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College - Between a rock and a hard place
Ferrus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi everyone,
my problem is a relatively specific one, so I won't go into detail much.
The protagonist:
- 21 years old
- Currently majoring in sociology
- Minoring in philosophy
- Living in Thuringia, the state with the lowest per capita income in Germany
- Unable to move away due to relationship and lack of money
- Currently receiving a student loan (Bafög - It's basically an interest-free loan of about 400€ a month)
The problem:
- Sociology is nice and all but I hate philosophy. It's out of touch with reality even though it needn't be. My fellow students are a bunch crybabies equally out of touch with life.
- Actually, ALL my fellow students are either crybabies or some kind of artsy hipster faggots. Of course I'm exaggerating but that's how I feel right now. I think I don't really belong here. The only person I know, after months of going to university, is my girlfriend with which I moved to Thuringia in the first place.
Do you know the feeling you get when you have to be in a place filled with people you have absolutely nothing in common with? Yea. THAT is how I feel.
- Due to the reeking pile of shit that is German/European educational politics, most courses require two foreign languages. In essence, to study philosophy I need both english and some random other language that I'll never use in my life. This means I have to spend about two years on pointlessly learning spanish or french or something while doing my other stuff at the same time, otherwise I won't even get my B.A.
Naturally I want to avoid that.
- I've been looking around for minor courses that work with sociology and don't require a language and I was astonished to find some. For example, Introduction to Private Law or Introduction to Psychology. I figure those would make me more attractive to future employers than Philosophy. The thing is, I'd have to start my minor course from scrap, possibly wasting time I could use elsewhere.
- The biggest gripe: I'm only allowed to study for so long. My student loan only allows for, I think, two semesters extra. I haven't found any reliable information but I think my university also only allows two extra semesters. If I take too long it's goodbye. This means time is of the essence.
- I could stop that shit right now and start looking for a real job. My highschool degree is somewhat mediocre though (Horrible at math and french, good to very good at everything else) and I'm afraid with the recession going on and all I'll have a hard time finding one. Especially since most available jobs around here are the lowest of blue-collar stuff. Plumbing and so forth. I'll also run into problems with my student loan since it's very likely the money I'd get from a job is way less than the 400€ I can get now.
So, as you can see, I don't have much of a choice right now. Maybe some of you had similar problems during their college years. I'd like to hear what you people would do.
tl;dr: I'm at college right now. I feel out of place. I can't move away, the only jobs available in the region are plumbing and similar stuff. I have limited time to finish my B.A. or else I'll get kicked out. My major is fine, my minor course sucks ass and I want to switch to something else. Doing that I might waste a year worth of time. Time I don't really have right now.
Right now I only see three options: Stay with what I have now, slog through and hope to stay sane. Switch to a different minor course and hope to make it in time. GTFO and try to find a job, in times of recession, in the part of the country with the lowest wages and mostly horrible jobs.
I feel pretty
right now.
my problem is a relatively specific one, so I won't go into detail much.
The protagonist:
- 21 years old
- Currently majoring in sociology
- Minoring in philosophy
- Living in Thuringia, the state with the lowest per capita income in Germany
- Unable to move away due to relationship and lack of money
- Currently receiving a student loan (Bafög - It's basically an interest-free loan of about 400€ a month)
The problem:
- Sociology is nice and all but I hate philosophy. It's out of touch with reality even though it needn't be. My fellow students are a bunch crybabies equally out of touch with life.
- Actually, ALL my fellow students are either crybabies or some kind of artsy hipster faggots. Of course I'm exaggerating but that's how I feel right now. I think I don't really belong here. The only person I know, after months of going to university, is my girlfriend with which I moved to Thuringia in the first place.
Do you know the feeling you get when you have to be in a place filled with people you have absolutely nothing in common with? Yea. THAT is how I feel.
- Due to the reeking pile of shit that is German/European educational politics, most courses require two foreign languages. In essence, to study philosophy I need both english and some random other language that I'll never use in my life. This means I have to spend about two years on pointlessly learning spanish or french or something while doing my other stuff at the same time, otherwise I won't even get my B.A.
Naturally I want to avoid that.
