TOPIC: My advice to all the guys out there who are about to finish high school

It isn't something new, I'm pretty sure you have heard this a lot of times, but it's something guys tend to neglect in their teens, I did, and it's one of my few real regrets, so I will tell you it:

>>Choose very carefully your major. More than that, choose very carefully whether going to college or not.<<

Your teachers and parents will tell you it because "it's what you're going to do for the rest of your life". Bullshit (at least for me). Like Victor Pride said once: "you can do many, many, many things throughout your life". And I think that, except for engineering, science and law, most majors are useless (but I won't discuss that, since it's been already covered).

The real reason for this advice is simply that you'll spend ~4 of your best years behind those walls, and if your major it's not something that really absorbs you (positively) to the point of madness, college will rot your soul. Literally. I know, you may be thinking: "Man, I'm here to learn how to get laid, I don't care about this", but believe me: it will affect all the areas of your life.

If you really believe you don't need to go college to do what you want in life, don't fucking go. Don't even go to "have a plan B". I'm about to finish as a computer engineer and believe me: the only reason I didn't quit was because I had already spend too much money on it.

I don't mean to be negative, I know this community is very positive and I love that (GLL has sharpened my negativity-dectetion instincts ) but I want you to understand really well this: For ME, my major sucks, I hate 40% of what I "learned", I don't care about 50% and I only slightly like the other 10%.

I know that most of my college mates feel the same way, you can see it in their eyes, their dreams are dead, they have already accepted that their destiny is an unrewarding 9-5 job in some shit they wouldn't even care about if it wasn't about the money.

A good thing for me is that I realized this, and an even better thing is that I'm really good at what I really want to do. But I won't get those years back. I'm not complaining, I'm telling you this so you don't make the same mistake. If you don't literally love or need (considering extreme cases) it, screw it.

I'm going to be studying computer engineering at my state flagship university. It's a good program, I like computers, and most engineering jobs pay well after graduation, so I decided to go with it. Why do you hate it so much?

I hate it because it's something that I "had" (no one forced me to do it, but I was too afraid to quit when the opportunity came) to study when I really don't care about computers, I picked that major because I thought it would be "nice" to know about it and I thought I needed to go to college, but isn't something I love. But that's my case, I only used it as an example, if you really like what you're about to study, go ahead. And if the first semesters go by and you feel it's not what you want, quit quickly.

In my case, first two years of engineering sucked a lot. In the third year things began to become interesting. I'm talking about mechanical engineering, but this two years are the same in computer engineering and electronic engineering.

That is because in my school first years are the base, that is, mostly mathematics and physics.

My advice is "you better love mathematics". Most people quit after they fail Mathematical analysis 1.

Besides that, engineering is hard as fuck. I wanted to quit several times. And I thought I was smart (it is true, I was one of the smartest in high school), it really hit my ego. But I kept going.
And that is why you really have to love it. If you have any doubt about wanting to be an engineer, you'll quit.

I feel like even if you are in a lucrative major unless you absolutely love everything about what you're taking then it's inevitably going to make your life worse.

If you are even a bit skeptical whether or not that you'll enjoy what you do after school then you should reconsider doing it. You might like it a bit but once you begin working 50+ hours a week on it you'll realize whether you really enjoy it or not. Most often then not the only reason you'll continue working that job is because it pays the bills and you don't have any idea how to escape that job while still making enough money to live.

I took psychology and the only reason like APA that I am staying in is because I spent too much time and money into my schooling. I want to teach English somewhere warm, I really hate Canada to be honest. I might be acting spoiled but a lot of people are really smug here and it's super boring. Sure we have free health care and polar bears and shit but this place sucks. I'd rather have gun shots in my neighborhood and homeless people begging me for money because at least I wouldn't have to deal with people that grew up in privileged homes that think they're better than other people. My life would be a lot more interesting and I'd have more incentive to change my living conditions. I live in one of the safest cities in Canada and it's just super boring.

Don't settle for something safe and easy that is demanded by your family and society. You do not need schooling to succeed. If I could make the choice all over, I would've opted out of University immediately. Psychology is one of the least lucrative jobs out there and it's a pretty boring major despite me being excited about it in my senior year of high-school.

