Where I come from, dropping out of college is the same thing as volunteering for homelessness.
Like many of you, I had it drilled into my skull from a very early age that a university degree was the only hope a person had of succeeding in the world. Without it, the best you could look forward to was ditch-digging, dissolution, and despair. I believed this when I applied to a half-dozen colleges. I believed it when I got into every college I applied to. I believed it all summer before I went off to college. And you can bet your sweet life that I believed it when I dropped out of college for the first time. I may have even believed it when I dropped out of college for the second time.
Truth to tell, some small part of me may still believe it. But the rest of me understands that it’s a hoary myth, a lie we tell young people because we need to believe there is a formula for succeeding in life. There isn’t–because success is not a high-paying job, nor a house, nor a family, nor a car, nor a diploma, nor fame, nor wealth. Success is the rare gift of living the way you want to live. That doesn’t mean living without sacrifice or compromise; it means living without so much sacrifice and compromise that you become incapable of joy. You know, like your parents.
College is not for everyone, as you will soon learn. Many of you are probably already considering quitting. Usually that’s because you’re not used to being challenged. Sometimes, though, it’s because the specific challenges of academic life feel less worthy of your time and energy than other things.
I know you didn’t ask, but my advice is: Go ahead and quit. If you miss it, you’ll go back. If you don’t miss it, you’ll be sparing yourself anywhere from one month to 10 years of miserable self-loathing, poisonous cynicism, and misguided finger-pointing. Your parents will be angry–or the classic “not so much angry as disappointed.” Those of you still being supported by mom and dad may even get cut off.
But listen. Being cut off from parental support is the best thing that can ever happen to you. The thought of it is terrifying enough to keep you in line for the moment, but as these next few months become these next few years, you may begin to feel yourself growing resentful of their attempts to control you. Just remember one thing: You will sound ridiculous complaining about that until you learn how to pay your own way. Money is the number one tool employed by parents in the service of not letting you go (guilt is a neck-and-neck second). Once it stops being a factor, their power to control you becomes only as strong as your desire to be controlled.
My life prior to dropping out of school was sheltered enough that I was actually surprised to discover that there were people my age (18)–and older, and younger–supporting themselves by working at shitty minimum-wage jobs and living close to the bone. A bigger surprise was that there were many more of them than there were people like me. An even bigger surprise: They were happy. They were rightfully proud of their independence and self-determination. Seattle was then and is now a place where it’s possible to be young and poor with a modicum of dignity and a big helping of community. Being poor sucks, but it’s often better than living for your parents. It’s also an experience everyone should have, at least for a while.
College is not for everyone. Neither is dropping out. Many people thrive in academic situations and have happy, healthy, loving relationships with their folks. And then you have the rest of us, for whom self-reliance and real-world durability are more valuable than any Stendhal seminar will ever be. You can always read Stendhal. Dropping out can be the key to earning confidence, gaining respect from your parents, and ultimately, building a life of your own. That doesn’t mean you won’t regret it. It just means you don’t have to.
10 Things You Will Learn When You Drop Out of College:
1) How to pay rent and bills.
2) What happens when you don’t do one or both of those things.
3) How much food costs.
4) What a financial burden on your parents you actually were.
5) How easy it is to take care of yourself.
6) How easy it is to let things slide so much that you can’t take care of yourself.
7) How satisfying it is to rescue yourself from situation #6.
8) Never to put the phone or utility bills of a group house in your name.
9) There’s virtually nothing you can learn in college that you can’t learn on your own.
10) The inverse of #9 is simply not true.
This article just saved my sad, little life. Thank you. <3
A couple years ago a counselor asked me what my “Absolute worst case scenario” was and I said “Failing out of university and disappointing my parents”. Just the thought of it had my chest tight and very nearly had me in tears. He laughed. I couldn’t understand how this was funny, that situation would be the end of my life!!
I first read this article about a month ago when I was still debating whether I wanted to continue with my university courses or just drop out(My reasons are depression/stress related) and even at that point there was no pulling myself out of the pit of failure.
This was one of the many articles I clung to for reassurance that leaving school did not mean condemning myself to poverty or brand me a failure at adult life as a whole. Just like most upper-middle class children I was pretty much raised to believe that University/College was the next step after High School and that the only people who didn’t go were those who couldn’t and ended up working fast food joints or being greeters at Wal-Mart. There’s very little time between carefree high school and Uni to figure out what you want to do with your life and I was well into my second year before I felt I had a tentative goal. I’m still not really sure what it is I want. Right now though, all I want is to not wake up feeling like a failure for being unable to succeed and wasting my parents’ money.
A couple weeks ago I called my mom and told her I wasn’t coming back after Xmas and that I’d like to come home and get a job (and a therapist). She wasn’t surprised. After talking for a while we agreed that I would come home, get a job, get well and consider my options over the year or so. The next day I cancelled my housing for the new year and cried for most of the day. It was party terror of what I’d done (I’m still occasionally seized by a sort of horror at myself), but mostly relief.
I think I will return to school eventually, to finish the teaching degree I was interested in, but that time is far off right now and I don’t feel the need to make myself miserable and sick to do it.
I guess that’s enough rambling. Just thought I’d share my story.
thank you.
Im just going to start off my saying that Im currently in my freshman year at a major public university. I don’t have any difficulties with schoolwork, and I actually will be on the dean’s list when the semester ends. That being said, I think college is shit for people like me. I feel absolutely chained into the track of monotony that consumes the majority of society and I hate it. The most useful thing I read was an article put out by radical students at Berkley back in the 60s. They were saying the same things i feel about college being too structured to teach purposeless things. I understand that college is the perfect option for some. Take my cousin for example, he is in graduate school for dentistry, something he has wanted to do his whole life.For me though? I do not know how much longer I am going to be able to last here.
Ever since I was little I have been told that in order to be successful I have to go to college. Basically there were two options, go to college, or spend the rest of your life flipping burgers and I must admit that until recently I have believed that without question. But after spending the last, almost 16 years, attending some form of formal education (which includes 2 1/2 years of college I am officially sick of school. I am sick of writing papers on subjects that I have no interest in that probably will only ever be read by the teacher’s assistant. I am sick of paying huge sums of money to go to classes that have no application in my life simply because the school feels that I should. I am sick of spending $300 to buy a textbook that the teacher never requires that you read and I would never choose to read. And most of all I am sick of learning information for the sole purpose of of being able to correctly answer the questions on a test. What I really want right now is to be financially independent and I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that college is not the only way to do that. I think that I might take a break from college to try some other options. The only thing that is holding me back right now is the thought of having to tell my parents, they’re going to flip…
An up and coming author from NYC is currently working on her new book called, “Don’t go back to school”, which talks about being successful without going to college and learning the things you need or want on your own etc. Her name is Kio Stark and she’s a drop out too! Check out the preview of her book at her website: http://www.kiostark.com/
I too, dropped out of college but will be going back next year, now that I know what I want to study and do for the rest of my life. During my freshman year, I felt I learned more out of the classroom than inside one!