Dropping out...
 

I've kindof decided to drop out of uni. But I don't know if I'm just being a tempestuous teenager throwing the toys out of my pram.... Will I regret it? Did any of you drop out. Help!

I'm leaving 'cause:
1. My uni is ABSOLUTELY RAM PACKED with arseholes.
2. The place is a shithole and there is absolutely nothing to do.
3. I miss London like crazy when I'm there... all my friends and things to do, even just general atmosphere.
4. There is nothing lonelier than spending all day having only spoken to librarians. This has happened to me more than once. Perhaps it is my own fault, but I'd rather be a lonely old cunt than talk to the people there. And I really don't want to be a lonely old cunt.
5. The very thought of going back there scares the shit out of me because I don't know if I can cope with being that miserable again.

BUT I do really like the course and I enjoy doing the work, etc.

Meh, I'm seriously waffling and don't really know why I think posting this is going to help me in any way, but I'm completely crap at making decisions so ANY advice would be much appreciated.

Which Uni are you at?

Oxford

I guess that's why, I went once and the people were so boring. I'm gonna go to London. Are you at the really brainy university? What course are you doing?

what year are you in?

well it appears that if you are english you are born to be miserable, so you might as well get used to it now.

about quitting the university, i don't know-- do you think that if you get a shitty job you'll be less miserable?

although your studies are supposed to be enjoyable-- hard, but enjoyable.

i don't know what to say-- luxy had a similar problem w/ hating college.

i think for a lot of people it's the shock of being away from home? maybe not ready yet? i suppose once you get used to it it's not that bad.

but beyond that, i know nothing about hte british educational system. except that-- isn't your school supposed to be Really Fucking Good? does god give breath to those who have no teeth in england too?

I'm just in my 1st year. And yeah, the brainy uni *rolls eyes* you seriously wouldn't know by talking to the idiots there though (and believe me I include myself in that category).


The Lung - do you mean you are coming to London for uni? Or just to visit. It's a great city, if dangerous at times.

If only I knew what you meant. I guess yr saying that I shouldn't throw away the oppurtunity which is what a lot of people have been saying to me, but I don't really see the point in staying somewhere for four years if I'm going to be crying myself to sleep every night. But like I said, maybe I'm just conceited and I don't know a good thing when I see one. That's what I;m worried about.

But I am going to go to uni, even if I do drop out, I'm going to transfer into UCL, from which I got much better vibes when I looked around, the people seemed quite interesting and I would still be able to go out for the night and listen to the music I like rather than shitty 90's cheese.

BUT then again "the grass is always greener..."

oh shit i meant to spell "bread" gives BREAD
meaning to those who can't eat it
it's a translated joke

well hm could you try a temporary transfer, a deferment, a semester in another school, something like that?

there are people (i know some) who are never happy no matter how good they have it. if you're like that yes you might be commiting academic suicide, but perhaps you have a genuine claim there. i don't know you, so i don't know. all we can do here is hypothesize on various possible scenarios, really.

If you really enjoy the work then stay in. It won't be long until you're doing the thing you really want to do. My entire class is composed of people not dedicated to Graphics Design at all, and they just throw balls and shows and such around the class to entertain themselves. One of my teachers considers herself "artistic" but is conservative and you ALWAYS have to follow constraints for a "proper" piece, and I absolutely hate this. Although in another year and a half I'll be done, and not have to deal with the idiocy of these people

James Blonde prefers educated ladies.

if you are in your first year then its not as bad as getting to the end of the course and dropping out. something i have know people to do.

i stayed at uni despite not licking anything about the place and i was kind of glad i did as it made me stronger and more focused but at the same time it was quite soul destroying.

can you transfer?

I would stay stick with it. If you enjoy the work, then throw yourself into it. Or at least finish your first year at Oxford. I loved spending whole days in the library. Some of the best days of my life were spent flitting from book to book in the library.

You'll meet cool people eventually. I ended up with a load of mates that I couldn't stand in my first year, but it all changes eventually. You'll meet people, just perhaps not straight away.

tis true. if you stay around long enough then things become better and easier to deal with. i am sure you will be able to settle down soon enough and just remember that it isnt forever.

I think you'll fare best if you give it a bit more time.

I'm assuming that you wouldn't be able to start a new coursr somewhere until later in the year anyway, so on that basis I'd consider it wisest to give it a little longer.

