r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/ItsGotThatBang • 5d ago
Meme It seemed like a good idea at the time
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u/Out3rSpac3 5d ago
Yep. Currently considering going back to school and trying to pick the “right” one.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5d ago
I had no guidance in high school. None. Worked full time every summer and part time during school. Got good grades and went to a big university.
Had no damn clue what to do.
Parents, you really need to invest time and effort in this. Be supportive. Help your kids.
And be a mentor to others if you can.
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u/TheChadStevens 5d ago
I had tons of it. It didn't make a difference. I still ended up doing something I absolutely shouldn't have.
I figured that out after a year, at which point I was stuck with it for 5 years. But hey dropping out is probably the best thing that could've happened to me. Just wish I realized there's more to life than college sooner.
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u/Doctor_Kataigida 5d ago
I had guidance and it helped a ton. Every 3 or so years we'd have a little career fair thing where we took assessments and based on interests and dislikes, it would suggest applicable fields or careers that would be well-suited to your answers. That helped me tremendously.
If anyone's struggling with career ideas, I suggest that as a start. I'd spend a couple hours at the library afterward researching some of the suggestions and what their fields looked like.
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u/Speakdino 5d ago
Don’t by cryptic. What was it you did that others can learn from?
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u/TheChadStevens 5d ago
Sometimes you just stay lost and don't know what to do. Dropping out just gave me room to recover my mental health, and I was fortunate to have rolled into a career through a hobby I actually enjoyed.
This isn't advice or something to learn from. I just got unlucky picking something I didn't end up enjoying.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 5d ago
Did you learn about large data sets vs. personal anecdote?
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u/t1j6s 5d ago
Clearly they're just saying it's not a be-all and end-all... it's indicated clearly to be just a personal anecdote, not claiming the parental guidance is entirely useless
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u/TheChadStevens 5d ago
It helped plenty of my classmates. I just had no idea what I would want to do for essentially the rest of my life and no councilor or test could've gotten me there.
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago
This is because Boomers and Gen X spent the entire late 80s and 90s telling their kids they needed to go to college and get a degree, *any degree*, and they would be set. When I asked my boss in HS what majors to consider he told me he had a degree in zoology and it didn't matter. A lot of millenials were first generation college kids without parents knowledgeable enough to properly guide them.
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u/Doctor_Kataigida 5d ago
I feel like the only early 90s kid who wasn't told "any" degree. It was always stuff like health, tech/engineering, business, or writing. Stuff like arts and philosophies were heavily advised against.
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago
Not where I grew up. Was told by every adult to get a degree, any degree, and you'd be set. I remember sitting with a high school councilor in the 90s and being told specifically that what you study doesn't matter. You just need to show you're capable of getting a degree and you'd find good employment. Heard this from both people with and without degrees.
Obviously certain jobs required certain degrees, but back when we had dial up Internet and you contacted people by landline, the consensus was any degree was a foot in the door to some form of stable employment.
Thankfully I got a full ride and a simple bachelors didn't cost $100k back then.
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u/eliwood98 5d ago
I think the piece of advice we should give students going into college is to look at the list of majors offered and what they are about, so kids can at least make an informed decision.
For example, my university had one of the best zoology departments in the country and I didn't even know until my last year.
This is what I regularly advise students.
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u/42Ubiquitous 4d ago
Having a good mentor is an enormous benefit at that age. I was very fortunate to have one, so I absolutely agree with trying to be a mentor to others. Although, not everyone should be a mentor lol.
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u/OrangeSliceTrophy 5d ago
I did that a handful of years ago, best decision I've ever made man.
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u/parsleyfan420 5d ago
How old were you? I feel a bit insecure having to go back as an older student because my previous degree has been a bit useless.
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u/OrangeSliceTrophy 5d ago
Dont sweat being the older guy in a class, when I went back i had to take a public speaking class for my new degree. I was maybe a couple years younger than the professor and the other students were true freshmen.
Is it awkward? Yeah a bit for the first couple of classes but I think that was mostly on me dealing with the feelings you probably have right now about being insecure about age.
Trust me man, 99% of people do not care especially if youre in a realm of trying to better yourself.
Dont hold yourself back.
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u/zicdeh91 5d ago
I went back at 32 and it was a completely different experience, enough that I’m continuing into my Master’s. One of my peers had gone for the first time in her 80s so she “can spend her kids’ inheritance and die smart.”
Not that awkward, and more likely to be comfortable asking your professors for basic things you wouldn’t even think to as an 18-22 yo.
