Dropouts

[Momentum]

Originally posted by SUNKIST
i didnt drop out, but i did take a year off.

i hated my school (and still do a little bit, u of t) i felt so isolated, my course was fucking donkey work, with all those idiot gap ad kids whoes parents paid their tuition, spouting their mouths off about nothing just to be the teachers pet.

i was actually really excited to move out of a small town and getting some sort of higher education (highschool was a joke for me). so i majored in philosophy and english (my beef is with philosophy) expecting to get some new ideas, brainstorm differnt theories, actually start to feel like some sort of intellect-or at the very least, feel satsified with the thousands i was spending on school.
in the end, i found out there was little to no room for independant thinking (suprising considering thats what philosophy is all about-radical thoughts, carefully thought through, and applied to life-or thats how i took it anyways) all essays i wrote that stated and examined one philosophers thoughts, and if i dared to say i didint agree with it, or offer a spin on the idea i always got shitty marks. even if i got a 65-70%, i was happy with it, considering the conformity i was seeing people accept just to get a fucking B. i'd rather accept a C with independant thought than a mundane, run of the mill text book example of an A.
and in the end the people who were cleaning up were those damn gap preppies, regergitating the teachers and T.A.'s notes to a T, not offering any independant thought of their own. it pissed me off so much, that i was made to feel stupid,(not in so many words of course, but figurativly speaking) at the least i was getting fucking shit grades cuz i tried to take a different angle on things.

anywayyyyyssssss..haha. can you tell i'm bitter? maybe i DID have it all wrong, maybe i did write sub par stuff,maybe i didnt agree with the text, but it was original, and i was happy with it.

anyways, long story short, taking this year off, collecting my thoughts, deciding whats best for me, what i'm really compassioante about, and i'm starting again in september. small price to pay seening as the alternative is being stuck in a program, and mode of thinking i fucking hated.


if anyone actually read all that-and even made sense of it..i give you a gold star. school is one thing i could bitch about forever..

WOW, you & stargurl* just made me feel so much better about my own messy life at the moment- I'm a fourth yr. English major @ UofT- the school and program i have always chosen to be in, but during the past semester it felt like such a pointless endeavour.
WOW, i think this has been a bit to much trauma (drama?), when i think i could probably have used (and will take!) a year off. Thanx- a LOT.

 

[Hawk Eye]

I did a year and a half at George Brown.. I couldn't find a job so i took a year off and worked two jobs while applying for another program. I'm 2nd year Marketing and HR major at Fleming College.

I have a friend who is extremely confused right now. She finished her second year at Queens Univ. doing Geological Engineering but she hates it so she is taking this year off and is applying at UofT for History. I told her that i'm going to call her Monday night or Tuesday night to see if she went to their registrars office. I'm going to keep hasseling her to keep her butt moving bc she needs a kick.. lol she told me to bug her anyway or else she won't do it. She has trouble with motivation.

A lot of ppl i know didn't go back to college/univ or just transferred out of programs.

I think highschools should prepare their students more for university/college.. bc more then half of students that go to university/college don't even know if that's what they want to do when they get older and they end up leaving the program.. it's such a waste of time and money.

 

[PosTMOd]

There is no better way to argue something than to argue from a point of view that you disagree with. University teaches you to think for yourself by showing you exactly how most people think.

Do you think you can come up with your own ideas? Can anyone? You want to come up with your own shit, stay at home and fucking do it. Just get an education first-- that's how you'll know if your idea is original or not, since you've just spent four fucking years learning what was original at some point.

Take philosophy... all but a footnote to Plato? Yup-- but the statement means nothing until you learn about all the dead white guys' thoughts. Then, when you come up with ideas, you can realize that fucking Plato said it already, and another dozen people after him said the same thing, thinking it was original.

So, I suppose university is really there to teach you that in order to be original, you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. Or you can just stay where you are and get stuck in the toejam of the giants complaining about the stink.

 

[AshG]

Originally posted by PosTMOd
There is no better way to argue something than to argue from a point of view that you disagree with. University teaches you to think for yourself by showing you exactly how most people think.

Do you think you can come up with your own ideas? Can anyone? You want to come up with your own shit, stay at home and fucking do it. Just get an education first-- that's how you'll know if your idea is original or not, since you've just spent four fucking years learning what was original at some point.

Take philosophy... all but a footnote to Plato? Yup-- but the statement means nothing until you learn about all the dead white guys' thoughts. Then, when you come up with ideas, you can realize that fucking Plato said it already, and another dozen people after him said the same thing, thinking it was original.

So, I suppose university is really there to teach you that in order to be original, you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. Or you can just stay where you are and get stuck in the toejam of the giants complaining about the stink.

or, to realize that you don't need to be a giant or stand on a giant's shoulders to see far.
you only need to get to higher ground.