- I've been looking around for minor courses that work with sociology and don't require a language and I was astonished to find some. For example, Introduction to Private Law or Introduction to Psychology. I figure those would make me more attractive to future employers than Philosophy. The thing is, I'd have to start my minor course from scrap, possibly wasting time I could use elsewhere.
- The biggest gripe: I'm only allowed to study for so long. My student loan only allows for, I think, two semesters extra. I haven't found any reliable information but I think my university also only allows two extra semesters. If I take too long it's goodbye. This means time is of the essence.
- I could stop that shit right now and start looking for a real job. My highschool degree is somewhat mediocre though (Horrible at math and french, good to very good at everything else) and I'm afraid with the recession going on and all I'll have a hard time finding one. Especially since most available jobs around here are the lowest of blue-collar stuff. Plumbing and so forth. I'll also run into problems with my student loan since it's very likely the money I'd get from a job is way less than the 400€ I can get now.
So, as you can see, I don't have much of a choice right now. Maybe some of you had similar problems during their college years. I'd like to hear what you people would do.
tl;dr: I'm at college right now. I feel out of place. I can't move away, the only jobs available in the region are plumbing and similar stuff. I have limited time to finish my B.A. or else I'll get kicked out. My major is fine, my minor course sucks ass and I want to switch to something else. Doing that I might waste a year worth of time. Time I don't really have right now.
Right now I only see three options: Stay with what I have now, slog through and hope to stay sane. Switch to a different minor course and hope to make it in time. GTFO and try to find a job, in times of recession, in the part of the country with the lowest wages and mostly horrible jobs.
I feel pretty
right now. I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Ferrus on
0
Posts
Alternatively... can you take courses at an alternative educational institution? I went to a public university in California and you could supplement your normal course load with classes at other accredited institutions like junior colleges or adult schools. Those classes were typically easier and cheaper than my university courses and were often used by students after normal university hours or during the long vacations like summer break.
Are there any student jobs offered by your university? They'd probably be easier to do and more accommodating for a student instead of doing some plumbing on the side. Also, are you totally out of time to finish the required language courses? or is it that you're just whining and don't actually want to take language courses? If there are enough semesters left, I would just suck it up and do the language courses and finish the minor if so much time had already been spent on it.
EDIT:
Is there a limit to the courses you can take per semester? If there isn't a course load limit, then you could restart and switch minors and then you could just take more courses at the same time to accelerate the process and finish in time. You just might have to work a lot harder at it.
A minor is required, especially for a B.A. degree
No alternate institutions either. It has to be a course at the same university. We have a rather convoluted system of "credit points". A B.A. requires 160 CP, where 1 CP = roughly 25 hours of work. Of course, this can only be measured by your university.
Also, I wasn't talking about getting a SIDE job, but a full-time one. Instead of putting up with this college crap. As I said, I feel out of place because everything seems so far removed from reality here. It's nothing but an invory tower of education.
On the language thing: You're right, I'm whining. I COULD take the language course but I simply don't see the point. I'll keep this as an option though.
There is no real limit, although most people advised me against taking more courses because the lectures or tutorials will overlap, which makes studying even less effective.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Oh you baby
If you're still a freshman, don't worry about making a huge switch in your major or minor. You've wasted no time at all; try having a crisis of choice in your third year. You're getting interest-free loans, for crying out loud. A few loans-with-interest aren't gonna kill you if it means you're learning what you really want to learn.
That being said, are you sure your school kicks you out after 2 extra semesters? That seems like a bizarre policy to have.
Also, when it comes to languages.....you communicate well in written English and presumably German so you only need one other language. I hate to say it but there are worse things than learning french, your best bet might be to just bite the bullet on this issue.
I failed out of the Classics department my Freshman year.
Then I transferred to English and ended with a department GPA of 3.9.
In between, I was a declared Religion Major, Philosophy, and almost joined the Sociology department.
You'll be fine.
I'm going to ask one of the counselors on this. I couldn't find trustworthy info on just how long I'm allowed to study. The least that could happen is a 500€ fee each semester if I take too long. I'm not sure I could afford that. :?
I'll make an appointment with the counseling service as soon as possible.
When it comes to learning languages: I hate french. Was forced to take it in highschool and hated it to death. If I need to learn a second language it'll probably be something like Danish or Spanish. Anything with real grammar at least.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
With your majors, I would recommend Latin.
