T10 Student Feeling Lost and Burnt Out

Parents Forum
1

I just finished my freshman year at a T10 school, and I feel really burnt out and lost. This past academic term was mandatory pass/fail for my school, which was honestly a blessing as I took really hard classes and ended up with grades that traditionally would’ve been a C or a D but just ended up showing up as a “pass” on my transcript. At the urging of my (STEM-focused) parents, I took quantitative heavy-classes this term and really did not like it. I’m ending freshman year with a 3.5, which isn’t bad, but it’s not as high as I’d like it to be.

I feel like I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to this year partly because I’m burnt out from high school and partly because I have no sense of direction. The idea of choosing a major terrifies me, and thinking about my future gives me a lot of anxiety. I feel like the vast majority of kids from my college go into one of five career fields: law, medicine, tech, finance, and consulting. I’m not really interested in any of these fields, so I have a hard time imagining myself having a career or going to grad school after four years of undergrad.

I just feel so lost with no direction or energy. I took 15 AP classes in high school and did a ton of ECs that I hated just to get into my current college, and now that I’m here, I feel like I’m looking for the next goal to achieve… except I don’t know what that is. My parents would prefer that said goal would be a nice tech or investment banking internship, but I don’t really care for that. Both of my parents are engineers too, so I have no frame of reference for a non-STEM major or pursuing a career different from one’s major. I am lucky to have a virtual internship this summer, but it’s not really in a specific field and pays below minimum wage. If anyone has any advice on finding direction and getting over burn out in college I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

2

First of all - breath…

Second - another deep breath.

You may need some professional support. A therapist would be very helpful for you at this point.

Now, you are right - 3.5 GPA is an EXCELLENT GPA for a competitive college. Furthermore, after this last semester, it’s better than excellent.

But that really isn’t the problem. The problem is that you, like so many other high school students, have been focused on “getting into a Good College” as your main goal. So of course, now that you have achieved that goal, you are lost and drifting.

First, you could take a year off. Many schools will allow this, and you would benefit from some time off of the hamster wheel. You can engage in the sort of thing that students do during gap years, and you will likely be able to return to a campus which isn’t under COVID 19 restrictions. This of course assumes that you haven’t established a solid close friend group.

However, you also have the entire summer to recover.

One of the ways to get over burnout is to take classes based on what interests you, and what you fond excited, not based one “what you need to do to achieve goal A, B, and C”. You did that in high school, and you hated that. It’s time to try something else.

What excites you? What sort of work can you see yourself doing for the first few years after graduating from college?

What major would you really like? History? English literature? Psychology? You are attending a top school, and a degree from that school in anything will set you up for a job. Financial companies hire English majors all the time, and psych majors have a wide assortment of career opportunities. Even history majors are in demand. Do not, however, major in biology, since that would require grad school to be employable.

It doesn’t seem that your parents are forcing you to follow a STEM career path but rather that, through wishful thinking on their part, and worry of disappointing them or perhaps avoiding conflict on your part, you are now in a situation in which your parents may think that you want a career in STEM and are providing advice based on that assumption.

You likely need to sit down with them and have a serious talk. You need to tell them what you wrote here, and explain that you really want. Don’t they have any friends who are not engineers? People with non-STEM careers? If not, find some examples of great careers that are not in STEM. If you can find something about which you are excited, you can share your excitement with them, show them the opportunities that your major can provide.

Most importantly - take care of yourself.

3

Good advice by @MWolf. Take time to discover yourself and heal mentally. That likely will require courage as your parents likely won’t understand. But you live a better life if you live a courageous life. Might as well start now. You’re burnt out because you did stuff you hated for a reward that you were told you should want but which, ultimately, wasn’t actually something you realized was something you care a lot about (but could still be very advantageous). So take a gap year, go travel if you can. Sleep plenty and eat healthily. Work if you can. Work out what life you want to live. Eventually, your parents won’t be around, and even before then, you’ll be living your own independent life. Might as well figure out what life you do want to live, and figure out how to achieve that.

