/lounge/ - sushi social

what makes it a failure?
you tried something and found it wasn't for you. you've successfully grown and developed yourself in doing so.

I've dropped out of law and studied something else for a few years. i worked in that industry and was constantly in and out of jobs, then i made another career change and studied something completely different again. I'm now the happiest I've been in 20 years and excited about my future.
One of my dearest friends has tried many many things over the last 10 years - pharmacy, law, nursing, accounting - they never completed any of it (yet). But I don't think they're a failure at all, I think they've grown and matured and become someone with a stronger sense of self and identity.

For you, you're probably very young and have lots of time to readjust and refocus. Do your best, not necessarily at studying, but at your own personal development. You'll find something you want to do in time, or maybe you already have something else in mind and you're just looking for support in your decision.

Just please never look at it as a waste of time. Discovering who you are isn't a waste; it's just what we do and we do it every day until the day we die.

>>11486
Very inspiring post but, serious question, why the sage?

>>11487
I wondered that a bit myself when I posted. Old /jp/ habit though, I sage maybe 95% of my posts. I am only offering my little opinion. My post is not worthy of bumping a thread. Not that it makes a difference when the thread is at the top.

For this particular post, I sage it because it's simply off-topic and I hope no one really engages with it.

>>11487
Sage is not a downvote it just means the poster thinks their post is not worthy of bumping it to the front page. (It's not a statement on the quality of your post.)

>>11489
It's not off-topic. I think your post is exactly the kind of content this imageboard fosters and enjoys.

I dropped out, but I'm back at it again. Different and much shorter career though, it wasn't until I noticed my sis doing 5 times the money I was making that dropping out of college was a bad idea.
I felt for the meme that "college brainwashes u" and the "trade works are better" meme, but the thing is that people that are just starting out are not gonna get too far. People will send their broken devices to people that have decades working on their stuff, since most of the people that are new are prone to breaking stuff even further.
And besides that, I don't want to own a company, I want to work for someone else and earn good money by doing so.
Plus it may be true in the US but in developing countries that really doesn't pay a lot. People in the poorest region can fix stuff and get by relatively cheap so that's out of the question.
Or maybe it pays well and I'm just too inept and didn't like the people I was working with. Either way, coding seems to pay better and I don't have to get my hands dirty or work too much as teachers said to me. In fact I don't even have to leave my desktop computer

This topic has been on my mind as of late. 2 years ago, I burnt myself out and switched from engineering to pure sciences. I kept pressing forward, telling myself that I was so close to the end. Since then, the quality of my work has steadily declined and I regret not taking a break then to collect myself.

This lingering burnout and a newly developing depressive slump indicate to me that its time for my overdue break. I can no longer ignore that my where my efforts matter, they have been more dispassionate and fruitless than ever. I still have hope that I'll return to school in the future. Maybe not the same school or the same program, but graduate nonetheless.

At any rate, I think its important to care about what you [b]have[/b] achieved. The goals I have set for myself, the standards which I measure myself internally, in these matters I'm happy. I've read more broadly than ever, my writing's matured and I've improved at self-education. Such small things are not good enough for a diploma in my field, but its growth I'm proud of anyway.

>>11538
>>11495
>>11486
Thank you all for responding, it means a lot. I don't know anybody in person who has withdrawn from a degree so it really felt like I was being left behind by all my peers (especially my sister, who is incredibly successful).

In all honesty I should have quit after the first year, but I was so stubborn that I carried on even when it was clear that it brought me nothing but stress. Having had some weeks now to reflect, it does feel like a weight off of my shoulders.

How did you take your next steps? I suppose this is no different from having graduated, but all the ideas I had for what to do next in my life revolved around me passing the degree. Suddenly the future is so uncertain and I find it scary

>>11485
not my story but my brother went to university for 2 years because my parents forced him After not being able to decide on a major and dropping out he turned his attention full-time to his hobbies: photography and photo retouching.
He took a two-year associates degree from a local community college in this field and worked a bunch of odd jobs and gigs for several years, scraping by. Eventually he landed a full-time position at a large agency and now makes more than many of the people I went to grad school with, without any of the debt.
So if there's something you'd rather be/do, work hard at it and maybe you will find your path.

>>11485
>Has anyone here dropped out of collage or university?
Yes actually.
>Was it a good decision?
For the time yes. I was very inexperienced and had little means to pay for it. Me back then wasn't going to be able to pull it off. My second go around we're getting that degree though. However long it takes.
>>11486
>I've dropped out of law
Ooh how was it? I've considered pursuing a degree in that field. Its been a long time dream of mine to get behind the civil rights movement like my grandfather and his father before him. They were in the offices of the NAACP and LULAC back in the day as an accountant and a treasurer. The lawyers were the real warriors though, and that's where I want to be.

I was heavily encouraged to go to university after school but had no real ambition or direction. I decided to study biology because it was one of the few subjects I enjoyed in school but quickly fell behind, failed all my courses, and dropped out after a semester.

>>11486 has the right advice, working menial jobs for 5 years was really useful. I think a sense of pointlessness and depression is just endemic to who I am because I've never been able to shake it but at least now I have the maturity to sustain full time study in something useful.

Don't feel like a failure, it's just part of growing up. Spend the next couple of years figuring out what it is you want to do if you need to, just try not to waste it. My main regret is simply not going back sooner or using my time to have more interesting experiences. Still, it's good to know that it's never too late; I know a chick who quit her job as a pharmacist to study CS because she was bored of her career. There's no shame in being in education when you're older, not everyone follows the same trajectory in life.

I studied pre-med for 3 years but had to drop out because I was just doing what I was told and wasn't really coping and ended up in a psych hospital. I spent about 5 years in and out of different life stages and only last year I finally went back to University to study what I really want to.

It obviously really, really affected my life and its progression but I would never say dropping out was a mistake. It's just part of the tapestry of my life it took to get where I am now.

>>11485
Drop out and work a 9-5er.

I had thought of it many times. At many times, I felt like college was trying to keep me in for as long as they could, but I finally escaped. I have ADHD. I can't really function like a normal person. When I was failing classes or missing assignment dates I felt like a legit failure, just like you are now. Now that I'm out, I don't feel anything like that. I feel free, in fact. Funny thing - I didn't know I could graduate once I finished the current semester / classes until I went to a councilor, and when I finally finished the class, I went in again because I hadn't gotten an email about graduating. Well, I was queuing up to see another one, and I was waiting to see one when I checked my email and found the email saying I had graduated. I went to the front desk and said, "I don't need to see the councilor anymore. I just graduated." and walked out of the building. I then took a drive, looking at the different buildings I went to when I was doing gen ed and everything was in person. Then, I never went back to that place again.

If I gotta say anything, you should speculate on what makes you feel this way and get help for it. Like, if you legit have personal issues or disabilities like ADHD, you should ask for different treatment from your school and seek medication for any disabilities. I would have liked, even loved to have quit, but that overall would have made my life a lot worse in comparison. I hope you make the right choice for yourself regardless.