 

[OasisAwaits]

Posts like these remind me of an interview with the Clash when they said...

"Government is a con"
"Education is a con"
"The music business is a con"
"Religion is a con"

Its like if theres enuogh idiots that buy into something all of a sudden it is given value in society. Everything is a fucking system that your neatly filed in and out of untill you die.

 

[AshG]

education may or may not be a "con."

learning is the real deal.

 

[SUNKIST]

Originally posted by Momentum


WOW, you & stargurl* just made me feel so much better about my own messy life at the moment- I'm a fourth yr. English major @ UofT- the school and program i have always chosen to be in, but during the past semester it felt like such a pointless endeavour.
WOW, i think this has been a bit to much trauma (drama?), when i think i could probably have used (and will take!) a year off. Thanx- a LOT.

i felt like shit for the time preceeding my decision to take a year off. even though highschool is shit and means nothing, its still tricky going from getting 90's in school and loving it to suddenly being in a "higher education" and hating it. but on the other hand my mom has suggested if I dont like u of t, then to just transfer to college or something. however, my prie gets in the way, and on a subconcious level i could never transfer from the "best university in canada"..to college. pathetic, but true.
in any event, this year off has been good for me, at first i was disappointed in myself, but realized that ultimatly it will be a good decision for me.

 

[Pyrovitae]

i honestly believe i have learned more on my own out of personal interest then i will ever learn in school. as matt damon said in good will hunting, 'all you need is a library card'. i've read moliere, nietzsche, balzac, wilde, euripides, aristotle, dostoyevsky, etc, etc, etc...not because i was forced to but because i wanted to.

while i love school, while i'm (slowly) working towards a b.a, i also think it's just jumping through arbitrary hoops and paying a ridiculous sum of money for a piece of paper. i think school for some is pure intellectual escapism. you're never forced to forage for yourself, you're taught (told) how to think. it's an insular little subsociety that one can thrive in for years if not the rest of their life, if one so chooses.

there are those that are simply not meant for academia due to temperment or what have you...i think the value our society places on a post secondary education and the necessity of one to procure a job, is silly.

and i fucking HATE the kidz who you KNOW mummy and daddy pay for their education, who never have to worry about tuition fees or where their next meal is coming from and who are so blind and myopic with no comprehension of even the slightest semblance of reality. ugh.

(haha, this is a popular topic for me. just ask anyone who has [unfortunately] been subjected to my tirade about the 'merits' of post secondary education.)

 

[Preroller]

Word @ Pyrovitae

I completed 2 years of business at college, but I just wasnt into it. So I dropped out and got myself a job. Been working for 8 years ever since, well, I didnt work too much this past year. I really like your attitude towards learning what you want, via reading and such. I just couldnt justify spending the money on college, to go and listen to someone just tell us to read from a book, and give us crappy assignments to do. Now I actually enjoy reading books.

The only downfall, is that alot of jobs wont even consider me, because I didnt graduate. That being said, I think that I am willing to learn anything, and I enjoy taking on a new job and proving to them that I can do just as good if not a better job then someone who has gone to college/uni. It's not too hard to have a good work ethic, and be willing to learn from people who have more experiance then you. I also have enjoyed taking on a lot of different jobs, like construction, being a chef, waitering, starting my own financial services company, etc... It has given me a chance to learn alot of different skills, become a more well rounded person and meet lots of interesting people.

DAVE

 

[TaCk OnE?]

I'm graduating this year, and I frankly wish MORE people had dropped out of my program (design)....not many did.


most of them are crap, but I still don't want to have to compete with all these dingos when I graduate.

 

[sxcboy]

my economics professor said to me once,

"university doesn't teach you anything you can't learn on your own, we're just here to help make you sound like you know what you're talking about..."

in some respects i agree, i don't think i have learnt anything i couldn't have learnt on my own, had i the motivation..but therein lies my problem..and i think others too...

i don't have the motivation to actively learn stuff if not sometimes forced to sit in a routine setting that school presents...for example, i've recently been trying to learn japanese on my own, i have all the materials, but i swear i would be learning at a faster pace had i just taken a course...

as for most other things i learnt while i was at uoft...it was mostly common sense...but basically i learnt how to organize my thoughts effectively, present it and use proper models and terminology...basically just sounding smart without actually being any smarter

i don't know about others...but i found my time at uoft useful, albeit like others..i am also bitter from the underwhelming experience...

maybe my rant isn't really relevent to other areas of study..but i was a b.comm student...and those are my thoughts

 

[juice]

Originally posted by sxcboy
my economics professor said to me once,

"university doesn't teach you anything you can't learn on your own, we're just here to help make you sound like you know what you're talking about..."