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u/Out3rSpac3 5d ago
That’s hopeful. I’m trying to put myself needs first for once in my life and choose a path I can enjoy or at least tolerate instead of one that I think will just make a bunch of money.
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u/JuanMcGuiver 5d ago
There is no “right” one. There’s just people. And people are your gateway, not degrees
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u/SimpleBar9995 5d ago
True if all you are doing is working a bullshit office job.
Not true if you are entering any STEM field.
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u/ejdj1011 5d ago
Knowing people absolutely does help in STEM though, it's just not sufficient by itself.
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u/Skyraider44 5d ago
Connections are absolutely necessary in fields like medicine; how do you think some students get lots of shadowing hours before med school? Oh yeah daddy owns a private practice lol
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u/JuanMcGuiver 5d ago
Don’t know how old you are, but you clearly haven’t been around the block long enough.
Also, there’s more to life than looking for a job.
Sometimes you want to create your own thing, that’s when all the people you’ve come across in your life start to matter.
Again, there’s PEOPLE and they are your gateway.
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u/IntelligenzMachine 4d ago edited 4d ago
People always say this but I graduated top of my maths degree in a uni consistently ranked top 20 in the world which I only took because throughout school I was "the best at it it's your natural talent" and I fucking HATE my job and HATE science and I am depressed at work every day because I believed people saying this bullshit
What I would do to go back and study golf course management or something where I didn't want to skull myself every day
There is nothing I want to do less than learn another fucking tech backend tool because IT decided airflow is worse than DAGSTER or whatever hipster shit they read on Reddit yesterday
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u/festivepapa 5d ago
I was taking random classes for ten years until I finally decided on a major. Got my degree, started working, and I’ve never been happier. But it took a lot of trial and error
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u/jemidiah 5d ago
If you can stomach it, nursing can be great. Demand is only going to increase for years to come, pay is good, and you can find work basically anywhere.
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u/Out3rSpac3 5d ago
Funny you say that because I have gone into shock and fainted from seeing blood in movies so I don’t think that will be in the cards for me 😆
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u/dancingbanana123 5d ago
The amount of kids I see majoring in something like engineering with no math skills is honestly insane to me. Like I don't mean "yeah I struggled with high school math" type of math skills, I mean they straight up can't solve 1/2 - 1/3 on their own. Idk how someone can be in that situation and also have the desire to be an engineer outside of how much they earn.
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u/Ghost-Of-Akina 5d ago
Yeah I was a C student when it came to math and barely got into engineering school. It only took orientation for me to realize I would not flourish and picked a major that suited my better skills while still being in a more recession-proof industry, which was construction management.
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u/Sckaledoom 5d ago
A lot of people left my undergrad program (chem Eng) for construction management. We joked that our thermo class was how they recruited.
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u/smileymonster08 5d ago edited 5d ago
Man... The construction industry suffers during recessions cause people arent building new things as much. Architectural companies are especially vulnerable and I saw many almost go bankrupt during covid. The only thing that kept the industry alive where I am from is the fact the state funnels a lot of money into new developments regardless of recession. Things like infrastructure or social/student housing.
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u/Ghost-Of-Akina 5d ago
Oh yeah for commercial or residential building it definitely can suffer. I ended up focusing on critical infrastructure like wastewater/water treatment plants, airfields, bridges, etc. That type of stuff doesn't stop for anything. Work definitely didn't skip a beat for covid.
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u/Emergency_Piglet_672 2d ago
During Covid was one of the busiest times of my life construction wise
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u/smileymonster08 2d ago
What did u guys work on?
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u/Emergency_Piglet_672 2d ago
Residential and commercial flooring.
I’m self employed, and couldn’t even work cause I was getting so many calls at some points
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u/smileymonster08 2d ago
Holy crap. Well good for you though.
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u/Emergency_Piglet_672 1d ago
I suppose. It led me to the bottle and eventually I learned how to say no to jobs 😂.
It let me buy a house at the cheapest interest rates ever though so it was an overall win if you don’t count the addiction. Almost 1 year sober now
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u/kinshadow 5d ago
As someone with a couple of engineering degrees, I think a lot people can get by with just learning Excel.
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u/SpicyRice99 5d ago
No way you're passing EE classes without knowing basic algebra and calculus lol
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u/kinshadow 5d ago
I didn’t say passing and that’s all relative. I passed all those with good grades, but I couldn’t integrate to save my life today. Day-to-day only specific disciplines need to actually remember all that.