4

Here’s another suggestion:

I don’t know where you are, but you could also spend a whole day (actually, several days would be better) out in nature with your phone off. Just you, nature, and think through what is important in your life. Challenge your assumptions. How do you know you don’t want to enter those fields you listed (some of them are very broad; tech, for instance, includes technology but also sales, strategy, everything else that has to with business as well as all sorts of social/societal/political/philosophical/economic questions). How would you know what you do like? Do you find humans interesting? What do you find interesting?

BTW, a 3.5 at a T10 taking hard classes is terrific. A top GPA with tough classes at a top college is much harder than HS. Stop beating yourself up so much. And why do you want a high GPA if you don’t even know what your goals are yet? Granted, a high GPA does keep doors open, but it’s best to figure out why you do the things you do first.

5

First, remember this was not a normal year. First semester you faced the tradtional getting adjusted to college drill which at a T10 school often includes no longer being the smartest kid in the room. (I know my DS went through that). And then the rug was yanked out from under you (and everyone else) with Covid-19. Ending such a year with a 3.5 is an accomplishment. Did you take any classes that you enjoyed? If so, what were they? Is your school one with a Core Curriculum that exposes you to a wide swath of subjects? If yes, wonderful. If no, use your electives to explore other topics. Have you already registered for fall classes? Please try to take at least some classes that aren’t quantitiative! You really do not need to have a clear focus at this point. College is for exploring.

That said, you could certainly consider a gap year - especially if your school isn’t “opening” for the fall. However, many students who have a rough freshman year find their stride sophomore year-this could be academically, socially, emotionally. If you don’t, there are plenty of options: time-off, transfering, gap-year, a year studying abroad, etc.

I do think you need to have an honest conversation with your parents. It’s hard to gauge from one post if seeing a therapist might help, but think about that. It’s good you have a virtual internship. Engage with the people there as best you can. If there’s an area of study you think you might be interested in, sign up for one of the free online courses offered by many universities (edX, MIT’s OCW, etc) You might find an area that engages you. Most of all, take time to relax.

6

OP wrote: “I … feel … lost with no direction or energy.”

Of course you feel this way. This is part of the growing process. You should feel more energetic once you start to take control of your life & make your own decisions.

You took 15 AP classes and did a “ton” of ECs just to get into your current college and now feel directionless without a clear goal. You need to learn to enjoy the journey. Your goal should be to discover your true interests. You do not need to have all the answers at this time in your life. In short, this is a maturity issue–which is normal for a 19 year old.

7

This is common, so you aren’t alone.

You are at your top ten college. No one cares now about your APs and ECs.
Now, you can actually do something that interests you, but you don’t know what that is. So can I suggest the from now on, listen to YOU! Take classes YOU want to take. I think you just spent a year doing things, again, that others expect you to do. Why take a whole bunch of quantitative classes when they don’t interest you? You don’t have a major yet. Or if you do, you have time to change it.

YOU can direct your life now. Go to the career center. A T10 school will surely have a great one. Ask them to help steer you in a direction you might be more interested in. Then go to your AA and ask which classes you need to take that will help move you in the direction YOU want to move in.

A T10 school is going to have plenty of students who are not going into medicine or banking, so take advantage of the name of your college and milk it for all it’s worth. And as far as your parents, well, you’re going to be moving out in a few years. If they support you, they will want to see you succeed at your school. It’s going to be hard to succeed if you aren’t happy and aren’t pursuing what interests you. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about what they want you to study, unless they are threatening to withhold tuition or something.

Understand that you don’t have to have it all figured right now. MANY students change their majors, or decide what to major in late in the game. You are really young and have plenty of time ahead of you to find your direction.

8

One thing I did not see in your very thoughtful post was what excites you and where you excel academically. In discovering your passion and acknowledging your talents, you may find a window into a career path. For example, you may love music but not be a talented performer. However, you might have had an easy time with accounting 101, so combine the two to target working in the finance office for an orchestra (eventually CFO). You may enjoy video games but not be into programming. So work in marketing, sales, production… College is a place to develop a skill set. You can apply these skills in many different ways. Find your passion and be creative about ways to surround yourself with what you love while using your best skills.

9

@lemonaid As an academically driven child of STEM parents, I can relate to your post! It was a bit difficult to stand my ground and pursue a humanities degree. I did (third choice of major!) and have had a rewarding life and am gainfully employed.

