SmoothTalker
Master Don Juan
Hi DJ's.
I'm really confused and would appreciate any useful input you guys could provide. This may get quite long, so thanks for your time in advance.
To start off with, let me provide some background.
I've always been considered smart, meaning I pretty much cruised through high school with little effort, still earning 90%+ averages even though I was taking all of the 'hard' courses, i.e. Advanced Math, Physics, Chemistry, Advanced English, etc. Combining this with a fairly high level of extra curricular involvement, I was able to rack up a few prestigious awards and scholarships on top of this.
While many of my friends (and my grade in general) stayed on for an extra year of high school, which you can do here with no penalties, I decided to move on as soon as possible. Due to my marks and the awards, I essentially had completely free choice in both where I wanted to go to university, and for what program. Hell, many universities were even offering me sizable scholarships to go there, and my parents promised to help pay the other costs, so there were no problems. In short, things were easy, I had time to do what I want, and no serious worries. Life was good.
This is where the problems started. When I went to apply to university, I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do, all I had was the choice to go anywhere and the confidence that I would do great no matter where I went.
Not knowing what I wanted to do exactly, I decided the most logical choice would be to apply to the best university nearby, which is ranked best in Canada most years. I used all three of the choices everyone is given to apply to the same university for three programs: Science and Business, Math and Business, and Computer Engineering. I liked all of these topics in high school and figured they were decent choices, but again, none of them were exactly my passion. I eventually decided on Computer Engineering.
I'm 19, and currently in the second term of my first year of University, currently in a Computer Engineering program.
This is a 'good' program, i.e., it's probably the second hardest program to get into at an already respectable university with high standards. Generally, people that get their degree here are offered $70,000/year to start, which is pretty damn good for a new grad with just a Bachelor's degree, and this isn't a huge city either so that is really good money.
This is also a 'co-op' program, meaning that we alternate between one term in school, then one term working in paid internship positions. This is good for the money, but sucks because it then means we have to take school in the summer.
The problem is, I HATE it, for several reasons, in no particular order.
1)It is NO fun at all. To anybody that talks about all the partying that goes on at university, I wouldn't know. First semester, I was able to go out with friends twice- once for my best friend's birthday, and once just for fun. I also had to cut back to spending maybe one day a week with my girlfriend because I simply did not have time. I dropped all my hobbies like working out, playing Alto Sax, etc. Basically I had 40+ hours of class a week, and enough homework to take up most of my remaining waking (and some of my sleeping) time. Also, while I was very involved in high school, I simply do not have time for any extracurricular activities.
2)It is extremely difficult. Despite the dedication I described in point 1, and my intelligence, I did poorly. Now I have friends in other programs who are also not getting great marks in University, but Come on! They were never stellar in school to begin with, and get drunk and party about 4 times a week, so it does not shock me if they don't do well. But I'm doing all I can and still sucking. I honestly thought I had failed first semester, though I somehow ended up with a 75% average, and a pass is 60%. (This was undoubtedly due to HEAVY use of the bell curve when grading). A 75% means that I won't be getting the rest of my multi-year scholarships, as I need to keep my marks above 80% for that.
Further, they won't let you make it any easier. For example, I thought I would help myself out by spreading out the work, so I wanted to take a course during my co-op term, to make my next term easier. They would not let me do that because they insist everyone has to do the same workload. So planning and time management won't help.
3) I hate the courses. I don't know if it's the way they are taught, because they are so difficult, or just because I don't like the material, but I hate my courses. Things I use to like in high school like chemistry or calculus make me want to die now. To make things worse, in my program (unlike most other programs), I have NO control over my courses. Until the second term of my second year, we don't get to choose any classes, and after that, our choices are only from a very limited list of allowed courses.
In addition to this, more than half of my professors and lab instructors are foreign and speak broken, heavily accented English that is hard to understand.
4) As we do not have any choice in our schedule, there is no variety. We are the exact same class for every subject (in fact, usually we just stay put and different professors come to lecture). This is bad because:
a) There are NO girls in the program. This is the closest I have ever seen to a boy's only club. Out of a class of 150 people, there are literally 4 girls. And they are not at all attractive. I have not had to deal with this yet as I am in an LTR since before University, but it still sucks.
b) Most of the people there are ridiculously nerdy, socially awkward, etc, the typical point Dexter students.
c) I am by far the minority. About 80% of the class are immigrants, and I'm not racist and have no problem with them on an individual basis, it is pretty intimidating when most of the class conversese among themselves in languages you can't understand.