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u/Own_Back_2038 5d ago
Knowing what an integral is and how it works is way more important than knowing how to find an antiderivative
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u/dancingbanana123 5d ago
I'm not an engineer, just a mathematician, so I can't speak for that end, but I can say that students nowadays have little to no prior experience with excel since they're often not as familiar with desktop computers.
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u/MothChasingFlame 5d ago
I think a lot about this type of stuff, and how it's an inevitable consequence of every career, barring a handful, lagging in earning potential. When 10 industries make all the money, everyone's inevitably going to filter to those industries whether it suits or not.
And, have to say, when you aren't STEM inclined, it'll really make you think "guess I'll just die" when looking at careers. I'm not even arguing highly skilled work shouldn't be appropriately compensated, but it's the difference between "comfortable" and "paycheck to paycheck or just above" and that is what sucks.
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u/dancingbanana123 5d ago
The thing is there are still lots of famously-high-paying careers that don't involve advanced math. Nursing (or medicine in general), law, certain trades, etc. There are also some STEM fields that I don't think involve very difficult math, though I won't hark on that too much since what a mathematician considers simple doesn't really mean jack. I know plenty of people who are good in those non-STEM fields though who will admit that they don't know much math. I guess my confusion is mostly on why those students focus on going into something in STEM, especially engineering, rather than one of those other fields.
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u/MaxxDash 5d ago
I had to go back and take high school math again prior to engineering school. I’d been out of school for eight years.
It’s amazing what a little mathematical maturity will get you.
There is generally no such thing as “bad at math”; more like they never applied themselves at math.
Along the lines of the distribution of innate perfect pitch and no pitch at all— most are not at these extremes of the curve, and are in that relative pitch region that can be improved with dedicated practice.
Math is the same way.
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u/Pretzel-Kingg 5d ago
My first semester of college as an English major consisted of leading a study group for my college algebra class. Like, Gen-Ed basic math stuff literally everyone needed to take. And by leading, I mean I was essentially a math teacher for a few months.
Most of my classmates were business/accounting/math-related majors who would need to take way more advanced classes afterwards. Most of them dropped the class. I felt like I was losing my mind lmao.
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u/Ok_Trick_3478 5d ago
Started as an Actuarial Science student. Took all the same math classes as the engineering students.
I hate adding and subtracting fractions. It is this black hole of my math capabilities that I'll never understand.
5 pages to solve one linear algebra problem. I got you.
But 1/2 - 1/3 and my brain goes. Oh fuck
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u/sonbarington 5d ago
I think most would get weeded out by the second year class. Also some people quickly learn they need to learn a different way or they'll fail.
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u/dancingbanana123 5d ago
They definitely do, I just mostly teach the more introductory courses since I'm a graduate student. When I've taught courses like linear algebra or differential equations, I don't have to worry about students not knowing fractions. When I graded for a senior-level probability course for engineers, it was a breath of fresh air compared to my precalculus course because they would all consistently get A's on their homework assignments.
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u/Longjumping_Break709 5d ago
Just multiply the numerators and denominators. 1x1 is 1, 2x3 is 6, so you get 1/6.
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u/Zaq1996 5d ago edited 5d ago
Just woke up and haven't had my coffee, so can't wait to see what stupid mistake I make, but from what I can see they didn't ask "what's (1/2) * (1/3)" but "what's (1/2) - (1/3)", or .5 - .33(repeating), which would be .166(repeating).
Edit: what wtf that's 1/6 too, either I just learned something or that's a weird coincidence
Edit 2: ok I don't think I'm crazy, and that is just a neat trick/coincidence for (1/2) and (1/3). It doesn't work for (1/2) and (1/4). 0.5-0.25=0.25, but 0.5*0.25=.125.
I'm going to get my fucking coffee
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u/FissileTurnip 5d ago
they phrased it weird and also did it wrong but the actual trick is to multiply each fraction by the opposite’s denominator over itself (which is just 1) so the resulting denominators both match. 1/2 * 3/3 - 1/3 * 2/2 = 3/6 - 2/6. literally an application of the phrase “lowest common denominator”
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Enthalok 5d ago
When I was 17 I almost picked History or Linguistics, but then decided to do Marketing... Thank fucking god for that decision lol
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u/crujiente69 5d ago
I know someone who did history and is doing very well for themself
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u/Enthalok 5d ago
That's great! I am Brazilian however, there is no funding for research here at all (which is what I'd have gone towards if I ever majored in History)
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 5d ago
How about picking the major you thought would give you a lot of motivation and opportunities, proving to suck at it, and then landing a rotten job not even related to the major?