I’m not saying you should pursue humanities but I will give you some advice that I have given to HS students (I’m a teacher). When they are looking for colleges or have no clue about a major, I advise them to scroll through the course catalog at random and be open to what sounds interesting. Never mind if it’s “impractical.” If you still have no clue, as was suggested above, choose a variety of classes that will fulfill your distribution requirements.

The second piece of advice is that you shouldn’t choose a course of study because you happen to have the skills to do well. For example, you may be great at Calculus but if you don’t enjoy it, you are under no obligation to pursue it. You may be great at writing papers, but maybe you hate to write papers. You get the idea. What do you like to do? Do you even know, given that you were grinding away in HS towards a singular goal?

Finally, it would probably be a good idea to seek out an academic advisor or a professor from your school with whom you have developed a rapport. Getting some mental health counseling might also be worth pursuing. These issues are difficulty enough to address in normal times, and these are not normal times.

Hang in there. And that 3.5 is just fine!

10

Also if you feel “lost and have no direction” perhaps an evaluation for depression is in order?

What classes did you enjoy? or What did you enjoy in HS? Can you talk to professors in that area?

Or talk to the Career office to see if they tools to help you find a major/profession.

11

This is common, not to minimize it at al. But many students in top schools, lived their high school lives to “get in.” Grades, scores, EC’s for the sake of admission, and college acceptances are all “external motivators.” If you study psychology, you will learn that maturity comes from “internal motivators,” meaning what actually authentically interests you. Students who aim for top schools are even more vulnerable to getting into the habit of doing everything for an external goal, and once that goal is achieved, feel empty- until the next external goal is found.

You are now grappling with finding the next external goal, a major and a career path. You feel lost without this external motivator.

This is an opportunity even if it feels like a crisis.

If at all possible, try to relax about career path and enjoy actually learning things at college. COVID has, for now, taken away the other good things about residential college. But hoping you could maybe avoid STEM if you don’t like it, and spend a couple of semesters exploring other areas of study.

I know a kid who was majoring in STEM and took Russian and ended up getting a grad degree in that. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/this-mind-blowing-trick-will-make-your-face-mask-so-much-safer/ar-BB15ikGN?ocid=spartandhphiostry major who started her own historical preservation non-profit. I know a few who majored in English who ended up in consulting (for two years), working in management at Uber, and working for an anti-gun organization. These were all high achieving students. I know a CS major who got a PhD in music. Some people go into social service or non-profit work.

Kids are raised to think of career in terms of categories like medicine, law, nursing, business and engineering. But the reality is that the work world is complex and diverse and there are many many things you can try. Maybe, if COVID is resolved at some point, you could do volunteering and internships and clarify.

Major in something you love, and things will work out, promise.

If you are depressed, which is often the case when someone transitions after achieving an external goal that they were focused on for a long time, please seek help. It is hard to feel any interest in anything if you are depressed. Short term medication can help.

I would caution you about a gap year. It can be great, and can inspire new directions. But it can also make you feel off track and even more lost. These issues are complicated by COVID.

If you do take a gap year I would make sure it is an organized program, if you can afford it. Look up National Outdoor Leadership School for an example of a program that helped some kids I know well, who had a situation like yours.

Good luck. A lot of us can relate. It will be better, but you want to work at it. You may even be on the road to a better life.

12

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all of your comments. I’ll address a few common questions here:

  1. Don’t your parents know anyone who doesn’t work in STEM? No, actually, they don’t. I’m an Asian kid from Silicon Valley, so the pressure to do something STEM is huge. Out of my core friend group of 8 girls from high school, I’m the only one who is remotely interested in pursuing a non-STEM field. It doesn’t help that my sister, the golden child, just graduated from Stanford with two CS degrees and will be working at a major tech company in a few months....
  2. What are you interested in? What did you like in high school? How can you translate that into a job? I didn’t really like anything in high school; I spent every waking minute getting into the school I’m currently at, which gave me a pervasive sense of apathy in high school. At best, I merely tolerated my classes and extracurriculars; at worst, I actively despised them but forced myself to go through the motions to get into my college. I didn’t continue any of the ECs I did in high school into college as a result.

