anyone here prefer the real world to college?

I hate college. I'm worried that when it ends I'll realize I just hate life.

if i quit school right now i'll have to pay back my loans, and i am not in any condition to go back to working right now. i keep having mini-panic attacks at least once every day. i'm really sick of it all.

xpost I'm sorry to hear that. Health has been dragging me back a bit too, though not nearly to the same extent. I'm a little anxious about how I'm going to get all my shit done this month.

To latebloomer: hang in there.

So I'm thinking of grad school, which is something I've thought about for a while. Plus it might be free/cheap being the spouse of a faculty member.

I was out, then I got in earlyish. That's my excuse this time.

-- Laura H. (elemenopa...), April 2nd, 2006 1:48 AM. (laurah)

same. kind of. i certainly could have gotten more out of it.

*fans self with scholarship notice*

Said he went for a job
And Mr. Man said
Without an education
You might as well be dead

Now don't get me wrong
Said, it's not who you are
But people come to me
From near and far

But I do just what
And I follow the rules
I didn't have an education
So I had to go back to school

Tell me one more time, people now
(What do you say)
Without an education
You might as well be dead

One more time (what do you say)
Without an education
You might as well be dead

My friends told all his buddies
That he loved so well
And of their personal troubles
I will not tell

Now those guys didn't seem
Good and they didn't seem bad
They didn't seem happy and
I know they weren't sad

But the point isn't
That they follow the rules
They got an education
And they been in school

Now underneath his tears
I could see the true fact
He dropped out of school
Never, never went back

Tell me one more time, people
(What do you say)
Without an education
You might as well be dead

Got to, got to, got to listen now
(What do you say)
Without an education
(Might as well be dead)

One day he got tired
Of his little spending change
So he looked up his friends
And checked their pay range

When he got there, the crib
He found that he was a drag
Cause, man, they were clean
And his clothes were like rags

One was a business man
With plenty of dough
He had his thing so set up
You know he couldn't blow

The other had his job so uptight
He had his whole family
And his kids all out of sight

Tell me one more time now
(What do you say)
Without an education
(Might as well be dead)

surely you have an idea of what we're trying to say?

Ian OTM about sense of purpose, however, I should say that it might (or might not) be additionally more liberating to have a college degree insofar as it's easier to with a degree to land a job that pays a comfortable amount of money. not stupidly saying a liberal arts degree always seems immediately useful.. but in the long run, easier with *any* degree to get a job that'll at least pay somewhat decently. of course, seems like in DC everyone is perpetually freaking out about lack of sense of purpose & then going back to school yet again. usually law school. oh, the peer pressure!

haha John McCain on Meet the Press dodging question about speaking at Falwell's university by referencing how liberal the New School is.

everyone is confused though! what are you majoring in or thinking of majoring in? I don't know, there are always some people who seem to have it all together and know exactly what they want, and then you feel like it's a problem to not know. and maybe they're just going around shutting doors because they're so certain, up until their mid-life crisis. I took the "take whatever you want, it's liberal arts!" approach and it worked out OK, though I wish I'd taken computer science along the way. still, my job now will pay for me to get professional certification in whatever seems useful, so no problems there.

Well, what are you trying to say? I supported myself through much (maybe most) of my university education so far, although I'm not right now, and took responsibility for my own places, bills, etc. I didn't feel that there was anything more 'real' about the shitty jobs I worked when I was out of school, less if anything. The work I do in school is directly connected to what I do outside of school (performances etc). Especially since I'm hoping for a career in academia, the distinction really doesn't make sense to me.

Ha, one of my lecturers is the same age as me. In fact, at the first seminar I had with him he came up and asked me if I was still in my band, and what we were up to. I think he's some kind of uber-genius, though, so it makes me feel a little bit better, I suppose.

Annabel: Okay. Look, the reason I called this meeting, alright, is because I think there's some issues that we need to face.

[ Bob Dole stands over Terry, who's sitting in a chair reading a book ]

Bob Dole: Get out of my chair!

Terry: Oh, relax, Senator.

Bob Dole: That's Bob Dole's chair, and everybody knows it! [ shoves Terry out of the chair ]

Chloe: Bob!

Terry: Bob flipped out over me being in his chair... "his chair."

Hoagie: You wanna bug like that over a chair - do your bug thing.

Actually, they're not that different. different languages, same BS, but the academia style of BS is so powerful as to convince grad students and grossly underpaid adjuncts with no benefits that yes, all those years of hard work were worthwhile, and no, there's no place for you outside this insitution.

Also, the schedule in academia I find really inflexible and demanding, much more so than in the "real world" - vacation only at certain times of year, can't easily take days off or call in sick other times.

Cirroc: It's just "Cirroc", your Honor.. and, yes, I'm ready. [ approaches the jury box ] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes when I fly to Europe on the Concorde, I wonder, am I inside some sort of giant bird? Am I going to be digested? I don't know, because I'm a caveman, and that's the way I think! When I'm courtside at a Knicks game, I wonder if the ball is some sort of food they're fighting over. When I see my image on the security camera at the country club, I wonder, are they stealing my soul? I get so upset, I hop out of my Range Rover, and run across the fairway to to the clubhouse, where I get Carlos to make me one of those martinis he's so famous for, to soothe my primitive caveman brain. But whatever world you're from, I do know one thing - in the 20 years from March 22nd, 1972, when he first ordered that extra nicotine be put into his product, until February 25th, 1992, when he issued an inter-office memorandum stopping the addition of that nicotine, my client was legally insane. And, for that reason, I ask that you find him... not guilty. Thank you.

Judge: The jury will now retire to deliberate.

Jury Foreman: [ standing ] Your Honor... I don't think we need to retire. Cirroc's words are just as true now as they were in his time. We find the defendent... not guilty.

You'll dance to anything!

do research in a university lab instead of a pharmaceutical-company one

"pure science" VS "commercial application" wouldn't working for a drug company bring a host of accompanying pressures/expectations? not that academia is w/o pressure but this seems to conflate two pursuits that are fundamentally different in application despite similarities in method? or take the social sciences, a psychology PHD working in academic research VS his former classmate conducting demographic surveys for an advertising agency.

professors sure don't like it when amateurs stray onto their turf!

I keept thinking about my friend who's doing some sort of intelligent video analysis that can point out possible ass cancer in a video feed. Having not gone the graduate studies route, I can now mock him for being a computer science guy who gets to watch colonoscopy footage.

Moonlighting (in which an assistant VP takes a second job at a shipping company)
"Just as the job market in English was gaining steam in November 2004, my hair began falling out."

We were taught to praise subversives while leading lives of slavish, affected conformity, not only in terms of theory but clothing, tone of voice, and body language.

imagine doing this every single day for another 30, 40, 50 years, without ever having any sense of accomplishment, until you die.

the thing I miss about school was the endless amounts of time I had to do nothing. plus the community aspect: having a group of people with shared cultural landmarks; 30 - 100 people reading the same book, etc. you never have that again in life, really. I slacked off a lot in college and as a result had this kind of limitless feeling of having no responsibilities to anyone or anything. That I miss.

I miss university pretty much every day, it was just a perfect place for me? I dunno.

so otm.

I'm late to the party and all but seriously this is the tooliest thing I've read on the board all day and we had a bonafide Dom freakout on the ROFFLE thread.

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING

surprised a bit by the negative take on undergrad life. 4 years was enough, i was definitely ready to move on at the end, but i generally had a blast and also had a pretty good "intellectual" experience. now if you're talking high school, no fucking way would i ever want to go thru that bullshit again.