Forums » Smalltalk » Is college really worth it? (Mega vent)

This is long and ranty. I didn't bother trying to use proper grammar or whatever, I'm not in the mood. Good luck reading it.

I'm starting to think I'd rather work at Mc Donalds for the rest of my life than put up with this stress anymore. I've completely lost my passion for the thing I've been studying for because of how much work I do and how little the teachers care.

My math teacher is by far the worst. He has no right to call himself a teacher. He hasn't taught me anything the entire semester, I learn everything outside of class so the actual class hours (where he just solves things on the board without explaining his process) are a complete waste of time. Yet... I HAVE to attend because attendance is part of my grade. Not to mention he actually put WRONG answers on the answer key to the study guide and didn't give a shit when we confronted him about it! I spent so much of my free time studying for a stupid exam that I failed anyway because I had to figure out the "process" based on WRONG ANSWERS!

I knew math was going to be a hard subject for me so I paid for a prep class (offered by the school) before my first semester. It was something like 500 bucks, and it consisted of nothing more than a week of doing math problems online with no one to really teach me any of it. The online program was incredibly fickle about how you put in answers and on several occasions, it marked me wrong and then told me the "correct answer" was the exact same thing as what I put in. Imagine my disappointment when the time came for me to attend a real math class, and it was the same unhelpful, obnoxious program except with a teacher who doesn't really teach anything and prefers to harass girls about wearing jeans with holes in the knees instead of answering questions or... Well, teaching.

The guy who lives in the dorm above mine stays up all night screaming at video games and smashing things in anger. He does this so often and so consistently that I swear he must be on drugs. No one has done anything about it. Thanks to him, I got 2 hours of sleep the night before last.

The school itself consistently screws me over in other ways too. I eat once a day because my schedule doesn't leave me room to attend lunch or breakfast at the hours they're served. I didn't think that would be a problem because last semester I could take food out of the cafe and they often had premade sandwiches all wrapped up to go. Unfortunately, this semester they have decided to enforce a policy that you can't take food out of the cafe anymore (even though they still make those wrapped to-go sandwiches for some reason). They did this without ever notifying us. They also removed all of the vending machines 2 days ago without warning. I'm a "good girl" and I don't usually like to break rules or whatever, but I'm so hungry lately that I've begun sneaking food out.

As for money? They don't tell you the books you need for class. You have to bring your schedule to their library and buy the books right then and there, so you HAVE to buy books at their price and can't use other methods of obtaining books. Last semester they gave me a 500$ book that I never even used because I guess they gave me a book for a class I didn't have! "Whoops!"

The dorm prices are ridiculous, but I am required to be in a dorm. A dorm where the outlets on one half of the room literally do not work and the air conditioning also does not work. They're "trying to fix the air conditioning" but I've only seen the maintenance guys once, and that was when they were entering my dorm, without permission, when I was not there, and I just so happened to be on my way back from class just in time to see them barge in. One guy stood around while the other jiggled some wires and looked at the panel before they gave up and left without fixing anything.

My floor doesn't have a laundry room. I have to use the upstairs laundry room on the boy's floor that only has 3 dryers and 3 washers that are always breaking. I have to babysit my laundry or otherwise come back to find someone decided to take my wet laundry out of the dryer so that THEY could dry their clothes, or sometimes, I'll find guys literally going through my underwear!

Finals week last semester had a completely different schedule for the finals that we were not informed about. I only found out when ONE teacher told us about the schedule and tried to explain it to us. It had a very confusing lay out like:
Classes at 9:00AM on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays will have finals on Wednesday at 3:00PM
or something like that... EXCEPT it didn't specify AM or PM for any of the times it listed, and for some unexplained reason they had times specifically for English classes listed on a completely different page that I didn't know about, so I missed my English final.

So many classes and so much of the school relies on their website and online content, yet the servers are absolute garbage and constantly go down or fail to save things properly. There are plenty of other weird oddities with their website and email system too. For example, I once got spammed with emails and notification from a class that I never had. It was a philosophy class from 2 years ago! What the heck!?

I signed up for a class that I was really excited about and was all ready to go, until I went to the building it was suppose to be held in and found the entire building locked up. I double checked the time, the building, the room number, the day of the week... Everything was right. I dug through all of the info on the class until I finally found a tiny part of the syllabus that mentioned it was an online class. When I signed up for the class, it didn't tell me was online. There was a building and room number just like every other class. How the heck was I suppose to know it was online? I emailed the teacher about it. I really didn't like the idea of taking a science class online, so I wanted to know if there was another class I could take and how I'm suppose to tell which classes are online, and whether or not I technically "missed" class. She never replied. I dropped the class. I had to drop the class electronically, because this school loves their website and technology. My schedule no longer says I'm in the class, but to this day I still have access to it and get emails about it.

When I email my teachers with questions and such, I either don't get responses, they answer in a weird vague way that doesn't really answer my question, or they only answer the first question they see and ignore the rest of my email. Is it really that hard to read a short email with only a few questions??

No one else seems as bothered by any of this as I am and I'm starting to think I'm crazy. Is there something I'm missing? Is there something everyone else knows that I don't know? Am I just effing stupid? I don't know! Oh and god forbid I try to vent to anyone older than me because they'll tell me "that's just how college/being an adult is" as if I'm honestly suppose to tolerate this for the rest of my life and be okay with that.