This past year I took an equal number of STEM and humanities classes; I liked the latter but despised the former. The thing is, I don’t know how to translate a humanities degree into a career. The people from my college who graduate with these types of majors normally end up in one of three career paths: teaching (normally through a program like Teach For America), law school, and finance/consulting. I’m not interested in any of these fields, which is why it’s so hard for me to imagine a job for myself. Whenever someone asks me “Lemonaid, what’s your dream job?” I just tell them that I don’t dream of labor! I think this is why finance and consulting are so popular among graduates from my school— they don’t require any specialized skill set, so it’s easy for lost students like me to just go through recruiting and get an internship/ job at these firms because we see no better option. And honestly, having a cushy consulting job as a “fallback” is an amazing option for a college grad! I know I should be grateful to have this option even if I don’t like it… but working at McKinsey for 80 hours a week seems awful.

  1. Have you tried therapy? I did, and they were really quick to put me on anti-depressants, which made me feel worse. I quit therapy and meds and feel a little better.
  2. Have you tried going to your school’s career center? I always joke that my college’s favorite extracurricular is bashing our career center because it’s awful. You might think that a T10 school would have a well-resourced career center, but you’re wrong. That place is only good for conducting corporate recruiting and not anything else.

When upperclassmen first told me this, I wanted to prove them wrong. So I scheduled an appointment with one of the career counselors and told her about my dilemma. She told me my problem was an issue of maturity (true), it would probably help if I gave myself more time (true), and there was nothing I could do to abet the situation (???). I asked her if she had any advice for me… and she didn’t.

  1. How about a gap year? My parents wouldn’t pay for me to go on a structured gap year program, so it would be something I would have to arrange myself (and be free). I worked at a coffee shop last summer so I suppose I could go back there, but the only thing I learned during those three months was how to make a good dark roast. I don’t need one more year of that....

Anyways, thanks for trying to answer my question everyone!

13

So, your sister is the golden child. That’s fine. You’re not her and you shouldn’t try to be her.

Do you have any desires or interests? What did you like about the humanities? Which ones?
What do you see as your perfect life?

BTW, McKinsey is more like 60 hours a week with weekends off. And once you delve in to a major like philosophy, you probably would find strategy interesting as there are all sorts of philosophical questions involved in strategy, business, and really all of life. The same applies to history and psychology with finance. You’ll be able to draw connections between many different spheres.

14

I majored in humanities and worked in consulting. Now I do something very different, which did involve extra training, but much later in life. But I learned a LOT in my consulting days, still use a lot of the skills, and some of those people are my clients now.

Whatever you choose after college, isn’t a life sentence. Even if you do end up on the consulting conveyor belt, you can get off it (don’t build a lifestyle around the salary even if that is what everyone else does, then you have options).

Hugs to you

15

Or look at it from another angle. What problems do you see in the world today that you think should be solved?

Why were you put on this Earth?

BTW, I wouldn’t reject working at a coffee shop just because it’s mindless and useless for personal development (besides helping with developing customer service). That’s kind of the point. If you do something that is fairly boring and mindless, you probably will start developing interests.

16

OP- big hug to you but I want to reassure you out here in the real world (I hire for a living) there are millions of happy people out there who work at something they love who don’t even know what STEM is. There are people with degrees in psychology who work in marketing (who figured out that casinos shouldn’t have clocks in them, or that if you package the Oreos in 100 calorie bags you are going to sell LOTS of Oreos-- psychology majors, that’s who). There are people with degrees in history who write speeches for Senators and CEO’s, and people with degrees in anthropology who work in tech companies figuring out how to organize teams for optimal productivity, and people with degrees in English who help pharmaceutical companies instruct doctors and nurses and pharmacists and elderly patients on how to use their medicine safely and effectively.

And everything in between.

If you haven’t spent an hour on Linkedin looking at the backgrounds of graduates from your own university over the last ten years to see what they do for a living- you should do that.

You can get off the treadmill, but only you can sort through the books you’ve read, the issues you’ve thought about, and the professors you’ve met and figure out if there’s something you can develop a passion for. Many of the questions facing society right now won’t be fixed by the STEM folks- however important their contributions will be. Why won’t people wear face masks? That’s a psych and sociology and history question, not a biology question. Why do young people vote in smaller percentages than older people, even though they have more to lose if they object to the policies politicians put in place? Why are women under-represented in some fields and over-represented in others in the US but not in Sweden? Why do people pay for 100+ television channels that they never watch, every single month, but freak out if they have to pay $25 for the copay to see their doctor to diagnose strep throat, and how can you create meaningful health care reform if regular people are unwilling to understand how much stuff costs?

