Surprise, surprise; all of those pamphlets and admissions reps that visited your school turned out to be full of crap and now you're stuck in a program and in a school that you'll end up owing thousands of dollars for the rest of your life. Everyone gets to this point, and for the incoming class of freshman, I'm sure they will be hit as hard as the rest of use were. So, what can you do when you hit this wall, and what are some tricks for seeing the bright side in getting a college education?
Well.
1. There is no "bright side." Settle. Be realistic.
Above all else, the university you attend is a business. Ergo, you have been sold a product, and that product sure as hell isn't a great Liberal Arts program. You've been sold the promise that the memories you make in college are going to be worth the inflated price.
No walk of shame on a Sunday morning is worth thousands of dollars in tuition.
The whole "experience" factor wears pretty thin when you get the email from financial aid sometime during your second year estimating your student debt. So plan on getting the hell out of there as soon as you can, take heavy course loads, placement tests, etc. The less money you owe these bastards, the better.
2. Don't feel guilty for dropping out/transferring for cost reasons.
The greatest trick my high school counselor ever pulled was convincing me that trade school was for bad students. What the hell was I thinking? If I could drop out of UND to go across the river to NDSCS to get a trade degree, save money, and make twice as much, you bet your ass I would start all over. If there's a job offer where you could make twice as much, don't feel bad for taking a year off to make more money.
3. Don't let bad professors get away with their crap.
Professors aren't teachers. They don't have standards, and if you feel you were cheated out of a grade due to the professor's shitty curriculum and obtuse grading, don't feel intimidated by bringing it up. This isn't high school, were doing such things would be embarrassing. Colleges treat this like a settlement, more often than not there will be some compromise in your grade if you have a serious complaint.
4. For Christ's sake, don't drink your way out of college.
Admit it. You came to college thinking it would be all just one giant house party on the weekends. Now that you realize it isn't, drinking becomes a coping mechanism. Don't let them win. College is sad enough, it's even more sad when you become an alcoholic.
5. Prepare for the real world.
Don't procrastinate on this, especially if you're in a major that doesn't exactly have great job opportunities. The sooner you network yourself the sooner you're not looking for jobs the semester before you graduate only to realize you'll be working at a call center for Amazon for the rest of your life.