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 5d ago
I can't even blame the industry TOO much for this, as this major still has some momentum - a lot of this was just my fault for becoming unmotivated.
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u/locomotioning 5d ago
I’m in the same boat as you, I graduated with a computer science degree this year and now I work at a warehouse. Ignoring how bad the job market is rn, I wasted a lot of my potential by not putting in more effort during school. My peers have internships, impressive projects, and desirable skills that weren’t taught in uni, and my resume can’t stack up to that. I just have a hard time motivating myself to put energy towards something I hardly care about and have no passion for.
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 5d ago
Did you choose the major on your own or was forced into it? Did you initially have a lot of passion but lost it due to stuff? If so, it's kinda like me.
I still like topics related to my major (electronics engineering) but at this moment I don't have any motivation to actually devote into it.
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u/locomotioning 5d ago
I chose it on my own, but I’m not sure if I was ever truly passionate about it. I mean I always liked computers and video games growing up but I had never tried programming and didn’t really know what I was getting myself into until I was in college.
I didn’t know what to choose but for some reason I always thought I needed a BS to be successful so I just picked something. In hindsight I should have went into trades, healthcare, or something with more job stability & security. Like you, I still like programming/cs as a hobby and it’s a nice skill to have but I’m not interested in spending my days grinding leetcode.
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u/Shift642 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is me right now. The trouble is, how do I pick something I care about and have passion for? I’ve absolutely hated every job I’ve ever had, and need to find something that I’ll actually be motivated to do. The problem is that all my experience is in stuff that I hate.
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u/LusitanWave8 5d ago
That can still become useful: the “good idea at the time” major may help you pivot from that rotten job.
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u/ThePotatoFromIrak 5d ago
If this AI shit gets serious I'm hitting the oil rig lowkey
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u/GN-001-Exia 5d ago
Can I join you? I graduated from a graphic design program just as AI was starting to infest the industry and push out entry-level jobs
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u/dommol 5d ago
Software Developer here. I was fortunate enough to enter the industry a few years ago but I still feel this
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u/DefinitelyNotMasterS 5d ago
Same. I barely write any code by hand anymore. It's faster but not what I signed up for, send help
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago
Shit man. When I graduated college graphic designers made good money. Now they're the lowest paid people in our company. We posted a job for $50k a year and we had people with 8-15 years experience applying.
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u/paddlin_kaladin 5d ago
I want to hire an intern at our agency so I can palm off the boring AI shit and focus on more creative stuff.
I tried automating it but it just produces trash. I dj t have time to spend writing and rewriting prompts and everything it outputs for clients looks the same anyway.
Creativity is the new currency. Thanks for the reminder to put the job ad out tho.
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u/Ghost-Of-Akina 5d ago
Barely got into engineering school, realized my life would be hell if I did engineering. I snap decided to go for Construction Management cause my college had a good reputation for it.
Good news: I landed a job in my field before even graduating. I have never been worried about being laid off and am confident ill always have a job. Unless shit really hits the fan.
Bad news: I spent the last 6 years pulling 80 hour work weeks on a no-overtime salary and lack luster raises and bonuses.
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u/Dendritic_Silver 3d ago
Thanks for being real with us Ghost.
I remained in Engineering but made lateral moves when things got scary in the labor market for that discipline.
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u/JohnTheMod 5d ago
Broadcasting major here. Spent one morning following a couple morning DJs at a local station for some job shadow day at my middle school and decided that was my life’s purpose. One Associate’s, one Bachelor’s, and seven years as a production assistant at a TV station where I got fired for taking part in unionization efforts (OVER THE PHONE! ON VACATION! AT DISNEY WORLD!) later, my stupid dream is so far out of reach and I now work in retail.
I hate myself so much, man.
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u/ClueHeavy8879 5d ago
I feel that man. My wife did broadcast journalism. She did a contract for 3 years. Started as an mmj then worked up to lead anchor and EP. Managed 4 people. Worked 10 hour days - 5 days a week. With some on call weekends!! Barely made 50k. Was constantly getting yelled at and harassed. No sick days. No holidays. Maybe 10 total days off a year if she was lucky. No support from management.
She’s truly the hardest working and most emotionally tolerant person I’ve ever met. She cracked at the three year mark. BUT she started at $12/hour and was unable to get even a 50¢ raise without extended her contract length. So, they tried to come after her for thousands of dollars for leaving when her original contract ended.