On the other hand, I'd say that if things really look like they're getting to much, then don't hesitate to change.

not everyone that drops out gets a shitty job. infact anyone can get one.

You must have done well in your a-levels to get in then, what course are you doing? I think you should battle through because at the end of the day if you get a degree from Oxford you should be able to do whatever you want.

I'm gonna apply to 3 uni's in London to do Physics/Astrophysics, I've been down a few times to go to all the art galleries and I've loved it. Plus the bands I like always play there when they tour the UK.

fuck it, if you dont like it drop out.
the head dude at my college told me many moons ago to walk and keep walking till i turned around and the college looked iddy biddy small. he seemsd to think that was my career path!
look at me now i'm a big fuck off lawer in a high class firm in the city..

uhhh no wait.

no i'm not.

This is all true. I felt almost exactly the same way. My biggest problem though was that I missed my family. So I transferred from Loyola University Chicago to a community college close to my hometown. This is probably the best thing that I could have done in that situation, and at first I had my reservations because I thought that maybe I just had to give things more time to work themselves out, but I think that for now I belong at home, not just because of school but because of a lot of crap that has happened within my family during the past few months. The worst was probably when two of my cousins (ages 6 and 2, and the older one has autism) were taken from my aunt and uncle because my uncle has been running a meth lab for a while now. My cousins are now in the custody of my other uncle and my grandma, who share a house. They live really close to me, so I see them a lot, and I love being with my cousins because before all of this, I rarely got the chance to see them. I don't know how long my grandma and my uncle will be able to take care of them, but my mom said that if the time ever comes when they can no longer take care of them, that my cousins could hopefully come live with us. And that more than anything is motivating me when it comes to doing well in school, and looking for jobs, and just not fucking up too badly in the near future. Because this whole situation with school and everything is so much greater than myself now, and I can't really be too self-centered anymore. My cousins are nice kids but they're messed up in certain ways because it's looking like my uncle (and occasionally my aunt) was probably abusive towards them. When my other uncle took the 6-year-old to get a haircut, the kid started shaking violently and then asked if my uncle was going to tie him up. So yeah, he's been mistreated, and probably just due to his autism, which isn't even that severe. I just want to make the rest of his childhood enjoyable for him, and have him around for as long as possible.

Stay in School, that's all I have to say. And anyways a High School Diploma doesn't mean shit anymore.

ow, luxy, that is quite, quite terrible, and yet, you seem to be taking it in the best possible way. i don't know what to say except that i hope things work out for you. really. all the best.

You could transfer to a Uni in London?

Remember this when people tell you that you need to stay in school and get a diploma if you want a good job: any job that you couldn't earn on your merits, but can instead be "earned" with a piece of paper will suck. Always. It's the nature of those jobs. They're the kind of jobs that can be filled with a person that simply has a document that says they are qualified, rather than REQUIRING a person that has talent and works hard for themselves. Does that mean that no one needs to go to college? Not really, it just means that people need to go to college to look intelligent to other people who went to college. Nevermind whether anyone is ACTUALLY intelligent.

you and your little cousins can come live in texas

4 words:
Skid Row Cover Band

sleep on it, let me know tommorow
k?

As long as you let me be Sebastian.

ugh, fine fine

I just can't picture you with bleach blonde hair. But that's okay, I mean the only thing working in my favor is that I look more feminine than you do.

No, you're 100% correct

so you're dropping out of oxford?

...uh, can i take your place? we have people here in the US who went to oxford . . . they're called rhodes scholars. as in, some of the most brilliant and accomplished people on the planet.

i say endure it. it is one of the most well-respected, oldest, and academically rigorous schools on the entire planet, and if you get out of there in four years the world will be in the palm of your hands. seriously, think about the rest of your life: is it worth four years of relative unhappiness for the unfathomable returns that will come to you with a degree from oxford? even if it does end up sucking (and, for the record, you come to this conclusion on the basis of ONE semester there -- nothing's saying you won't find some people there you'll really like and with whom you'll be friends for the rest of your life), the benefits of being so extraordinarily well-educated far, far outweigh the costs.