From approaching this from a British university point of view, I don't envy having to take minor classes in stuff you don't want to do. What is so bad about philosophy? can't you find an aspect of it like application to Artificial Intellegence or the Media or something current?
In that case. Keep the languages as an option, but I wouldn't rule out a minor switch yet. You're still fairly early into the whole thing. If you do switch, it would set you back a semester/quarter or two, but whatever. Just double up if you need to while making sure your lectures don't overlap. But careful about workload, different people handle extra work differently.
And don't forget that college isn't for everyone. I had a friend from the UK try and explain how higher degrees and education work toward job opportunities, but it didn't make _that_ much sense to me. Not that the USA's degree/career system makes that much more sense. People get by just fine without a college education, it's not a big deal. But the work an individual can do with a degree is usually more 'white collar' than without a degree. Just something to keep in mind. But your degree doesn't usually guarantee you a job either. I'm working in a field totally unrelated to my degree and in the end, all my degree was really good for was to show that I can understand complicated material and work with other people. Don't think that college education is the only pathway in your life. You can still be successful without one.
There are technical/trade schools, you can work for a while first before deciding that you do want a higher education, you could travel first and see a bit of the world! I just hope that whatever path you do take, that it still results in you being an active/contributing member of society. Don't be a leech. No one likes leeches!
EDIT:
Also. I hated my first 6-8 months of college. It ended up being pretty fun & educational though.
Freshman as a rule are big fucking crybabies that try to get professors fired on a regular basis for things like counting spelling and having standards for intelligible grammar. They exist for every major and there is nothing inherently likable about them.
Try not to worry about them; focus instead on your education. You have a little bit of time, though it doesn't sound like a ton, to figure out if you want to take a different program. Take some time to think about it and see if there might be another minor you'd like better. Don't just look at the catalog and say "that looks like it might be fun," but also talk to people with that minor, and some of the professors who teach the required courses if you can. I had to do this when I was trying to decide on a minor.
For now you're just starting out; you have some time and a nice loan, so try to stick it out and see what you can make work, even if you have to change minors to do it. There will be plenty of time to give up and quit without accomplishing anything later.
My problem with Philosophy is twofold: I have absolutely nothing in common with the people in my classes. They're either the "oh I don't know, that sounds like fun" type or horrible nerds who constantly ask questions that have no relation to the current topic whatsoever. I was also shocked to see how much rote learning is required. Basically we learn bits and pieces about a certain philosopher and have to repeat a random amount during the exam. There is, in fact, no philosophy involved.
Besides, we can be honest on this, it's a mostly worthless field of study anway when it comes to free market economy. That's not a big deal for me but any job is still better than no job at all, isn't it?
Edit: I'm a bit of a nerd myself but at least I have the slightest bit experience with the "real world" and I don't feel inclined to return home for the weekend like most other people here. These are people who wouldn't even BE at college if their parents hadn't made the arrangements for them.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Seeing as you've only experienced freshman level philosophy courses, you might find it's completely different once you get to the higher levels. Have your counselor set you up to talk to some philosophy students who are further along than you are.
Also, you're probably going to be learning a lot of things by rote and regurgitate as a freshman regardless of what your minor is, so you may just want to suck it up and deal.
You Americans and your flexible system. Bah.
I can't speak for your particular college, but at least in mine, taking Latin requires no conversational or verbal learning. It's all written, and if you're like me and don't like doing oral presentations and the like, it's a great language to take.
It seems to me your biggest problem is your lack of people to hang out with. I don't know how large your college is, but typically there are student groups for various interests, so if you're really into music, or computers, or whatever, it might warrant looking into. Having people to chill with makes everything much more tolerable.
Anyway, hang in there man. Good luck.
The earliest I can get an appointment with the student counselor is on monday. The Student Service Center is open from, like 12:00 to 14:00...
My plan thus far:
- Get said appointment
- Try to go to some higher up classes to see how things turn out once I'm done with all the introduction crap
- Get reliable info on how long I can keep studying
I feel more confident already.
When it comes to getting to know people: If I have learned anything from sociology this far, it's that you CAN judge a book by its cover. I know from my GF that all the people I might get along with (metalheads for example) simply don't study social sciences. They're all in the natural sciences for some reason. It's not a huge problem but it adds to my bad feelings about college, that much is certain.