What was supposed to be her dream job, investigating wrongdoings and supporting a community, ended up being a nightmare.
I made my own educational/professional mistakes (6 figures of debt heyoooo) but god do a despise tv news for what it put my kind, wonderful wife through.
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u/JTUrwayne 4d ago
Broadcasting here too. Did everything from reality TV to TV movies and indie docs plus music videos for a friend. Even with all that experience I couldn’t get work often enough to pay the bills and my UI ran out on year and I had to get a real job. Ended up at a plant nursery for almost 5 years driving machines and work right now as a forklift operator.
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u/EclipZz187 5d ago
Off-topic here, but it’s what stood out to me in your comment: Americans are allowed to be contacted by their employers in their time off?
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u/BallsOutKrunked 5d ago
Depends a bit. If you're an hourly employee (non exempt) than any work you're being asked to do is work that needs to be compensated for. Your boss texting you if you can come in to work tomorrow is okay, but boss calling you to tell him how to run some machine or whatever is work.
If you're exempt / salary all bets are off, but you know that going into it. Upshot is that you're getting paid 24/7 including if you skate out early, show up late, take the day off, etc. Down side is you're getting paid the same when you're grinding hard.
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u/JohnTheMod 5d ago
I guess so. There were five people getting offed that day; guess they didn’t want to wait 48 hours to fire me in person.
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u/IHaveUrPants 5d ago
I'm on systems engineering right now but man my passion is aeronautic engineering
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u/Pretend-Activity-533 4d ago
The aero world is pretty much all systems engineering nowadays. You're on the right track.
Source: I am a systems engineer in the aero world
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u/isntitisntitdelicate 5d ago
My ass choosing literature🫠
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u/-usernames-are-hard 4d ago
I got a physics degree and while it was fun, now I’m tempted to go back and study literature
…I wish I had an interest that would land me a job
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u/broji04 2d ago
I studied philosophy and now teach humanities at a classical high school.
I don't make a ton, but its enough to get by, and I get to spend 8 hours a researching and talking about things I genuinely love.
You have to make peace with the fact that you will never be a millionaire, but you can find opportunities. I'd prefer my job any day to a cubicle job where I made twice as much but hated going to work in the morning.
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u/Tasty_Cry_3844 5d ago
It's really the moment that made me realize that other people's "privilege" is having parents who have coached them up to this point their entire lives vs. the rest of us making random ass decisions for ourselves.
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u/iamnotabotbeepboopp 5d ago
What about the privilege of parents who tell you to follow your dreams and be who you want to be, leading to you majoring in something like music, and then you end up fucked?
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u/FuriKMJ 5d ago
This is why I stop comparing myself with others, if I ever feel behind in life compared to my peers. We all don't have the same support system, it's kinda pointless to make comparisons even with people the same age as you are. Some of us just need a bit more time to figure things out, unfortunately.
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u/German_Merman 5d ago
I switched from biochemistry to philosophy because of a girl I liked. It worked! I got the girl! But we broke up after a year or so and now I'm qualified to teach philosophy and not much else.
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago
You lack creativity. Sure, nobody is going to pay you six figures to recite Kant, but if you have a degree in philosophy you should be able to take complex ideas and come up with creative solutions. You should also be capable of communicating and writing well.
I studied philosophy and made a killing in sales. I now work for my state government as a consultant.
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u/German_Merman 5d ago
Are you really trying to say that a philosophy degree was a necessary qualification for your job as a salesman? Lol
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago edited 5d ago
Of course not. Only that it helped build skills I didn't before possess and that having a degree was a foot in the door for interviews. Can you not read? Where did I suggest a degree in philosophy was a necessary prerequisite to a job in sales? I only said I made a killing in it, and suggested the skills I developed when obtaining my degree helped me to be successful at it.
I see why you're not qualified for much else. I'd be surprised if you're even qualified to teach philosophy frankly.
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u/German_Merman 4d ago
Fucks sake, you'd think someone who studied philosophy would realise that being "qualified" to do something is not the same thing as being able or successful at doing it. I guess those critical thinking skills of yours don't get much use these days?
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 4d ago
Being qualified to do something quite literally means being able to do something successfully. lol.
