Not moneysaving but...

Katrina-trying_to_save!?!

I hate my course at uni! :money:

Its the gettin up and actually going does my head in, once im there I'm ok!

in grammer school i had a girl who competed with me and i done the same so thats how i done well, now i dont have anyone to do this with!

My course is Health and Leisure but i dont know what i wanna do with my life, my mum wants me to stick at it cuz il have a "degree!" but what if it was for nothing!!

I'm so confused please help- even give me motivation!!:mad:

Sigur_2

I'd probably just overdose on heroin. Go out on a high, and be remembered.

Lazy_Runner

Hi

My personal belief is that the degree shows that you can think. If you take a vocational course, you can think in certain ways and you know certain terminology for that vocation.

Most of the useful stuff you will learn at work.

Having said all that.....

How long have you been doing the course?

If you left this course, do you know what course you would do instead?

If you changed course and there was no 'competition' there, would you be just as hacked off?

And if it is competition you want, can you not find a way to compete against yourself?

Sorry I can't be of more help. You need to decide what is best for you.

And sometimes people know what they want, but they don't know how to get it, so when asked, they say they don't know what they want, iyswim?

Once you work out what you want, (and are prepared to admit it to yourself), then you will work out a way to get there.

Have you decided what you would like to do at the end of the course and if so, does it help?

Hope that helps.

michael_iain_elliott

I wouldn't go quite as far as what Sigur suggested... :rolleyes:

I've felt the same myself before, but what I told myself was this: I should be competing with myself, my past self, to better my own knowledge. There's no point to competing with other people, as, in the end, other people don't really matter. Be selfish - in the end, it's your life. Competitiveness with other people was what got me through the first two years, I'll admit, and in itself, it's a good means to an end (i.e. the perpetuation of my H.E.). However, as I said, it's your life, no one else should matter.

The first two years of university were, for me, a doddle, almost on a par with A-Levels. I almost regretted going. This year it's got more challenging, and engaging, and now I really enjoy getting up and going in. The question you've really got to ask yourself is: is this the right degree for me? Does it engage, challenge and better my understanding? Do I take enjoyment in what I'm studying, and do I get out of this degree something which I want?

There's a lot of debate as to the value of the actual subject of the degree compared to the fact that you have a degree, and in that sense, I'd tend to agree with your mother. If you don't want to go into a career in your specialist subject at a later stage, it doesn't matter. Degrees are flexible, and show that you have an advanced intellect which can be applied to many other aspects of life, including other jobs/careers (i.e. transferable skills). It'll give you that edge over other candidates for a job, and in that respect, it is an invaluable plus for your CV.

However, if you are having trouble with the "get up and go" aspect of it, try reading around the subject, do a lot of background reading, and your interest is likely to increase. If you do the bare minimum (and I'm not suggesting you do, I'm just speaking from experience here ) then the course is not going to be as interesting. Try to get as wide a view on the subject as possible.

Try joining a society that meets during the day when your seminars meet - that'll give you another reason to get up and go in (preferably societies that meet before your course, although don't join one that meets and clashes with your course as that'll be counterproductive ).

If all else fails, and you really are not enjoying your course, if you are in your first year (England/Wales) or first two years (Scotland), there is a certain flexibility that will allow you to change your degree before your junior/senior honours years - talk to your Adviser of Studies about changing courses. My father went through the exact same situation back in the 70's, he took courses which he thought would interest him, then found out that they were complete and utter bull. He still came away with a BA hons degree.

Not having a degree is not a bad thing, in any case. Having one facilitates your life further down the road, and before giving up on your course completely, I'd really try to find something you like to stick at it. It'll pay off in the end (in most cases) - graduates earn somewhere in the region of £200,000 to £400,000 more in their lifetimes on average, so whatever the initial financial outlay, it more than pays for itself, so this should not be an issue.

You really have to find out for yourself, though. No amount of advice from the outside can - or should - influence your own decisions about life; this is what life is about, finding your own way.

Hope this helps - I'm trying to give as broad and general a discussion of this as possible, in order that you can apply it to yourself. Whatever you do, do something about it. Harsh reality (and don't take this the wrong way - I'm sympathetic in every respect to your situation): you can't sit and moan to yourself and others and do nothing about it. Apathy gets no one anywhere (I learnt this almost too late). It's an important stage in your life - one of the few defining moments of your life. Get up and make your life what you want it to be.

I hope you find the path which beckons (and it's not necessarily the easier path).

Mike

Tallulah22

i enjoyed reading that thanks!!

Katrina-trying_to_save!?!

yea im guna try the above!!

went to class today and she give s 9 possible questions we're gna be asked on the exam and shes picking 5 and we only need to do 3?? how many do i actually need to learn off my heart?? cnt work it out !

Serenity

Katrina-trying_to_save!?! wrote:

yea im guna try the above!!

went to class today and she give s 9 possible questions we're gna be asked on the exam and shes picking 5 and we only need to do 3?? how many do i actually need to learn off my heart?? cnt work it out !

You need to learn 7 to be sure you know 3 of the 5. Did she tell you the actual questions or just the subject areas? If the latter then I would read around all the topics anyway, maybe some more in depth than others.. in case one of the questions on a topic I had learned was difficult.

The_doomed

what year are you in? where at?

If you can get a job and know you will progress in that job then chuck it. I wish I had chucked it 3 years ago, but the social life was too good.

Ill come out of uni next summer earning less than I would have been.

However, the life experience and moving away cannot be replaced; thats what you really learn.

PS ive exams next week and cant get out my bed before 11am!

michael_iain_elliott

Although I'd be tempted to do all of them, as it's more productive, even just for yourself - but I can be geekish at times :rolleyes:

michael_iain_elliott

Tallulah22 wrote:

i enjoyed reading that thanks!!

No problem! Truth is, I was studying French philosophy (including feminist theory at the time) and it gave me a break to exercise my mind in another way... OK, maybe that's just a euphemism for PROCRASTINATION! :eek: :eek:

I'm guilty of Katrina's problems as well... not so much these days (time was if I got to bed at 3am - which I did this morning - I wouldn't have bothered going in... but then again I had Mr. Legend for translation class so that got me up and going!) but I do have the odd time where I don't feel the will to go to a lecture or two... take today for example, I didn't go to the lectures for my options courses in Phil. and Linguistics. I don't feel guilty about it though, so long as I make up for it in my own reading...