Lately I'm making tons of these kind of posts, and I'm sorry for that... but I'm loving the answers, and it's useful to hear your experiences.
This time I'll try to explain in greater detail what led me to this situation
At 14 years I had to choose a school. There is a lot of choice here. My preferred options were the technical institute and the artistic institute, because I got a very mechanical mind and I was good at drawing. In the end I ruled out the artistic institute from the options, because it's a factory that produces jobless people. Another option that I never considered was to attend a regular high school. It's a kind of school that gives you an all around preparation, and prepares you ONLY to have a better start in university. But you can get into university after attending other schools too, so I never liked this option. So my only option became the technical institute. It is a school that after 5 years gives you a qualification as technician in a chosen field (mechanical, commercial, electrical etc). I got pretty enthusiastic, but I had to face the reality.
My fathes is an engineer. A pretty superb one. He wanted me to get a degree one day, because he considered technicians as low lifes. My mother, despite her being a technician (she became a housewife after marriage and stopped working) had the same opinion. My two older sisters too (they still were high school students and didn't even know what work meant LOL). So yeah, the climate at home was pretty hostile, because my choices were heavily criticized.
All of them talked sh*t about technicians, and technical institutes. They already started considering me a failure. I'm not one that usually considers other people's opinions for his choices, but this was something heavy. I was too young to understand that suppressing my preferences would have led to very bad results. They DIDN'T physically force me to get into a regular high school, but there was surely a lot of psychological pressure. In the end I got into a regular high school, and regretted it the whole time. Since the first year I already wanted to dropout. I resisted, and at 19 graduated.
After getting my diploma I was both desperate and angry. At that time I could have been a technician, and find a job, but I became a NOTHING. 5 years for that. And the worst thing was that the only jobs available were the commercial ones, like becoming a seller in a shop. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that I would suck at it. My personality is too introverted to be a good seller, and I knew it even before discovering typology and Jung. Despite of that, I didn't change my mind. I really didn't want to go to university. But hey, I lacked the potential to get a job, and my parents still made me feel like a piece of crap. So in the end I just got into university (like I said in the other thread, it doesn't cost much in my country, so no student debt).
In the summer between getting my diploma and starting university, I nearly never got out of at my room. I had an obsession for choosing the right degree. I already failed once and didn't want to fuck up again.
I was already thinking about this choice since the last two years in high school. Underneath I knew the moment would have arrived. But even though I already thought a lot about it, I couldn't choose.
I love animals and plants, but biologists get no money here, and I didn't want to waste years to become a poor man. I love chemic reactions, rocks and gems, but stuff like chemistry, engineering and geology got an insane amount of theoretical math and physics, and I don't like that. I need something practical. Everybody always told me I had the engineer's mentality. My family, my teachers and even my friends. When in the last year I told my friends I didn't want to become an engineer, they were like "wtf, you're THE engineer here, and you're the only one that will study something else?!".
In the end I decided to consider into account only the raw data. I looked up at the statistics. Saw that the 3 programs with the less unemployment rates and highest salaries were engineering, computer science and economics. I heard awful stories about engineering courses in my city, like 80 persons attempting an exam, and 79 of them failing, and since I didn't want to graduate in my 30s, I excluded engineering from my choices. I tried both the computer science, and the economics tests. I entered both courses without preparing myself for them (the tests had only logic questions, so my scores were some of the highest).
I didn't know whether to choose economics or computer science, but since I'm an asocial creep, I supposed that computer science would have been better. I attended classes for a couple of days. It felt like hell. The computer science classes were held in one of the few classes that were underground. No windows. The people literally stinked. You could tell from their hair that they didn't take a shower since a couple of days. But the worst thing were the courses. All of that stuff was super theoretical, and the few non theoretical skills were with computers. And imagining myself working with a computer for my entire life made me the saddest person in the entire world. Like, an engineer has the skills to produce a bomb. To affect the real world. What skills was I learning? I didn't know the answer. I just stopped attending the classes, and started attending the economics ones.
Everything changed there. The people, the teachers, the building. The students were physically clean, but they were all there just to make new friends and party. I passed from a class full of nerds and geeks to a class full of rich fuckboys. But that wasn't a problem. I just wanted the classes to be stimulating. And no, they weren't. In the first semester I remember attending accounting. Hell, no. Just nonono. What was that shit? That was the most boring thing I ever saw in my life. But the first year I passed all the exams that I was supposed to take, except one. So it was a pretty good result. But in reality no. I passed 6 exams, but I only would think at the non passed one, and it made me feel like a total failure. I was a perfectionist. I felt guilty, because I nearly never studied, and I didn't attend a lot of classes. I felt like the remaining exam was a catastrophe cause by my laziness. But at least the courses were held in a class full of windows and light.
After the first year I was totally exhausted mentally. So I promised myself that I would have studied on my own, without attending classes. Deep inside I knew I was lying to myself, and that it was just an excuse to recover some happiness. I didn't study a single thing. Well, sometimes I pretended doing so. Near the exam times, I would open the books (like one week before), and would panick after a few days, when realizing that I would never pass them. I could have passed some exams maybe, but in the whole year I attempted 0 tests. In the end of the year I was totally jaded, and started going to a psychotherapist. I stopped now. It costs too much money.
Fortunately I just found a job. I will start soon. I'll learn some technical skills, and it's hands on. But even now, I can't stop thinking about how economics has been a horrible choice. All the subject is about speculation. I needed something concrete, and I hate that I realized it only now.
