it feels more and more hopeless. I’ve made stupid, stupid decisions and every day try to redeem myself, but I feel it may already be too late. I know this isn’t healthy, and a psychologist diagnosed me with ADD, but even his words and thoughts don’t make me feel any better about myself. I’m still a pathetic failure in my own eyes, trying to make up for a past that was my own fault.
The only thing I am good at is helping people. I have over 300+ community service hours, which nowadays isn’t even a lot, a student director at several organizations, and the “third parent” in a family with an autistic child and two other siblings who have parents who work late into the evening.
But other than that I’m not doing anything I enjoy, have mediocre grades, have distanced myself from my friends and family, and have had to consider going to community college just so I can think straight, something that disturbs the eager kid inside me who once thought I had a chance at UCLA.
I’m not blaming the world for my problems and issues; only myself.
I don’t want to scare anybody or ask for sympathy…I just feel lost right now, and I don’t know what to do anymore.
I’m scared.
I appriciate those of you who actually stick around to read this mess and wish you all the best of luck. Thank you very much 