<p>Thanks for the replies, but I think I need to clarify something here. </p>
<p>I’m not complaining about my success. Who would? Of course I’m happy to have great grades. Of course I know I’m bound to be successful for the rest of my college career. </p>
<p>For me, it’s just the concept of not living up to your full potential and not having a goal. You see all kinds of kids here that do what they can and are able, and I know that I’m not. I feel like I’m just coasting through life with no track to tread. </p>
<p>This is common. I know it is. But I’m just trying to express how it feels, and I’m just a more dramatic person. If you would have rather me pose the question in a less dramatic way, then I’m sorry because that’s not possible. It’s how I feel, and it’s how I write. The situation is still the same, though.</p>
<p>Where did exploring such subjects get Roger Ebert? Anthony Lane? David Denby? Francois Truffaut?</p>
<p>Do what you love, don’t run up crippling debt, explore possibilities, try to have meaningful experiences, and your path will emerge.</p>
<p>My S went to college as an “undecided.” He said he was going to take “a little of everything.” My only wish for him was that he fall in love with something, anything, to which he would feel inspired to devote his considerable talents. He majored in French. “Oh, what can you do with that?” is the usual refrain. In his case, it led to a fellowship-like opportunity to spend the year after graduation at the premiere humanities university in France. But he finally figured out what he really wanted to do: write. Do you know when it happened to him? Senior year. Now he’s heading off to journalism school. Some people would be moaning about how this is supposedly a dying field. (It isn’t: it is just a <em>changing</em> field.) As it happens, Columbia also has a program with the journalism school in the French system, where you get an MS here and then go to Paris for another year, where you get another master’s from the French U. He’ll be applying to that in the fall. He may or may not get it. I’m just happy that he is throwing himself into something at last. I’m sure he’ll make his way.</p>
<p>Some people talk as if anyone who doesn’t major in a vocational subject in college is doomed to work at MacDonald’s for the rest of their lives. This is nonsense. Just keep striving for excellence and exploring. You will be fine.</p>
<p>So OP, you asked these questions, “Am I being over-dramatic on all of this? Am I missing an obvious solution?”</p>
<p>Yet when people say yes, you are…and try to give you some solutions, you say,
“I’m glad my life is so amusing.
I was just trying to switch it up. I could have the prose of an obnoxious, snobby prep school kid or a boring, syntax-trapped engineer if that would be better.”</p>
<p>And, “But I’m just trying to express how it feels, and I’m just a more dramatic person. If you would have rather me pose the question in a less dramatic way, then I’m sorry because that’s not possible.”</p>
<p>It makes me wonder if perhaps you are not really looking for honest answers to your questions. That perhaps this is just a writing exercise, or you only want responses that will give you a pat on the back. Maybe you are just musing, asking the question publicly, but looking to yourself to find the answer. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t really think that you are looking for us to provide answers, though.</p>
<p>I don’t think you’ve mentioned this above, but I didn’t see anything about your EC activities. Maybe volunteering somewhere, anywhere, will help put your time at college in some perspective. I know, I know, this sounds trite, but it actually can work wonders for folks who feel somewhat lost and unfulfilled. And all colleges provide opportunities to volunteer somewhere. </p>
<p>Tutor little kids who don’t own a single book of their own, work at a food bank where you will see and get to know the folks who use it’s services, help out at a shelter, it doesn’t really matter, so long as you can connect with other people who are struggling, get to know them, and realize how much you have to offer this world. </p>
<p>Helping to change even one person’s life will change yours, and I guarantee you there will be nothing mediocre about the experience if you listen, connect, and put your heart into the effort. It might even lead you to pursue certain studies.</p>