Hugs to you. You do not need to major in STEM to get a good job after college, and you do not need to study something you hate right now.

Go grab a copy of The Atlantic, New Yorker, Vanity Fair-- wonderful writers, all sorts of interesting feature writing, a wide variety of topics. Surely something will grab you by the throat???

17

Thanks for getting back to us @Lemonaid .

Frankly, much of what you posted in #11 seems like you are rebuffing the advice you’ve received. The message is “thanks for trying to answer my questions, but nothing any of you has said will work for me/applies to me/is going to change anything, and I’m stuck getting a degree in something I don’t want to study.” You sound…defeated. But I don’t think you are. You got to where you are now. You have plenty of potential.

Study humanities if you are interested in humanities. You seem to feel that you must have your path set in stone right now. That isn’t true. Your path is being made by you and no one else. If you are at a T10 college, you will have excellent professors and courses, great internship possibilities, great companies recruiting on campus, great alumni networks. And maybe you think the career center is useless. Go back. See a different advisor.

Be proactive, take advantage of where you are. Get to know your professors, who will be able to write you good recommendations. That’s important. You are young. You have many years ahead to be successful in life. What you define as success doesn’t have to be the way your parents define success. Good for your sister, but she’s not you.

A student I know just graduated with a degree in humanities. She’s soon starting a job with excellent pay and benefits. This is her last choice job, but she’s glad to have it. Some people might think “she’s successful because she’s going to a well paid job.” She doesn’t view it that way though, because she knows this job will not satisfy her. She knows her ultimate career choice won’t pay as well, but will be more fulfilling. She’s going to save money and bide her time.

Success in life is what YOU make of it. It’s not what your sister does, or what your parents think you should do. Your parents aren’t the ones going to college.

P.S. Your GPA is good.

And @blossom, excellent post.

18

I was so glad to read that you actually enjoyed humanities.

No post on an online forum is going to help you with the culture you grew up in, maybe family, maybe school, maybe area you lived in. Have you spoken with your parents about any of this? Would they be okay with you majoring in a humanities area of study? If they are not okay, will they still pay?

I think you are not alone in linking major and career. Even 15 years ago this was not as true. The cost of college, the loans, and the pressures of the competitive workplace all play a role.

But I hope you can trust us, that you can major in what you are interested in, completely detached from concerns of career path. Exploring this a bit may or may not lead to immediate career goals, in the short term, but may be very helpful in the long term.

I do think that thinking of jobs in these large professional categories is counterproductive. I understand that this may feel like it is required of you.

I am sorry that talking to someone (and meds) didn’t help. (Actually there are a lot of meds with very different actions, but clearly that is not something you want to pursue.) I think you might still benefit from talking about the pressures you feel, within your family and at school.

It is hard to be happy when you are marching to other people’s drummer. There is a great book by a doctor who went to med school because it was expected of him, and he was terribly unhappy. Maybe someone else can recall the title and author.

You have some choices about how to proceed. But I really think, from the information you have given, that the pressures on you are so strong that you will need help and guidance to break free and pursue what you want.

The need for certainty in plans, and for financial security are strong for everyone but sometimes planning ahead too much gets in the way. I hope you can find the freedom to spend sophomore year doing courses you want to do, before choosing a major.

In the meantime, have a good summer, and maybe try some new things. If COVID allows. Tai Chi, an art class, read some good books…I don’t know. I sincerely hope you feel better.

19

Seems like your parents have very limited friend groups.

What specific subject areas were the courses you liked and disliked in? Do you also have interest in social sciences (e.g. anthropology, area/ethnic/gender studies, cognitive science, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, sociology)?

20

Have to agree with this statement, and it applies to anyone going into any very high paying profession. Once someone builds up a lifestyle and spending level that consumes a high income, that becomes a trap in case there is desire to change to a lower paying profession (and cause other longer term household financial issues).