let me tell you a story. i'm a senior at the college of william and mary in virginia. damn good school, and pretty well-known (my mom has british friends who have heard of it) . . . but doesn't have quite the ring of, say, yale. at any rate, i'm applying to law school, and just for the hell of it, i'm applying to harvard and columbia. my stats are rather low by their standards -- good, good enough even to give me a good shot at getting into some of the top ten law schools in the country -- but nowhere near that good. i did it on a sort of lottery mentality -- however infinitesimal my chances of getting in there, they are reduced to zero by not applying. but let me tell you, if by some freak off-chance i get into harvard, i will never, ever, EVER leave the place -- i don't care if i find cambridge, massachusetts to be the armpit of the universe. for whatever reason harvard law graduates are somehow deemed the gods of the universe -- the best and brightest employers out there come looking for you, merely in virtue of the fact that you attend that illustrious institution. an acceptance letter from the school is essentially a ticket to automatic success, absolutely anywhere.

you, ma'am, currently attend the harvard of the united kingdom -- perhaps even better than harvard in terms of intellectual rigor. if you drop out of that, if you pass up that kind of astounding opportunity, the likes of which have rarely been enjoyed by anyone throughout the entire course of human history and which is not likely to come your way again, you are, in a word, insane. completely, utterly, and incurably insane. end of story.

To the original poster: If you really loathe your school, there's nothing wrong with dropping out. But because you enjoy the coursework, I would think twice about leaving so soon. It's easy enough to worry about how the particulars of your education will affect your future, especially your career of choice, but you don't have to let yourself be defined by your job alone. As soon as I got to college, my advisors were telling me that it didn't really matter what I majored in, but then they would recommend that I take some career tests anyways and figure it out soon. So I felt the pressure to pick something just for the sake of not being "undecided" anymore, like it would give me some kind of direction. I didn't want to screw myself over and make it impossible for me to get a job that I liked after college. But after a while I stopped caring, and by the time I left at the end of first semester, I was so glad to be out of there that I didn't really care anymore about jobs and career paths and all of that. As long as I'm doing something that I feel is productive, I think that's enough to satisfy me for the time being. And there are more important things to me, like my family and my hobbies/talents and that sort of thing. I'm in the process of filling out applications for a variety of jobs. I hope at least one will work out, it makes no difference which. I'll probably hate doing whatever it is, but that's a given.

shes right
love youluex

Hey, I'm in similar sort of position:
The people I know are obsessed only with money and getting jobs in the city, many public school but most raving tories so right wing they hate Cameron for being liberal. I end up spending nights with people I have little in common with because I happened to hang around with them earlier on and found out too late they weren't my sort.
Being in Oxford though I can imagine is worse as it has the highest proportion of that sort. Despite all this I'm going back because I beleive I can be more social then I have been (though I don't much want to) and have faith that I can meet people I click with.
I would say a lot of it is feeling lonely after having such deep relationships with my friends (Me and Washingmachine are best friends, in fact he showed me this thread!)

Don't know if anyone has suggested this, but what about societies? I would try to see how it goes for another term, especially since you will walk your way into a lot of jobs with such a respected degree! Although I beleive that career shouldn't be the overriding aim in life, I know a few people who flunked A levels and they have no future right now.

Edit: I've been thinking of moving to uni in Cardiff but am being put off by the crap looking course, it's important that you enjoy what you're doing!

I know a few people who went to Cambridge. Quite a few (about 20-odd). Some of them did very well. Books published, Actors, etc (these are the half-acquaintances). The others I know haven't seen any enormous advantage to getting work or an exciting job or a well-paid job. I do agree that it's somewhat frivolous to pass up the opportunity to go to a redbrick uni (semi-equivalent to America's Ivy League, I believe), but I don't think that Oxbridge (or UCL etc) immediately imbue one with the advantages that the same unis do in the States.

I maintain that it's impossible to say after one semester whether or not you should quit, however. But, then again, if someone really doesn't enjoy where they are, no amount of natural advantage is going to stop that person hating where they are. It's a very personal thing. I know one chap who enrolled in Greece's best uni, hated it, and ended up at a relatively crap one in the UK. He's infinitely happier, and doing very well for himself. It's a courses for horses case, methinks.

I hope my clever pun isn't entirely lost on you deathless electronic nobodies.

I know someone who quit Cambridge after one term and went off to Leeds instead. She was a lot happier. Ultimately, one can't try to second guess one's future, it being unwritten, and it's better to make the most of one's present. I say leave if you're not happy; stay if you can cope.