Stuck Between College and a Hard Place

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Copy and pasted from my blog:

Get it. I suppose this entry is a little more personal than it is thought provoking. I've been trying for a long time now, since 2009, to engaged myself in the affairs of college. All though I have been in college unsuccessful for those years, I have not been performing well. College and I have a beef against each other. And I try desperately, almost to desperately, to somehow survive. Over the years I have learned that college, at least the one I go to, doesn't like when other people express other ideas. What the teacher says is right and forget about anything else. Because of that I try so desperately to keep my mental filter on. Fighting the urge to think, fighting the urge to go outside of the box.

My brain doesn't fit inside of a box, it never has. And it doesn't do to well when I do suppress it inside a box and sit on the box for my brain to not leap out of my head. I have been going through college now for about a year and half with my brain on shutdown. And that's not really good because you're not taking in all the knowledge that could be taken in. Yet, I cannot do it. My favorite class was my Philosophy class, I at least was allowed to speak and debate. Stack facts on top of facts, destroy faulty facts. Most of my other classes is sitting for 2 to 3hrs at max listening to a teacher lecture.

And in these lectures, forget about your personal views, forget about the science articles you have written or read, forget about the documentaries you have watched you're only there for the knowledge of the teacher. That just isn't the way you're going to engage me. I do not see sitting for 2 or more hours watching your audio slide show very engaging at all. I find it tedious and boring. When I do bring up facts or bring up other ideas they are shot down immediately. I'm not a robot. Human beings are not robots. You cannot "program" them to systematically absorb information.

I fear I'll never get past college, I fear I won't be successful. But even worse is I fear what I'll lose by being successful. All my life, I have had a vivid mind that takes me to far off places. I can imagine why someone may have no imagination any more, at least adults in the working in world. College already has me gasping for air, already has my soul, my mind on lock down like I'm some organic machine. What will I lose by being in a work environment that requires the same things as college? I have been writing since I was in fourth grade. The very first inspiration came from reading The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. That's what made me want to become a writer.

I have been spending the last twenty or so years of my life practicing, fighting, looking for my way into an industry that also has itself on lock down. I have always wanted to be the writer who starts the ripple in the pond. Literature is not something you can model one way. Literature needs inventive thinking and imaginative thinking. Literature needs life and vibrancy. Something we haven't really had in a while. You have your successes like Twilight or Harry Potter; and I read them. They are simply guilty pleasure books. Nothing beyond or outside, nothing that truly speaks or breathes. I struggle and I fight. No industry wants someone like me. Because one they cannot control my material as well and two I think in a way that people don't always understand. And it's the same thing in college.

I fight and I struggle. I either have to conform to the society losing everything, every passion I have. Every desire. Every thought. I have to conform and become an organic machine in order to be accepted by the majority. I have to lose everything that I have always stood for. Or I can take the much harder path, the path that leads to a lot of poorness, a lot of pain, and suffering. A lot fighting just to get my foot in the door. The door I have so desperately been trying to open. And I know what people will say, you're only in your twenties, your break will come. Yet, the eleven year old child with cancer gets his poetry published in a magazine because he's dying. And I'm not allowed to review or saying anything because he is eleven and he has cancer. There will always be those outliers in the system who get something because they have a sad tale spun.

I also know the argument about college. That I have to suck it up and do what you have to do to graduate. But I have, and I have, and I have. And I cannot do it any more. The more I do it, the more I feel like I'm dying metaphorically dying inside. And that death is a personal death. A death that destroys my soul. A death that eats away at me to the point where I want to physically die. I can't. I'm in college to please others. I'm forced into classes that I have been doing over and over and over again history that's been done in high school, middle school, and elementary. And all of those grades told me, "College is better". They put college on this pedestal.

Kind of like how people put sex on a pedestal. As if marriage makes the first time feel good. No the first time will always be uncomfortable. College is only high school work for an associates at a college level. There is no engagement, there is no function. My mind is shutdown, I cannot say anything, I fight every idea in my brain. Just to get an associates. Getting a degree shouldn't be this difficult. Yet it is. When I was young, naive as well, I had wanted to go to college, I had wanted to get my associates. And now I just want to die, slowly withering away. I don't know if I have the strength to continue what I started. Now I just feel like I'm in college to dodge the anger of my family, rather than actually wanting to be there.

Why was I born into this society? Why was I given this mind? To me success is not this, to me success is not working in some office that will work just like college. I'm not a machine. I'm not an organic machine. I don't want to be assimilated, yet it's probably the only option I have.

If it helps, I've always admired the writers who go against the norm. I liked Catcher in the Rye, A Clockwork Orange, Animal Farm... All great classics, too. I was not a Harry Potter or Twilight fan. I'm sure that I'm not alone, and there is likely a niche for well-written literature that is different than what had been done before, like the books that win literary awards.

About college, I can empathize with your situation. I'd love for college to be more of an educational exploration that was focused on the love of learning. Instead, I've found that it is more about memorization of facts in my field. My university was full of smart people, so every test they would try to fail us by pulling out the most obscure questions. And even if you are able to pull out the answers to those questions, doing well in college does not translate to the real world. In the real world, your success depends more on your ability to network, as well as things such as your financial status.

But I'm in the same boat about choosing between doing what you are passionate about for a living, or conforming and trying to be like everyone else. I've chosen to take the route of being like everyone else at the moment, because there is a greater chance of my financial success. It's definitely a personal choice, which I made because I am in a desperate financial situation. I find it admirable if you are able to stay true to yourself and find a way to be successful. I wish you the best of luck.

Let me know how it goes.

Lots of people have become writers without ever going to college. If you want to be a writer forget about going for a degree. Instead create your own slate of courses--just take courses that will help you. Take basic business courses that will help you manage your own money. Take any courses that can help you learn about how to navigate the publishing industry, and about contracts, and other writing biz info. Also take creative writing courses. You mentioned an interest in science writing, so you should also take any courses they have about science writing skills, too, along with courses on any other topics you are interested in writing about.

Too many people are sheep. They let the system lock them into a pattern that doesn't fit. With college, the pattern is whatever courses they require for each degree/certificate, whether you need all of them or not. Stop thinking inside their box, and follow your own pattern of courses to suit your own needs. College doesn't have to be a straight jacket, unless you let it be so.

Break the chains! Die gedanken sind frei! Your mind is free!

Actually, let me rephrase that. Instead of doing what everyone else is doing, I am using college to get what I need done, and am switching into that instead of pounding my head on the wall trying to make myself fit in. I am about to make a big switch in majors halfway through my degree, whereas most people would continue on with the degree, so never mind about that.

I believe that I will pursue my passions in my spare time right now, where I am free to learn what I want.