Looking for advice, situation detailed.

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hello there CC community. I've read from here before, but just signed up now. I basically am at a crossroads, unsure of what path to take in regards to college. I've been suggested community college by others, but don't know if that's what I want or not.</p>

<p>Back in high school, I was a terrible student, one of those cliche "pass the tests, do no homework," types. I'm not proud of it, but it's how it was. I was that way through all of high school, so it wasn't some isolated incident. I would generally get into a pattern of passing the first quarter with decent effort, slacking off during the second and third, and pulling my grade up a bit to pass in the fourth. </p>

<p>When I got to junior year, I started taking an I.T. class at a local vocational center for part of my school hours. I did alright in it, never was exceptional though. Like regular school, I put in pretty low effort. On the SAT, I scored a 680 writing, 680 math, and 580 writing. Not very impressive scores, and probably made worse by the fact that I had extended time on the test. I do tend to get stressed out on a good number of tests, to the point where I can barely focus on them. </p>

<p>Senior year, the vocational classes didn't match up with my high school's well, which meant that I didn't get to take a math course that year. After 12+ years of having a math course at all times, excluding summer, I think that long break probably was very bad for me. </p>

<p>I went to Rochester Institute of Technology in the fall after senior year, for Computer Science. I did poorly there. I managed to actually fail pre-calculus! I hadn't studied further than Algebra II in school before that, but pre-calculus should be simple for anyone academically capable, I assume. I place some of the blame on the new situation, adjusting to the college life and stresses, while having it as an early morning class, but I clearly didn't dedicate half the time I should have to it. I missed the first test by oversleeping, then snowballed into worse and worse grades. Fell behind on the homework, which left me unprepared for the tests, which all sunk my morale like a stone. After that quarter there, I left RIT. That was Winter of 2012.</p>

<p>Since then, I haven't been doing anything with my life. I have a part time retail job, I have tried to change my life-habits for the better, with more exercise and what not, but I haven't been really advancing intellectually at all. I have gained maturity and some humility from this time, but haven't taken classes. I don't know what to do at this point. Part of me feels like if I went back to a college I could handle it now, but I also don't trust my self-assessment too much. I have asperger's, and I have mood fluctuations that seem similar to bi-polar as well. I get depressed, I compare myself to my peers and in that comparison invite only feelings of incompetence. </p>

<p>I am not the kind of person who is successful in college, at least not yet. The people who thrive in college seem to have passions, drives, goals. They keep themselves motivated and working, they have self-confidence. I have vague ideas of what I might want to pursue, maybe CS or some kind of engineering. I want to go to school for STEM, I know that much. I don't think that it would be a wise investment to go for a non-STEM degree, but I don't actually know if I would enjoy/thrive in STEM work or not. </p>

<p>I am just looking for someone's advice. The community colleges around me in Maine don't have many options available for degrees. From what I have heard from my mother, I should be trying out community college as a proof-of-concept, a way to assess my capability to do work now, and to try out fields to see if they interest me. I don't know if it's a waste of money or not. I just really want to know what to do I guess. </p>

<p>If you've actually read this far, thanks. I'm sorry I'm so unsure of what to do. I'm sure that I'm not cut out to be an intellectual success, but I dread the idea of only having unskilled labor as an option.</p>

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<p>I understand that I am probably not serious enough about education, definitely not compared to the CollegeConfidential community. I feel like I have already ruined my life and I’m not even twenty yet. A good number here seem to have seriously dedicated themselves to intellectual pursuits by my age, I’m probably just not up to par.</p>

3

<p>You have not ruined your life - You have about 40 more years to do that like the rest of us!</p>

<p>That said, your mother’s advice is pretty sound. Go to a Community College and take a few of the basic classes and prove to yourself that you are smarter than your grades thus far. Do yourself a favor and start with a smaller load of classes - Maybe 3 or so and see if you can do well in them. One step in front of the other.</p>

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<p>Only a professional can diagnose you for depression or other emotional issues, but I’d recommend you look into that. A lot of people find one or two kinds of treatment to be helpful. Some even feel happier and more worthwhile some of the time. You might benefit from that. And it can only help your school work. And if drugs or alcohol are an issue, do something concrete about it.</p>

<p>As to the rest of your life, there’s nothing saying you have to go to college now. You could do something else with your life until you feel like going to college. You could work for the bricklayers union; there’s always a demand for people willing to work long, difficult hours in the outdoors. And exercise is good for what ails you. You could work as a janitor if you don’t like the outdoors or you don’t like getting up early. Whatever the job is, try to do it well. You can take one course a semester at the community college and monitor how much you feel like going back to schoolwork. If you’re not feeling it, don’t register for the next semester. Don’t screw up your grades. If you’re feeling it and did well one semester, take a couple courses the next if you feel like it. Nice and easy.</p>

<p>A time may come when you feel tired of pushing a broom or shoveling mix and you’re doing well in your coursework and you feel like you might be ready to return to college full-time. But don’t do it until you’ve spent the semester previous to your return succeeding in a couple real college courses at the cc. Maybe pull down a couple or three B’s out of four. There’s no need to hurry, and you’d like to succeed when you return. Be good to yourself.</p>

<p>Then when you’re ready, sign up for four (not five) courses at a nearby college. See if your mom will let you keep your room until you see how it goes. But COMMIT to her and to yourself that you will work your butt off this semester. Sign a contract with yourself. Post it. Make it visible. Then go out and do it. </p>