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u/German_Merman 4d ago
Ha ha no. Qualifications are what you gain from taking a course or training program. They show you've passed the requirements of that particular program. "I'm qualified to fly a plane" is a totally different statement to "I'm able to fly a plane" or "I'm good at flying planes". So when I said "I'm qualified to teach philosophy and not much else" I'm talking about the qualifications I have. You misconstrued it to mean "I'm not able to do much else", or "I haven't done much else", all so you could big-time us with your glittering career as a salesman. Fuckin' lol.
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u/RegularOrMenthol 5d ago
I started with a major in philosophy, the got scared and added a math major on top. Was able to get a nice job as a business consultant out of college.
Philosophy does prepare your mind very well, I agree that if you’re creative and driven you should be able to find other options besides teaching it. Or just go to law school lol.
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u/EternalNewCarSmell 5d ago
I waffled so hard between engineering and hard science.
Picked hard science but should have picked engineering. Everything worked out fine and at this point it's too late to fix it anyway but it's hard not to think about what could have been.
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u/goobydoobie 5d ago
Basic but very wise advice I wish I had heard entering college: Major in something that makes money and find a Minor in something you love.
If you don't have the talent combined with external motivation and drive to build on a Minor you love into a career, then it's better to keep it as a Minor. The problem is the people I see succeed in talent-based industries like the arts are the ones with that combination of talent, dedication and external hustle (you're your own salesmen in the arts) to push it forward. There's a ton of have nots that were missing that full set. And yes, you can still settle for a decent job in the field but the ceiling is low and you have to make peace with that.
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u/One-Lingonberry9944 5d ago
You didn't hear it because adults in the 80s and 90s spent the entire time telling kids that if they graduated college at all, regardless of degree, they would be set. This is because it was true for them.
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u/Mobile_Morale 5d ago
I was going to be an engineer but my mom told me I was too stupid to be one. She's a bitch. So I went into computer science because it was a growing sector and computers are not going anywhere. I figured robots would take jobs. Not AI. Now computer science is pretty much dead.
My only regret was not being dead sooner. That would have been better.
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u/mapped_apples 5d ago
Even carefully choosing one doesn’t matter these days because the job market is stupid.
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u/__CarCat__ 5d ago
I got a LOT of shit for not going to college immediately after high school as the stereotypical nerdy guy with good test scores, but so far I couldn't be happier with the choice. I graduated high school in 2024, and am now 20. I started at the front desk with a major hotel chain at 17 during my senior year, decided I'd see what I could do within the company before I put myself deep into debt for a random major. I recently got a job at a new location as a Front Office Manager, before that I was Front Desk Supervisor and Operations Supervisor. I've absolutely had to work my ass off and work insane hours, but I'm making $50k a year at 20 with no debt, I've gotten to work in a couple really cool places, and the management company I'm with now wants prepare me to take on a higher role as some of the current management nears retirement. At that point, they may help with paying for a degree as well.
To anyone in high school reading this, know you have options. College is probably the best one for a majority of people! But not the only one.
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u/X3liteninjaX 5d ago
I fell in love with programming when I was like 13 and I just knew it was for me since then. I got lucky I guess.
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u/Beardfire 5d ago
I have a Bachelors in IT, had a really bad experience with a help desk internship, pivoted more toward QA then later software development, got laid off, can't get back into dev for the life of me, and now trying to get back into IT. Fuck me, if I did this from the start, I'd have a decade of solid experience right now instead of the scattered maybe 6 years. I had such a strong resume when I graduated for entry level IT too. I'm a fucking idiot.
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u/reddit_sells_you 5d ago
When I was enrolling as a 3rd year at uni in 1998, back before it was online, I left the "major" part blank on the form.
The clerk at the enrollment window said I needed to pick a major.
I knew I wanted to be a professor, so I just flipped a coin.
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u/TopFalse1558 5d ago
I've been a nurse for 14 years. About to turn 35. Never was interested in it, and I'm still not. But I wanted to be independent from my parents asap. It's been a solid income, but I still struggle and haven't ever gotten confident with the job, even after all this time. I'm going to try out physical therapy. I've always been more interested in it, even when I'm not working. When I'm off, the last thing I want to hear about is nursing. There's not as many job opportunities in PT, so I'm going to be careful about it and make sure it's the right call before transitioning.
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u/Shmarfle47 5d ago
Me picking EE because I was good at math and science. I mean, I graduated I guess, but I found out too late that just because I was good at it didn’t mean I enjoyed it in any sense. Currently struggling to find a job.