5) From what I have seen so far, I don't like Computer Engineering. To be fair we have not done any real computer engineering yet, but that won't start for a few more years and I don't want to wait that long to find out I hate it.
6) It seems to be getting worse rather than better. For example, now this term instead of the usual 5 courses to make a full course load, we have 6, plus some stupid seminar once a week. On top of that, as they can't add more courses to the schedule due to policies, they simply stuff in extra courses quitely. Ie, 3 of my professors are going to give lectures during their 'office hours' because they are free that time and we are 'free' as it is our lunch time. They can't really do this, but we have no choice but to show up as they cover important material.
7) There are no breaks. With co-op, the longest uninterrupted break I will have for the next 5 years is 3 weeks between August and September. For most other co-op programs, at least people can relax during their co-op as they just work full time and have no homework, but my program insists on making us take a course then also.
8) I have had one co-op term where I had a pretty decent job by most standards, but I did not enjoy it. It was technical support for a technology company.
Sorry to ramble, but as you can understand, I am really unhappy right now.
Now there are some advantages to this program, that is graduates are very highly paid and respected, it's in demand, it's co-op, etc. But I just don't feel that's worth it.
So what the hell do I do? All I have now is one thing I don't want to do with my life, but I still don't know what I do want. I can't just keep trying programs until I find a good one.
I can't base my choice on what I liked in high school, as that doesn't seem to matter any more. I can't base my choice on what I'm good at, as I thought I'd be good at this.
What I want is something that I will enjoy studying. Not a bird program, but not one that works me into the ground either. One where I can have some fun, but also learn something useful, and have a decent career afterwards.
How did you guys go about choosing your path? I just don't know where to go.
And to make things worse, I need to think fast, because the longer I'm here, the more credits I will have to redo when I switch. That is if another faculty will even take me, as this isn't like high school any more. My 90's there won't count, and any decision will be based on my university marks. I'm afraid the longer I stay in this program, the worse they will get, and then I may be unable to go anywhere else.
Help guys, I'm really lost.
I'm really confused and would appreciate any useful input you guys could provide. This may get quite long, so thanks for your time in advance.
To start off with, let me provide some background.
I've always been considered smart, meaning I pretty much cruised through high school with little effort, still earning 90%+ averages even though I was taking all of the 'hard' courses, i.e. Advanced Math, Physics, Chemistry, Advanced English, etc. Combining this with a fairly high level of extra curricular involvement, I was able to rack up a few prestigious awards and scholarships on top of this.
While many of my friends (and my grade in general) stayed on for an extra year of high school, which you can do here with no penalties, I decided to move on as soon as possible. Due to my marks and the awards, I essentially had completely free choice in both where I wanted to go to university, and for what program. Hell, many universities were even offering me sizable scholarships to go there, and my parents promised to help pay the other costs, so there were no problems. In short, things were easy, I had time to do what I want, and no serious worries. Life was good.
This is where the problems started. When I went to apply to university, I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do, all I had was the choice to go anywhere and the confidence that I would do great no matter where I went.
Not knowing what I wanted to do exactly, I decided the most logical choice would be to apply to the best university nearby, which is ranked best in Canada most years. I used all three of the choices everyone is given to apply to the same university for three programs: Science and Business, Math and Business, and Computer Engineering. I liked all of these topics in high school and figured they were decent choices, but again, none of them were exactly my passion. I eventually decided on Computer Engineering.
I'm 19, and currently in the second term of my first year of University, currently in a Computer Engineering program.
This is a 'good' program, i.e., it's probably the second hardest program to get into at an already respectable university with high standards. Generally, people that get their degree here are offered $70,000/year to start, which is pretty damn good for a new grad with just a Bachelor's degree, and this isn't a huge city either so that is really good money.
This is also a 'co-op' program, meaning that we alternate between one term in school, then one term working in paid internship positions. This is good for the money, but sucks because it then means we have to take school in the summer.
The problem is, I HATE it, for several reasons, in no particular order.