<p>You may find after working hard for awhile and having to live at home that going to college 12 hours a week is really pretty easy in comparison. Even if you don’t like it all that much, you’ll have a choice about whether you want to return to the mop or trowel. You’ll be a little older, know a little more about what you do and don’t like. So maybe you’ll push yourself to do well at something you don’t like. </p>

<p>If you succeed, maybe you’ll be ready for a semester in residence and 5 courses. But you can decide that when the time comes.</p>

<p>This is the path I took after flunking out of college. There is a path out there for you. It might not even include college at this time, or ever. I wish you good luck finding your path.</p>

5

<p>OP</p>

<p>Two thoughts I have for you after reading your life history. Before I start, I want to let you know your life is NOT ruined, you have a long way to go and at the end you might be successful.</p>

<p>First of all, I assume you are a male. A lot of male “kids” do not bloom as early as their female counterparts. I am an example of what you described yourself. Before the age of 22, I had a “pass only” type of attitude, if I pass the class I am done type. As a result, I could not get into any college in my country(I immigrated to the US after my HS), so I was drafted to the army. Army changed my life, in that, I learned discipline, I learned value, I learned social skills, I learned how to live. It was a turning point for me, after the army, I went to study in a college in the US and I double my efforts to catch up and I did. Now, I am pretty successful financially and ready to retire.</p>

<p>Secondly, it is not end of the world if you cannot do well academically. You can learn some thing in a trade school and still be successful with your life. Mechanics, Construction, HVAC, Plumbing, Computers, Nursing etc. any and all trades can provide you a fulfilling life, Never give up.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the words everyone, I’ve been taking some time to think them over. </p>

<p>One of the issues for me is that the local community college doesn’t offer many programs at all. </p>

<p>I still think of myself as an intelligent person, but think that I’m highly uneducated. Obviously at this point in my life, most things that I think are idiotic, and when I’m five years older than I am now, I’ll look back on my current thoughts and philosophies and think they were idiotic. A big problem for me is the ego portion of it. I don’t have a strong self of comfort with myself, not much confidence, and that has me caring a lot about how I THINK other people perceive me. My mindset has me only thinking about options in terms of “how respectable is this,” instead of critically evaluating the merits or disadvantages of any job or field. </p>

<p>I really want to go into the sciences. Astrophysics, simulation, networking, these kind of things are my interests. I’m a science fiction fan, so these are the kind of subjects that I have taught myself to revere, my personal “goals.” However, I don’t know how to properly pursue them at this point, given how far I have lagged behind. The sciences are heavy in mathematics, and I have gotten pretty far out of practice with them. When I encounter difficulty with a problem, I have the tendency to get panicked, and become focused with my failure to solve it, instead of actually being able to focus on the problem itself. This mental block clearly a huge obstruction to my ability to succeed with mentally difficult work, but how do I get over it? I can never seem to fix it in the moment. </p>

<p>I am not considering the military personally. I respect those who do join, but I think that I’m a bad enough person as it is for my lack of academic success, that I don’t want to become a detrimental person to the world by volunteering myself as a combatant. I like aspects of the military, the training, the discipline, but I am not a violent person, so I don’t want to join. </p>

<p>I know that there are many career paths that lead to monetary success other than college ones, but I can’t get over the portion of my ego that tells me that I need college to live my life well. I understand that it’s irrational, but I feel like I need those friendships, that exposure to alternate thoughts and philosophies, that work to learn how to dedicate myself to a mentally creative task. I know that it’s a bad thing, it’s an arrogant point of view, but I still think that I’m smart despite all the evidence that I am an academic failure, and I don’t want to give up on being better because of the idiotic way I lived in the past.</p>

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<p>Oh, forgot to mention in the post: </p>

<p>No, drugs and alcohol aren’t factors with me. My vice is web-browsing; watching youtube videos, reading articles, very little of it constructively. While this is better than substances in terms of cost and health, it does seem to be fairly addictive, and it’s not a positive part of my life. I am working to get past it though.</p>

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<p>yep, Americans aren’t reaching cognitive maturity until later on average than their parents and grandparents. This is particularly true of adolescent and young adult males. Yet they are faced with the expectations of those same parents and grandparents about what is normal for young men. It’s kicking a lot of my students’ butts and confusing their female friends. It’s even baffling fathers, ahem, who went through it themselves. That’s why I was urging patience and where appropriate an elongated journey to graduation and/or maturity. Time is going to take care of a lot of this, which is not to say there won’t be forty- and fifty-year-old Peter Pans in the future as there is now. But it sure isn’t any fun when it’s happening to you.</p>

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<p>*The community colleges around me in Maine don’t have many options available for degrees. *</p>

<p>Not sure what you mean here. If you want to get a bachelors degree, then when you’re at a CC, you’re just taking the General Ed type of classes. It doesn’t matter if they dont’ have your degree. You need to visit one and speak to someone.</p>

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<p>Amusername, my friend started at a mediocre state college and failed out right away. She went to community college until she was able to transfer back in. She went on to Cal Tech for grad school. </p>

<p>Point is, you can’t get there unless you start.</p>

11

<p>Op,
First of all, you have not ruined your life. Your life is long and takes twists and turns. You do not have to take a direct path to your future. Based on your writing, you seem like an intelligent, introspective person which is a good place to start. Why not continue to take vocational IT classes? Your mom’s idea of community college is also good. Why did you drop out of RIT after only 1 quarter? It is not uncommon for kids get poor frosh college grades. Anyway, do some community college work or vocational IT classes to get geared up again, and then transfer to a 4 year uni.</p>