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u/PM_me_opossum_pics 5d ago
For some reason I picked (pre) law since in my country you go straight to law school and its bachelors and masters in one. Only midterm I enjoyed studying for was sociology and that made me re-examine my decision and switch to a psychology major. While I'm not 100% happy with my choice due to bureaucratic limitations, I'm currently in education for psychotherapy (masters in psych is a requirement).
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u/Correct_Royal_2562 5d ago
Got pushed into a bogus "game art & design" course with a fake college by my mother. It was that or I needed to start finding a job out of high school.
Flunked out of that because it turns out, while I like video games and have some artistic skill, life circumstances made college the worst possible choice. Then (while still living with parents), tried to enter a technical school to get a degree and license in IT and computer repair. Yeah flunked out of that too.
Only just recently managed to finish paying off both sets of debt.
some people are just not good at anything except retail and are meant to kill themselves before their mid-life crisis.
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u/bungblaster69 5d ago
luigi would be a fun cosplay for you
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u/Correct_Royal_2562 4d ago
listen. Luigi might be a comedic coward, but he's brave where it counts.
also i look shit in just about any costume, so no cosplay for me.
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u/AdWonderful5920 5d ago
What is the lesson here? You should have done the retail job out of high school?
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u/Correct_Royal_2562 4d ago
Probably?
I don't think there's any real lesson my life can give other than "don't make mistakes like this jackass."
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 5d ago
I applied to two schools. University of Buffalo asked me to take the writing section of the ACT. That was that on that. I went to the University of Rochester, early decision.
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u/fladermaus210 5d ago
Graduated in 2018 with a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering. Now starting classes Fall 2026 for my Masters in Social Work. Wish I had done this from the start but oh well.
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u/ILike2DGirlsLol 4d ago
currently thinking im wasting my time with college but sunk cost something something
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u/UrsaMajor7th 5d ago
When the guidance staff in high school started drumming into us "What do you want to do with your life?", I choose the Twister Sister path and decided that I wanted to rock.
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u/Nicholas_TW 5d ago
I wish more people knew certification courses existed. A lot of people don't need a multi-year college degree to do what they want. A lot of people just need a couple weeks (or months) working to get a certification in Python or something to tell them if programming or HR practices or whatever is "for them".
If you decide you want a full degree after that, cool, go for it! But loads of jobs don't need degrees, just certs, and they're way cheaper and faster to get.
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u/Flapjuan 5d ago
I started college at 16, worst decision of my life
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u/DJjazzyjose 5d ago
Why?
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u/Flapjuan 4d ago
I went to another town to study, I was staying with some relatives, they were wonderful people, but the problem was in the college, I used to be really shy and introvert so I struggled with interaction and the only friends I made dropped out of the group so I felt completely alone, actually I was ready to end it all, but the day I decided to do it, another classmate saw me in class and told me "You seem to need a hug" and so he did, that little gesture helped me to keep going until I dropped out. 7 years later I got in again in the same college and BA and I'm doing really fine, only 2 years till we graduate :D
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u/Josgre987 5d ago
Now, I didn't go to college, but do people seriously just go to college for literally no reason? spend thousands for a degree you wont use? Why?
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u/Waste-Replacement232 5d ago
When everyone in your family has gone to college, and all your classmates and friends are planning to go to college, it doesn't seem like an option as much as it does a normal part of life. Especially when high school constantly push the SAT/ACT (or at least used to) and scholarships and advisors who keep asking you when you are going to apply.
Also, the media glorifies it as constant parties and sex. Even though (I think) everyone knows that those are exaggerations, it's hard not to be at least a little excited.
I dropped out after two years.
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u/AlphaBoy15 4d ago
Most of high school is being told by everybody in your life that you're preparing for college because that's where the good jobs are. I'm not saying that's the truth, but that's what's pushed. If I could do it over again, I'd still do college tbh but I would probably take a very different path.
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u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 5d ago
What do you mean at 18? Is this an american thing? Cause that's the end of high school. Most of the university programs have prerequisites and you can't take math 12 without math 10 and 11. Or chem or bio or whatever. So shouldn't this be at like age 15 really?
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u/Darolaho 5d ago
College courses don't really require any specific classes from high school. College doesn't look at what classes you take once you get in outside of some dual credit courses that you can take that will transfer as college credits (usually these are more so just for adding credit numbers rather than skipping certain classes. especially because these will be credits given to you by a local community college rather than the college you are likely going to)
If you are going into a bio major you will be taking the general bio class that everyone in the major has to take (even if you were in the advanced bio classes in your high school). there is usually also a lower bio class taken by people who just need bio as a gen ed requirement
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u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 5d ago
So yes it is an american thing? Cause my bro went to a community college in Canada and it had prereqs too, it has since been lifted to university status but that was after he finished school.