Ah my first year economics prof told us the same thing as well. I fully agree with the statement as well, like you also mentioned it comes down to a motivation factor. For me at least I need to be in a classroom or pushed to do it by actually being enrolled in a course. I think it would be very unlikely that I'd stroll over to Chapters or whatever and just buy a book on Economics or what have you, and study up on it.

My University career has been quite weird. I was full time at school for my first year while working part time as well. The second year I decided to do school part time and work more hours so that I could afford to move out. When the TAs went on strike I decided to leave school for the year, and ended up just working more hours. Last year it was working full time and doing school part time. This year I was working full time and doing school part time for the fall semester. Now for the winter semester I'm back at school full time and doing some work on the side.

I never really felt the need to finish school as quickly as I could to get out there into "the real world." Especially when I see friends come out of school after completing their programs and not being able to find jobs at all, or jobs that have nothing to do with what they really want to be doing. The way that I've done school and combined it with working as well as allowed me to experience many things that I wouldn't have been able to if I was just stuck in school, with many restrictions on my time. I've been able to travel the world, both on my own coin and on the companies coin. I've been able to get it done so that I'll come out with no student loans at all. I've been able to already use what I've learned through school in real life experiences (note I've learned more on most levels through actual work experience then I could possibly learn through a textbook).

So that all said sometimes time away from school is a good thing, but in the end I do feel that it is extremely important to finish a program off. I didn't always feel this way, but having been denied certain oppourtunites very recently (I could have landed some pretty choice positions because of my work and school experience, but I'm missing a small little piece of paper that really doesn't mean squat to the job) because I don't have a completed degree. I think it will take time for some people to realize that a little piece of paper isn't the most important thing in the world, but until that time comes you will find many doors closed to you because you don't have it. If you are fine with those doors being closed and choose to work around those doors that's fine, some people have made it work for them and never look back. I'd like to take the other approach though.

 

[chipotle]

Originally posted by fuzzy
How many people have droped out of your course or transfered?

So many of my friends have left ym course, its depressing me
This semester is gonna be soo much harder!

Richard

well, to answer your question directly.... I transfered out of Wester to York University. But that is just becuase living away from home for two years in residence at western was starting to take a hold of my grades...and it was getting expensive. York sucks. But I will save that rant for another thread.

 

[SUNKIST]

Originally posted by juice


Ah my first year economics prof told us the same thing as well. I fully agree with the statement as well, like you also mentioned it comes down to a motivation factor. For me at least I need to be in a classroom or pushed to do it by actually being enrolled in a course. I think it would be very unlikely that I'd stroll over to Chapters or whatever and just buy a book on Economics or what have you, and study up on it.

see, i'm the complete opposite. i hated being told what to read, wirte a structed 30 page essay on it, original content, critue..blah, blah whatever (and what i always wanted to know what why do they put a limit on it? it HAS to be 30 pages, no more, no less. i think at that point in your education you arent gonna slack and hand in one shitty paragraph. how can you put a limit on someones thought? if its less than 30 pages they give you bad marks cuz they think you didnt put in the effort, and didnt read the content, if it's more, they figure you're babbling, and trying to look like you know what you're talking about..fucking stupid...annnnnnnnnnnywaysss) but while in school and forced to jump through these goddamn hoops-i hated it. in my year off i have reread several times all my english novels, all my textbooks, got a lot out of it, and really really enjoyed them. i dont understand how you can judge someone intellect by a degree or making them write an exam. some people can be crazy smart, just bad at taking tests. i dont think thats a fair judgment on how smart they are. and thus, that's my predicament. i enjoy (and thrive) on learning on my own. at my own pace, by myself...just searching out knowledge in any form, and understanding it. not by going to some classroom full of morons and being forced to read chapters 12-28 than write a 90 page thesis on it. FUCK THAT.

 

[Bull Go Ki]

I'm glad I came across this thread. Its giving me some perspective into what I have in store for me next week, for my first day of school at U of T.

I never really considered University or gave it much credit. I always thought it was a waste of money, so after high school I decided to take Advertising at Sheridan because that was what I was interested in. 3 years after graduation, with marginal success as an Account Executive at a couple of great agencies. I have decided to throw in the towel and give up the advertising thing.

I guess what it really came down to for me, was the thought of doing it for the next 40 years, which was a real wake up call. Because at the end of the day you should really choose a profession you are truly passionate about. And honestly, what does advertising really mean anyway? To me, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

So, I figure school will be this enlightening journey, where I will be able to learn more about myself and the world and hopefully along the way I will be able to learn what I want to dedicate the next 30 - 40 years to. To date I think its teaching.

I hope I am making the right move, but from the sound of a few of the posts here it seems University is all hype, and all that is achieved at the end of the road is a piece of paper and debt.

In the mean time I will be optimistic. (Probably until I realize homework sucks and drop out.)

peace respect and stay focused

db