I am still considering dropping out just because I could work in warm places like Nicaragua, Mexico, or Costa Rica and break even while I work on my business. The only things holding me back are that I have committed to living with my brother in my mom's house that she rents out to us and just me being a bit of a pussy. I've made decisions a little bit too quickly before though. I want to finish this semester and see how it goes. My personal trainer and parents gave me some reasons to stay and reasons to leave. For example, my parents paid for half of my tuition and it would be wasted since I wouldn't be finishing and I could try to take courses that I enjoy more. I could take history like I am now that I'm enjoying and I am considering taking Spanish and more french classes.

I don't want to hijack or streamline the discussion too much but I just wanted to put that in there because I have been thinking about this for a while. I really really hate school and think it's fucking stupid. This might be hating on education but it's more me just advocating a better and more lucrative lifestyle.

I actually like mechanical and civil engineering, it's not my goal to get another major, but if I could return in time and I had to choose an engineering, I would have chose one of those two.

What I don't really like are computers, I chose that major (unwisely) because everyone was telling me "it's the career of the future".

dashedhopes wrote: I really hate Canada to be honest. I might be acting spoiled but a lot of people are really smug here and it's super boring. Sure we have free health care and polar bears and shit but this place sucks. I'd rather have gun shots in my neighborhood and homeless people begging me for money because at least I wouldn't have to deal with people that grew up in privileged homes that think they're better than other people. My life would be a lot more interesting and I'd have more incentive to change my living conditions. I live in one of the safest cities in Canada and it's just super boring.

I never thought about Canada that way, but it's interesting to hear that (no sarcasm).

The cool parts of Canada are so far away from me. BC would be cool, the maratimes can be a good time and even Quebec is cool because it's a whole different language that you can learn.

Toronto isn't anything super special so naturally where I live isn't very fun.

When I'm older I will be living somewhere warm and awesome like on the beach of California, Florida, hawaii, or literally any beach in Latin America. I'd also live near a mountain like in BC, Colorado or Argentina.

I got a hard science degree from an Ivy league school. About 25 years ago.
I did end up using a bit of my education but basically I agree with what has been said here: don't pick something you don't like and if you don't like anything find something productive to do that isn't college. You can always go to college later in life when you've figured out what education you really need or want.

Basically it works like this:
If you're lucky and do everything right your high school education teaches you how to learn.
If you're lucky and do everything right your college education teaches you how to think.

If you want to gain mastery of some subject and actually learn it you go to grad school.

This is exactly why I chose NOT to go to school after high school. I'm 19 and currently have an IT job (Between Level 1 and Level 2 support, client and server side support). I see guys who are OVERJOYED to get into my group who are 35 and just got done working a shitty ass $9/hour job for 5+ years. I can't think of a single person doing what I do (at my company) that has a degree in the related field. Some of English majors, one has a Criminal Justice minor, one has a fucking liberal arts degree. TALK ABOUT BULLSHIT, these guys are working with corporate networking and IT after that!

My goal is to start my own successful business. My current job is just a means to fund my business ventures. I knew by 10th grade that I was for SURE not going to college because I had no idea what I wanted to do, then by senior year (I graduated early), I was sure that I DIDN'T want to go to college at all, because I couldn't stand the idea of sucking up to some guy in a suit who will tell you what to do for 5 days out of the week, for 40 years.

I know guys who dropped out of college because were able to use their spare time to start successful business ventures (that now make far more $ than they would have working a traditional job in the related field). I don't have it all figured out yet, but I am sure as shit glad I didn't waste more than my life savings on a degree that I don't want, or may never put to good use.

Another point I've seen reiterated through real life work is that most degrees are in fact bullshit. You can get 90% of jobs WITHOUT a degree (excluding any engineering, programming, science, and related). I have seen department managers and company directors work their way up and graduate to the job they have now SOLELY through experience doing what they do.

Something else to ponder: most salaried jobs (not hourly pay) at the company I work for make LESS than the hourly jobs, since they are required to work until "their job is finished". This means they're putting in 55 hour weeks with no overtime pay! I end up putting in a 55 hour week and making far more than they did, because the salary/hourly pay rate gap isn't enough to cover the 1.5x pay I get during those last 15 hours. You could easily make up 25, 35, shit even 50% more working overtime rather than getting a salaried job.

Yes, I understand and agree with most of your points. I'm not anti-college though. I just don't think it is for everyone.

dashedhopes wrote: When I'm older I will be living somewhere warm and awesome like on the beach of California, Florida, hawaii, or literally any beach in Latin America. I'd also live near a mountain like in BC, Colorado or Argentina.

You could go to any beach in Sonora. It is in northern Mexico (being near the US can make things easier), pretty girls, hot climate and you would be relatively near from la Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua, which is a mountain belt.