There are countless other problems that I'm sure I forgot to mention, but the real kicker is that the classes aren't even hard. I do my homework, I study, I do well, but the dumbest things keep getting in the way of my grades and most importantly my SANITY AND HAPPINESS!!!

I really, truly want to give up. There's no way my parents will support me dropping out of college, but I don't see the point in it anymore. I don't want to pursue science or be a vet or anything anymore. I just want to get on with my life... My boyfriend seems understanding, but I guess some part of him likes the idea of at least one of us making a lot of money (and he's convinced it's too late for him to go back to college) so he wants me to pull through.

TL;DR
Get me out of this hell.

I can completely empathise, Bunny. I've been through the storm that was university, and I can say with a very strong certainty: that is not just how being an adult is. Being an adult is knowing that the jail cell inspired, crammed excuse for student accommodation is not fit for one's living quarters. Especially not in the presence of individuals on all sides that exhibit antisocial behaviours at 3 in the morning without regard of the people around them.

Being an adult is realising that tutors should be there to serve you, and not the other way round like the most arrogant ones would believe. I find becoming an adult really does open your eyes a little, when it suddenly becomes very, very clear that the organised one in the world, and the one you can rely on is yourself.

What I can offer you is this: please don't let a badly run institution alter what you want to do with the rest of your life. I know it's honestly easy enough to say and another thing entirely when you're right there in the middle of it all, learning that your limits are getting tested each and every day. To put it in perspective, I would consider how long you've been there, and how long you would still have to go for your degree. Are you past the half way margin? Could you see yourself coping until then, without an adverse effect on your mental health?

Are there other institutions you could transfer to; funding to help you do so? Other ways to get that degree for yourself? University, in general will normally take up four years of your life (or 7 for an Architect, RIP). The average human lifespan is what, 79? Give or take. That means a 4 year degree is about 5% of someone's lifespan. The institution you're experiencing the poor organisation and chaos of now, doesn't represent the entirety of your aspirations. It represents a very small fragment; the part that gives you a little piece of paper with a qualification on it and allows you to step forth into the world and do what you love. Don't let some headless morons dictate what you can or can't do - we all have the power to decide that for ourselves.

I'm so sorry you're going through this because from the bottom of my heart, I'm reading a lot of my past frustrations in your post. I don't know if sharing my experience is at all helpful for you, perhaps not, but know that my inbox is open if you ever even just want someone to vent to directly.

I would suggest that no, it really isnt worth it, unless you *really* want some specific job. Lots of jobs that require much less training than college are better paying than most jobs that require college and are in higher demand, so, college is just a choice, and given what miserable choice it happens to be, I really couldnt recommend that anybody goes. Besides, I honestly think online courses like khan academy and stuff like that are better for learning because you're just concerned with learning the material rather than trying to get a good grade or how it'll affect your prospects or schedules and timelines. Really college is only worthwhile if you really want a specific job that you need it for, otherwise I would never recommend it to anyone.

thats all just my opinion though.

Hey.

So I totally get your frustrations. 100%. I started school like four years ago and I’m still going. I’m 32 (ugh!!), I work full-time, live on my own, have a car and I take minimum 9 credits a semester. So I have experience in working world and college. Here’s what I’ve found out.

When I started school again I began in the lowest math class possible — the number line!! Now I am taking soil mechanics and fluid mechanics. I’ve had awful math teachers but tbh you need to adapt to everyone’s teaching style. Real-world you aren’t going to always have a nice boss, work is not any easier than college and you are never guaranteed an “easy time” in anything.

College is so hard. I am so burnt out and I haven’t had a vacation in over ten years. With everything on my plate I am going insane and each new semester provides new issues. Finals are *always* going to be weird. I’ve seen classmates standing with their heads against the walls and I’ve had near breakdowns.

I can respond more when I’m home later but it honestly comes down to time management. Take up meditating 20 minutes a day. *do yer homework the day it is assigned*. You need to balance your life with school, and legitimately meditate.

Here’s a sample of my schedule from a few semesters ago (like a year I think? Two? I don’t even remember!) when I was taking 16 credits and working 30 hours a week.



Tbh I would rather take 5 math classes a semester than anything having to do with writing. Writing is SO tedious and I can’t be bothered to do it half the time. Online classes are awful for me too.

Also, get the title of your books and leave the library. Unless you’re using financial aid for books they literally cannot force you to buy books there. I have rented every single book besides my core engineering books, which I have always bought used (or the “international edition”). Tbh I think it might be illegal for them to require u to buy books there.

I can answer any other questions but power through it. Listen to motivational speeches. Try and get 20-30 minutes in at the gym every day (it helps so much). It sucks!!!

The biggest thing outside of that is, MAKE CONNECTIONS. College isn’t ALWAYS about learning. It is about making friends and knowing professors who have connections and can recommend you to ppl. Most of my classmates work for the same companies bc we all know each other.

If anything take classes at a community college. It removes a lot of stress (and money!!)

You can do this.

Thanks guys. So many things have been piling up on my shoulders that I honestly didn't know what to do with myself when I hit my limit. I feel bad about dumping all of my problems here since I'd rather not give people such a negative first impression of me, but the advice I received was really helpful. Thank you for actually taking the time to sort through my words and give me something to think about.

Hey everyone needs to vent. School is so tiring honestly. Don’t worry about first impressions — they’re not as important as you’d think. Take some time and relax. Also, check groupon bc there are usually some great deals with licensed massage therapist etc.