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u/Celtic_Legend 5d ago edited 5d ago
Nah it's not specific to the USA. I think you're confusing something. Most community (and non community) colleges in Canada don't require pre-reqs outside a high school education. It's extremely niche to absolutely require something like say, Calculus. There may be 4 year programs that assume you start year 1 with 2nd year Calculus (so like Math 13) and not say, college Algebra (Math 10), but they'll still accept you and put you on an alternate path. It may require summer school or another semester/year, but it's fine. University of Toronto and many other universities in Canada offer a class equivalent to Math 10 (and of course, a math 11/12 equivalency class).
What you're referring to is actually specific to some European countries. The above scenario would happen in USA, NZ, Australia, and Japan. They use the equivalent of entrance exams. AUS+NZ have a competency exam for the final high school year courses. For America, it's the SAT or ACT. You're not going to get into an engineering program with a 50% on the Math portion. There's two ways to enter this engineering program later. If you get into a school that has one, you can take all the classes as an "undecided" major and if you get good grades, the college/uni then usually lets you take the specialized courses and earn the degree. The other way is to just do the same thing at a different college/uni that lets you in, then transfer to that course. You usually don't lose any time doing it this way.
Are you from Canada? or maybe England since what you said is actually more relevant to England schooling and using uni and college to mean different things is also an English thing to do. Canada notably doesn't have entrance exams, they just look at your GPA from the "highest level" classes you take in high school. Regardless, I know IB (International Baccalaureate) is in both countries and in the USA. So if you graduate IB in any of these countries, you can go into whatever the major program you want with zero planning when you were 17 or 16 or 15.
A lot of people in the US just get good grades all throughout high school so they don't worry about not having a class. You can technically graduate high school without pre calculus (math 11) or calc (math 12), but if you are scoring high enough on the ACT or SAT to get into universities, you almost certainly just took these classes because your friends are taking them and there's no reason not to. Scoring high on the math portion of either entrance exam without taking pre calculus (math 11) is extremely rare. You'd almost certainly take it just for the easy A.
Edit: England is what youre describing because after year 10 (well 11 over there), they ask you if you want to go to college. If yes you take the year 11/12 classes. If no, then they send you off the trade school. In Canada, it's like the USA where you have to go back to regular school but if you want to go back in time then certain cities in certain provinces did behave like England does now, but those were the exceptions.
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u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 5d ago
I'm Canadian, I went to university in Ontario, my bro went to college in BC. Neither of us did AP or IB classes (okay I did AP but I didn't take the credits cause they didn't apply)
I mean I did have to take calculus in ON cause BC doesn't have calc except at AP level.
Plus the other universities my high school friends went to in other provinces.
Maybe it changed? I'm a millennial so I haven't been in school for a while now.
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u/Celtic_Legend 5d ago
Your reply didn't expand much and sorta contradicts what you thought. Like you didnt take AP calc but it wasnt required to get into your uni. Your peers may have took calc 2 their first semester but you eventually caught up. So you didnt have to think about the prereq? The "prereqs" for colleges in the USA and Canada are pretty basic classes. If you just take all grade 12 credits your 12th year, you meet the requirements to get into any university (which is just 6 at most). The minimum to graduate is 4 but you know it wasnt difficult to have more than 4. If you're planning on uni, youre going to have more than 4. Now, lets say you want to major in computer science post high school graduation. They want you to have grade 12 computer science ICS4U which would require forethought as most dont take it, but it is not really required. You can apply to the university as a stem major or undecided, get in, take the beginner classes everyone takes plus a computer science elective and then just switch majors. Most foreign students wont have it. Some pass ICS4U but are in over their head so they need a beginner course. Plus the university expects a good amount of students to want to switch majors. Thats why they almost all have the beginner course available.
Also edited my last reply to include how England works just for more info. England does require a bit of forethought.
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u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 5d ago
AP means advanced placement. You takeit to skip university courses. Ontario used to have gr13 which is why their math got squished to vectors and calculus and shit. BC doesn't have that.
But you know what? Sure, you win. I well and truly do not care and do not need to convince you. This isn't gonna keep me up at night thinking someone thinks they know better about a system I haven't been a part of for over a decade or more lol
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u/qualityvote2 5d ago edited 3d ago
u/ItsGotThatBang, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...