I’ve been there. It seemed like my 4 years as an undergrad were a constant struggle against the urge to drop out. The future seemed uncertain, I wasn’t particularly good at my major subject, and writing term papers was torture. Here are some things that kept me going:
–I had quit a sports team in 8th grade, & later regretted it. We so often look at things from the perspective of “now.” Yeah, it sucks NOW, but if we expand that perspective to a week or month or a year, we can often see that the current pain is worth enduring for the later payoff.
–I had had several summer jobs before & during college. All were a pain…hot, sweaty, boring work. But you know was worse than working? NOT working. Sitting around doing nothing, making no progress, THAT was far more painful than the jobs I had. I suspect that however bad your life is as a student, it would be far worse as a dropout.
–The awareness that one’s major isn’t a life sentence. LOTS of people end up in jobs unrelated to their major. Get you degree…sociology, mechanical engineering, music, marketing, whatever. You will feel a great sense of pride & satisfaction, & you will be ready for the next stage of your life.
I kept telling myself that there are a thousand reasons to quit college, but almost none of them are good reasons.
Later in life, my retired 72-year-old father decided he wanted to finish the bachelor’s degree he had started 52 years previously. So he found a college that would take him, & he plodded through, semester after semester. At least 5 times he got discouraged & called me and said, "That’s it. I’m done. I gave it a try, and I just can’t do it (or don’t want it/can’t stand studying/ don’t have time to study/ whatever). " And each time I would give him a pep talk & get him back on track. He eventually graduated at age 78–the proudest graduate you have ever seen. He died a few years later, & when we buried his ashes, the only memento I included in the urn was the tassle from his graduation cap.