I'm not sure about Latin. It's supposed to be a very difficult language. It might work, of course, but with something like Spanish or Danish (The latter being a germanic language anyway, so there is little difference between it and German!) I'll be on the safe side, I think. I will ask my counselor about this. In the end it might simply depend on which language class I can get into.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Speaking with a counselor seems the most effective way to get answers and results tailored to your particular situation.
With that said, I would like to make a few comments: Unless German education is radically different from attending school in the States, what, exactly, is the issue with befriending people who are outside of your discipline?
Secondly, a word of warning concerning Latin is that (if German education is anything similar to the States) Latin tends to be a rather specialized path. Due to the size of most Classics Departments they lack the resources of most other foreign language paths. While a French or Spanish Department is primarily engaged in teaching the language and culture, the necessity of learning Latin is generally secondary to the larger path of becoming a "Classics Major". Because of this, classes can tend to have a bias toward students who have previous experience, as opposed to a Spanish track in which they have the resources to provide multiple levels of classwork. Of course, this varies wildly from school to school.
This is from my own experience with Latin in a US Liberal Arts college, which is very different from your own. But the issue above is simply logistical in most cases. If the Classics department has a small number of students and staff, even the "introductory" Latin class may assume a larger body of pre-existing knowledge than you hold. I failed out of the Classics Department my freshman year of school due to this issue in which I was immediately at a disadvantage, and I suffered immensely because of it.
Languages: My college has an entire department when it comes to learning new languages. There are a lot of different classes, from total beginner to specialized stuff like business english. No problems there as long as I am lucky enough to get into one of the beginner classes.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Great. Doesn't sound like an issue as long as Latin is offered through the "Language Department" and not through Classics. Good Luck!
You chose to live there, to go to that school, and to pick that major. Many things in life are out of your control, but don't be that guy who bitches about the scenery on the way to the beach house. Try to be the guy who makes the journey a little better for everyone else in the car. Who knows, maybe you'll expand your horizons a bit and meet some cool people along the way.
You seem pretty smart and pretty cool. Don't screw it up by being a fuckface. Just throwing that out there.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Give it time.
Understand that a stable social group generally doesn't appear toward the middle of a student's second year. Freshman year has been studied left and right, and in addition to acedotal evidence, the mast majority of students flit from group to group, have a very large but dispersed group or a small and slowly expanding social circle their first year.
The guys I hung out with freshman year, even though at the time I thought I'd be friends with them all through school, were largely dispersed and re-configured by the time our second year got underway. It wasn't until the end of my second year that I had a solid, somewhat static "inner circle".
Also, whatever you do don't take a shitty little full time job. Because before you know it you get comfortable and then 10 years go by and you realize you're a loser and now it's pretty much too late to do anything about it because you got a wife and a pile of kids to feed.
I remember in a global ethics course, we had to read a piece about the disparity of wealth between the northern and southern hemisphere. Except the author defined north as wealthy, so that countries like Japan, Australia and maybe South Africa, I forget, were included in the north, and the south was defined as poor, so countries like failed european states were included in the south.
So then he proceeded to rant for 20 pages about how the "north" has 95% of the wealth. Keeping in mind that his definition of "north" is a country having wealth.
I tried to point out how circular his terms were. He was basically butching actual geography, and ranting about how the rich were rich, and the poor were poor. No one got it.
If I could have used compiler speak and said "LOOK! It's a using classA = classb; using classb = classa; situation!" I would have.
Sociology was much of the same. Some woman tried to cram down my throat that it was sociologically impossible for white males to ever be discriminated against. She also hated all the men in the class and repeatedly screwed us over.
I'm glad I went with engineering.
On a sociological level, white males don't get discriminated. Seriously, don't even try to cite affirmative action as discrimination against whites. It pales (olol) in comparison to levels of actual employment discrimination (If your name's Rashad, less people read your resume) and racial profiling.
And whites have a hiring advantage worldwide. In China, companies will hire random white people to pose as executives for meetings. Lithuanians have an easier time finding work teaching English than African Americans.
Two words.
Family Court.
Done.
It is not, in my experience(and the experience of everyone I know who's studied latin) it's far easier to learn than modern languages.