College is pretty challenging to me. I’m behind a lot of my peers who don’t seem to find the material hard at all. I try to catch up to them. I started doing research which I found out to be a lot more boring than I anticipated. I’m in a lot of stress and I don’t get much sleep but the other kids I know are not struggling. It also seems like my grade is being artificially lowered in a lot of cases. I hate having to go to the professors and tell them that my test was incorrectly graded. Why can’t they just grade it correctly the first time? It’s just a huge amount of stress dealing with that. I don’t have any real friends in college either. There are some people I talk to sometimes but I don’t have anyone close. But I haven’t met anyone I really wanted to be friends with either. Everyone here is just trying to one-up each other, always bragging about their accomplishments, always trying to get something out of people. I’m pretty sick of it. I have horrible hygiene now, my room is disorganized and uncomfortable. There are days when I just sit for hours doing nothing but staring at the huge amount of things I have to do. My parents are paying an insane amount of money for me to study here, so I need to try my best. But it’s hell. I love studying, but I hate school. I know the first response will be “you have depression”. I already went to the psychologist and had therapy and whatever but it doesn’t help me. The thing is, I know I am not alone in feeling like this. But knowing that doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m not really asking for a solution, this was mostly a rant.
I’m hoping this can help. I know that when you have a longterm vision of what you want in your life, then it helps to get through the hard times. So, I don’t know what you’re studying, but if your studying what you want to do in the future, then look at it as becoming closer to mastering your future field. If you’re studying what you don’t want to do in the future, then recognize that you need to change your major, or get through a tough required class that will be over soon.
First of all, remember that you’re comparing yourself to what other people show outwardly. People tend to not show all of their struggles, so it’s quite possible that other people struggle just like you.
Second of all, research is boring if you’re an assistant sometimes. You don’t get to do the crazy fun stuff, but it’s good experience and you get to see what happens in real research.
Lots of people don’t get a ton of sleep and it sucks, but you might be able to work on your time management and get some more time for sleep.
If your professors are constantly grading incorrectly, you might want to talk to your advisor or something. That might be an issue?
I’m gonna guess you’re a freshman, although you can ignore a bit of what I’m saying if you aren’t. It takes people a while to find friends. Join some clubs, go to events, etc. and eventually you’ll find someone. If you can’t find a single person you want to be friends with though, maybe you’re being too picky?
I assure you that not your whole school is that competitive. There are other people like you around. They might be rarer than elsewhere, but they’re around.
Hygiene issues are kind of understandable with someone who’s having some trouble. Motivation can be low, but you should start slow and try to increase your hygiene a bit. Organize your room and it might actually make you feel better!
As for sitting and staring at your to-do list, I do that sometimes too, but the thing to do instead is just take a break. Watch an episode on Netflix, go outside and enjoy the weather (if it’s nice where you are, do something you like. Then you might be refreshed enough to try and get something done.
Hopefully some of that helps at least a bit. If you’ve been diagnosed with depression, then you might want to find a better treatment system. If you haven’t, you might want to get a different therapist anyway. if they’re not helping, then they’re not helping.
Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel. I’ll try to tackle everything in your post because I feel like you’re saying what a lot of students must be thinking right now. Incoming wall of text:
I don’t know how to say this nicely, but they’re lying. They only pretend like the assignment took them 10 minutes or that the test didn’t require any studying, or that the project assigned was * so easy * when in reality all these things made them stay up late and grit their teeth for want of coffee and respite just as badly. Here’s an article that sums up this phenomenon pretty well: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/CTL/cgi-bin/academicskillscoaching/why-does-the-duck-stop-here/
In that boat right now. Let’s do ourselves a favor and get the heck out of Dodge.
I remember you mentioned in previous posts that you were taking mostly engineering courses, which are * tough*. I bet most of your classmates aren’t exactly cruising by either. With that said, could you consider lightening your courseload a bit in subsequent semesters? It’s incredible how much better people can feel with an extra 2-3 hours of sleep each night.
Curved classes suck, don’t they? Keep in mind that the vast majority of people don’t get A’s in weeder classes and that prospective employers and graduate admission committees realize that. If this is a case of someone being a careless grader, I’d keep a close eye on returned assignments to make sure everything was done properly. And in the future, if possible, choose professors based on review sites and course evaluation catalogues so that you don’t end up with a poor instructor.
Sort of in the same situation. I knew I was leaving my current school from the start and that made me put little effort into getting to know other people, which was regrettable. College is huge and it’s never too late to start trying, though—try to see if there’s anyone in your residence hall or classes that you’d want to hang out with, invite them places, and see where it goes from there. I’m going to go off on a tangent for a bit because wow, haha. I really have like one friend here. I was trying to think up examples of places you could go to make friends using my own as a starting point, but then I realized I could only think of one. Maybe two. Time to follow my own advice?
Yeah, you should be. Those aren’t your friends, get them out of your life. People like that are millstones and they’ll drown you.
Showering is one of the most cathartic things you can do when you’re stressed out. Cleaning your room is as well, surprisingly (I don’t think I realized this growing up, but then again as a ten year old I never had an entire night’s worth of papers and problem sets to complete). I think it’s a lot easier to focus when your work environment is uncluttered and conducive to learning.
I actually like school but hate studying, haha. From rock climbing to robotics, try participating in activities that’ll take your mind off work for a few hours. I think the biggest takeaway here is that you have a lot on your plate and are understandably stressed out because of it. Take a step back and take a deep breath.
Things’ll change. Call your family and let them know how you’re feeling. I promise they’ll understand and that their support for you won’t waver because of a test grade or transcript. Best of luck!
Thanks for the well intentioned replies. They are more or less what I’ve already been told. For some reason, I just don’t buy it. It hasn’t worked out for me.
Would you consider doing some low profile volunteer work? Not the kind that’s designed to beef up your resume-- those activities will attract the same types of people you’ve already come across. But something smaller, where you’re more likely to meet like-minded kids?
Oh, and if you have been diagnosed with depression, and the first counselor wasn’t the right one, keep shopping around. You know the saying-- you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.
Have you been on antidepressants? Might be time to consider them.