This time I'll try to explain in greater detail what led me to this situation
At 14 years I had to choose a school. There is a lot of choice here. My preferred options were the technical institute and the artistic institute, because I got a very mechanical mind and I was good at drawing. In the end I ruled out the artistic institute from the options, because it's a factory that produces jobless people. Another option that I never considered was to attend a regular high school. It's a kind of school that gives you an all around preparation, and prepares you ONLY to have a better start in university. But you can get into university after attending other schools too, so I never liked this option. So my only option became the technical institute. It is a school that after 5 years gives you a qualification as technician in a chosen field (mechanical, commercial, electrical etc). I got pretty enthusiastic, but I had to face the reality.
My fathes is an engineer. A pretty superb one. He wanted me to get a degree one day, because he considered technicians as low lifes. My mother, despite her being a technician (she became a housewife after marriage and stopped working) had the same opinion. My two older sisters too (they still were high school students and didn't even know what work meant LOL). So yeah, the climate at home was pretty hostile, because my choices were heavily criticized.
All of them talked sh*t about technicians, and technical institutes. They already started considering me a failure. I'm not one that usually considers other people's opinions for his choices, but this was something heavy. I was too young to understand that suppressing my preferences would have led to very bad results. They DIDN'T physically force me to get into a regular high school, but there was surely a lot of psychological pressure. In the end I got into a regular high school, and regretted it the whole time. Since the first year I already wanted to dropout. I resisted, and at 19 graduated.
After getting my diploma I was both desperate and angry. At that time I could have been a technician, and find a job, but I became a NOTHING. 5 years for that. And the worst thing was that the only jobs available were the commercial ones, like becoming a seller in a shop. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that I would suck at it. My personality is too introverted to be a good seller, and I knew it even before discovering typology and Jung. Despite of that, I didn't change my mind. I really didn't want to go to university. But hey, I lacked the potential to get a job, and my parents still made me feel like a piece of crap. So in the end I just got into university (like I said in the other thread, it doesn't cost much in my country, so no student debt).
In the summer between getting my diploma and starting university, I nearly never got out of at my room. I had an obsession for choosing the right degree. I already failed once and didn't want to fuck up again.
I was already thinking about this choice since the last two years in high school. Underneath I knew the moment would have arrived. But even though I already thought a lot about it, I couldn't choose.
I love animals and plants, but biologists get no money here, and I didn't want to waste years to become a poor man. I love chemic reactions, rocks and gems, but stuff like chemistry, engineering and geology got an insane amount of theoretical math and physics, and I don't like that. I need something practical. Everybody always told me I had the engineer's mentality. My family, my teachers and even my friends. When in the last year I told my friends I didn't want to become an engineer, they were like "wtf, you're THE engineer here, and you're the only one that will study something else?!".
In the end I decided to consider into account only the raw data. I looked up at the statistics. Saw that the 3 programs with the less unemployment rates and highest salaries were engineering, computer science and economics. I heard awful stories about engineering courses in my city, like 80 persons attempting an exam, and 79 of them failing, and since I didn't want to graduate in my 30s, I excluded engineering from my choices. I tried both the computer science, and the economics tests. I entered both courses without preparing myself for them (the tests had only logic questions, so my scores were some of the highest).
I didn't know whether to choose economics or computer science, but since I'm an asocial creep, I supposed that computer science would have been better. I attended classes for a couple of days. It felt like hell. The computer science classes were held in one of the few classes that were underground. No windows. The people literally stinked. You could tell from their hair that they didn't take a shower since a couple of days. But the worst thing were the courses. All of that stuff was super theoretical, and the few non theoretical skills were with computers. And imagining myself working with a computer for my entire life made me the saddest person in the entire world. Like, an engineer has the skills to produce a bomb. To affect the real world. What skills was I learning? I didn't know the answer. I just stopped attending the classes, and started attending the economics ones.
Everything changed there. The people, the teachers, the building. The students were physically clean, but they were all there just to make new friends and party. I passed from a class full of nerds and geeks to a class full of rich fuckboys. But that wasn't a problem. I just wanted the classes to be stimulating. And no, they weren't. In the first semester I remember attending accounting. Hell, no. Just nonono. What was that shit? That was the most boring thing I ever saw in my life. But the first year I passed all the exams that I was supposed to take, except one. So it was a pretty good result. But in reality no. I passed 6 exams, but I only would think at the non passed one, and it made me feel like a total failure. I was a perfectionist. I felt guilty, because I nearly never studied, and I didn't attend a lot of classes. I felt like the remaining exam was a catastrophe cause by my laziness. But at least the courses were held in a class full of windows and light.
After the first year I was totally exhausted mentally. So I promised myself that I would have studied on my own, without attending classes. Deep inside I knew I was lying to myself, and that it was just an excuse to recover some happiness. I didn't study a single thing. Well, sometimes I pretended doing so. Near the exam times, I would open the books (like one week before), and would panick after a few days, when realizing that I would never pass them. I could have passed some exams maybe, but in the whole year I attempted 0 tests. In the end of the year I was totally jaded, and started going to a psychotherapist. I stopped now. It costs too much money.
Fortunately I just found a job. I will start soon. I'll learn some technical skills, and it's hands on. But even now, I can't stop thinking about how economics has been a horrible choice. All the subject is about speculation. I needed something concrete, and I hate that I realized it only now.