i am useless, tell me what to do with my life.

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i have done 2 years studying classics at kings. i failed my second year and decided to transfer to goldsmiths with my friend and do english. i failed that year as well. so. i have just started the 2nd year for the 3rd time now. and have realised that i hate english. i would like to something more practical like drama. or media. or textiles. or something. do you think i should change courses? i know i'll have to start again probably. which will mean 6 years at uni. ha. but. basically just give me some advice. or tell me to fuck off. or tell me your stories of failure, uncertainty etc.

― nell, Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

nothing will be perfect. and chances are you will feel useless no matter what you do. find what is least objectionable to you and stick to that.

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i studied literature. I'm kind of glad I did, in that I feel culturally more shored up many respects and I think my ability to think critically was helped by it, but I also just went through my papers from college last night and was shocked at how terrible they were, how unfocused, how poorly written. I did well enough though I never really graduated because I dropped out at the last second with incompletes. Now I'm in my thirties and seriously think I should have studied economics or public policy because at least they're useful.

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

as a grad student studying for a phd at the moment i would say stay away from humanities unless you LOVE it or plan on going into academics or something similar as a career.

(i could have said stay away from humanities ESPECIALLY if you love it, but im not that cynical yet)

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Take some time off and go Do something before you waste any more money in school. Travel.

I spent four years on an English degree and emerged with no discernable purpose, and briefly considered continuing on to grad school for lack of a better idea. It would have been one of the bigger mistakes of my life.

If you're going to make life choices on a whim, they might as well be lucrative or interesting. Picking a random field of study and sinking time and money into it is neither.

― Laura E (laurae55), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

im working class so i dont really feel the desire to travel. that's what all my friends have told me to do though. i want to do something like music or I.T. i think i'll quit english and see what happens.

― nell, Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

(i could have said stay away from humanities ESPECIALLY if you love it, but im not that cynical yet)

I am!

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 17 October 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

laurae otm. take some time off, even if not to travel. work for a while. if/when you go back, you'll have a better sense of what you want and a better study ethic.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

This is very OTM.

You could probably do worse than to take some time off just earning money and thinking about what you want to do with yourself. I kind of obsessively stuck my degree out past the I-don't-give-a-shit phase just because I didn't want to drop out or start again, but I just ended up getting a pointlessly mediocre degree. In Philosophy.

(I'm sort of bouncing between wanting to do a primary teaching course, earning enougn money to not be in debt then be a doleite band bum for a bit, or doing a TEFL thing and trying to escape somewhere interesting for a bit)

(x-post with identical sentiment)

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:11 (twenty-one years ago)

it must have been expensive, already. working class people don't like to travel? I didn't think there was a working class, these days. perhaps that betrays something.

I have spent a long time, studying, and I am only halfway done but I will do.

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Hang on, I took ten minutes writing that? I musta zoned out somewhere in the middle.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

School is only to give you skills for working, but the problem is, school doesn't do that anymore. (At least in the humanities (if it ever did).)

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I went into the military after 3 years of nigh-pointless fucking around at university and it remains perhaps the best and most pivotal decision of my life to date.

― TOMBOT, Sunday, 17 October 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Learn to play some sort of musical instrument. That impresses everybody and makes people think you are useful.

― Dante, Der Führer (Sean3), Sunday, 17 October 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Travel, do charity work abroad, or do loads of internships in different fields, find 1 you like, then when you do commit to it, then study when you find out what you need to study, to progress.
P.S. Fucking Goldsmiths

― lukey (Lukey G), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:42 (twenty-one years ago)

im working class so i dont really feel the desire to travel.

this statement is pretty interesting. why do you feel that being working class is related to your lack of desire to travel?

― gem (trisk), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about it too. I'm working class as well, and I'd love to travel more often than I do, but I simply don't have the cash.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:48 (twenty-one years ago)

i have never associated my "class" with my desire to travel. lots of my mates who have travelled heaps more than me are as working class as they come. it was just an interesting association to make i thought.... i guess the cash thing is relative. but surely anyone can get shitty jobs until they have enough saved to take off somewhere?

also, don't feel bad about spending 6 years at uni. i am in my 8th year of uni and i have at least another two to go. it took me 6 years to finish my first (4 year) degree.

― gem (trisk), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:52 (twenty-one years ago)

im working class so i dont really feel the desire to travel.
What?????

― PinXorchiXoR (Pinkpanther), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:55 (twenty-one years ago)

hehe that was my reaction pinxor

― gem (trisk), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Just seems an extremely odd statement Gem huh?

― PinXorchiXoR (Pinkpanther), Monday, 18 October 2004 07:58 (twenty-one years ago)

travel is a loathsome little euphemism for 'self-deluded holiday'.

― candour floss (mwah), Monday, 18 October 2004 08:29 (twenty-one years ago)

The working class thing didn't seem odd to me. I had a very middle class upbringing, but my wife was very much working class, and her expectations, the ideas she had about life, what she saw as options open to her, were entirely different from mine. I don't recall being aware of anything specific about travel in all that for her, but it would fit in perfectly well. It doesn't imply that no working class people travel or want to, just that there are many more working class people for whom it doesn't feel like a real option, or occur to them as something they could or would do. The closest equivalent for me (to be more precise about my background: my parents had worked their way up to the middle class, but hadn't had much education, and gained no artistic interests at all) was that I was an adult before it occurred to me that I could wander round an art gallery - I hadn't imagined it was against the rules or anything, it was just that it didn't appear in my mental options list, it wasn't the sort of thing that crossed my mind to do.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 18 October 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I see your point Martin, but Nell seems to suggest that travelling is off because he is working class. it's not a case of 'oh it didn't cross my mind that I had that option.'

― PinXorchiXoR (Pinkpanther), Monday, 18 October 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

It is an odd statement but I can still identify with it. I often felt a bit alienated at uni when talking to people who'd spent a year out in Thailand or Australia, especially when they'd suggest it's something everyone should do (like, how do these people get six months off work? Do they just quit their jobs and assume they'll be able to find one OK when they get back? Do they NOT HAVE JOBS?). I guess that's more regarding yourself as unable to travel than 'not feeling the need' but I still recognise the 'travelling is what rich kids do' impulse, even if it is entirely irrational.

In my case it's as much to do with my being useless with money - my immediate instinct was to spend my loans on as many synthesisers, guitars and suits as I could afford with it.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Annoyman (Ferg), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I find the working class therefore no desire to travel thing very strange, indeed. You had the desire to study Classics at Kings, what's so much more un-working class about travelling?

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I am upper middle class so I do a lot of travelling and love it.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

haha that just cracked me up adam

― gem (trisk), Monday, 18 October 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

the stranger assertion is RJG's one that he didnt know the working class existed any more. Cathy is right though - if you studied classics you have already done a more un-working class thing than travel.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 00:34 (twenty-one years ago)

and adam, spread it around a bit - i haven't had a holiday for nearly 2 years.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I was kidding, I hope.

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 19 October 2004 00:37 (twenty-one years ago)

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