1)It is NO fun at all. To anybody that talks about all the partying that goes on at university, I wouldn't know. First semester, I was able to go out with friends twice- once for my best friend's birthday, and once just for fun. I also had to cut back to spending maybe one day a week with my girlfriend because I simply did not have time. I dropped all my hobbies like working out, playing Alto Sax, etc. Basically I had 40+ hours of class a week, and enough homework to take up most of my remaining waking (and some of my sleeping) time. Also, while I was very involved in high school, I simply do not have time for any extracurricular activities.
2)It is extremely difficult. Despite the dedication I described in point 1, and my intelligence, I did poorly. Now I have friends in other programs who are also not getting great marks in University, but Come on! They were never stellar in school to begin with, and get drunk and party about 4 times a week, so it does not shock me if they don't do well. But I'm doing all I can and still sucking. I honestly thought I had failed first semester, though I somehow ended up with a 75% average, and a pass is 60%. (This was undoubtedly due to HEAVY use of the bell curve when grading). A 75% means that I won't be getting the rest of my multi-year scholarships, as I need to keep my marks above 80% for that.
Further, they won't let you make it any easier. For example, I thought I would help myself out by spreading out the work, so I wanted to take a course during my co-op term, to make my next term easier. They would not let me do that because they insist everyone has to do the same workload. So planning and time management won't help.
3) I hate the courses. I don't know if it's the way they are taught, because they are so difficult, or just because I don't like the material, but I hate my courses. Things I use to like in high school like chemistry or calculus make me want to die now. To make things worse, in my program (unlike most other programs), I have NO control over my courses. Until the second term of my second year, we don't get to choose any classes, and after that, our choices are only from a very limited list of allowed courses.
In addition to this, more than half of my professors and lab instructors are foreign and speak broken, heavily accented English that is hard to understand.
4) As we do not have any choice in our schedule, there is no variety. We are the exact same class for every subject (in fact, usually we just stay put and different professors come to lecture). This is bad because:
a) There are NO girls in the program. This is the closest I have ever seen to a boy's only club. Out of a class of 150 people, there are literally 4 girls. And they are not at all attractive. I have not had to deal with this yet as I am in an LTR since before University, but it still sucks.
b) Most of the people there are ridiculously nerdy, socially awkward, etc, the typical point Dexter students.
c) I am by far the minority. About 80% of the class are immigrants, and I'm not racist and have no problem with them on an individual basis, it is pretty intimidating when most of the class conversese among themselves in languages you can't understand.
5) From what I have seen so far, I don't like Computer Engineering. To be fair we have not done any real computer engineering yet, but that won't start for a few more years and I don't want to wait that long to find out I hate it.
6) It seems to be getting worse rather than better. For example, now this term instead of the usual 5 courses to make a full course load, we have 6, plus some stupid seminar once a week. On top of that, as they can't add more courses to the schedule due to policies, they simply stuff in extra courses quitely. Ie, 3 of my professors are going to give lectures during their 'office hours' because they are free that time and we are 'free' as it is our lunch time. They can't really do this, but we have no choice but to show up as they cover important material.
7) There are no breaks. With co-op, the longest uninterrupted break I will have for the next 5 years is 3 weeks between August and September. For most other co-op programs, at least people can relax during their co-op as they just work full time and have no homework, but my program insists on making us take a course then also.
8) I have had one co-op term where I had a pretty decent job by most standards, but I did not enjoy it. It was technical support for a technology company.
Sorry to ramble, but as you can understand, I am really unhappy right now.
Now there are some advantages to this program, that is graduates are very highly paid and respected, it's in demand, it's co-op, etc. But I just don't feel that's worth it.
So what the hell do I do? All I have now is one thing I don't want to do with my life, but I still don't know what I do want. I can't just keep trying programs until I find a good one.
I can't base my choice on what I liked in high school, as that doesn't seem to matter any more. I can't base my choice on what I'm good at, as I thought I'd be good at this.
What I want is something that I will enjoy studying. Not a bird program, but not one that works me into the ground either. One where I can have some fun, but also learn something useful, and have a decent career afterwards.
How did you guys go about choosing your path? I just don't know where to go.
And to make things worse, I need to think fast, because the longer I'm here, the more credits I will have to redo when I switch. That is if another faculty will even take me, as this isn't like high school any more. My 90's there won't count, and any decision will be based on my university marks. I'm afraid the longer I stay in this program, the worse they will get, and then I may be unable to go anywhere else.
Help guys, I'm really lost.
