yeah, well, I'm in college and I have really screwed up this semester. My college career so far has been really screwed up, haha. I went to University of Texas: Dallas to become a programmer and then after about half a semester I freaked out because it was terrible, I don't know....not the direction I wanted to go with my life anymore...so I dropped out and went to Oklahoma State University the next semester, and did excellently. This semester, however, I have had no motivation and most of my classes I'm doing poorly in. In One I missed a huge paper turn-in so I'm going to have to drop it, which will bring me below requirements for keeping my scholarship. That combined with my current grades will put me maybe on academic probation or some similar bad thing. Strange considering I was on the dean's list last semester. So basically right now I've gotten over the panic and I'm working on fixing it. I'm going to find a way to salvage this semester and pay for school, but that's fixing the symptoms, not the cause.

The cause is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life and I feel like I'm wasting my time doing busy work for no reason here.

So what are you guys planning on doing with your lives, or what are you doing? Is anyone looking at fire protection and safety, or becoming a firefighter? I feel like emergency work would be really rewarding, so I'm looking at that. There's a great program here.

I was in a similar situation.

One day I decided to think about my reason for attending college, and came to the grim realization that I didn't have one. In the absense of a "why," I simply assumed it was the right place for me to be. (You know, I was only beat over the head about a thousand times by society admonishing me to attend college.)

So here I am, a college dropout trying to decide what to do with my life. I don't have the faintest idea, though.

I'm there too, and still haven't figured anything out. Sorry.

I am at the moment, actually. It's something you want to look into before you decide to get into it because it's a lot of work and it isn't for everyone. See if there is some introductory class that you can take to kind of feel it out a little bit. I want to get into the wild land side of the fire service, myself.

Im still a junior in high school, but my current plan is to go to a local wooden boat building school and do that. Afterwords.. I dunno, sail around the world or something.

This is by far the best goal I have ever heard.

I'm currently attending school for a degree in music performance. My ultimate goal is to be a professional musician.

Currently an IT major getting a CS minor

I'm either going to go into networking, teaching, game design, or some temp job.

Time will tell.

Studying mechanical engineering, never really liked it at all. Did so badly last year I have to take some re-assessments, on some modules I failed, as an external candidate this year. So I'm in a gap year in a sense trying to find some work and then I hope to do my final year next year and get this thing over and done with.

It's a long stupid story involving bad careers advice and trying to trundle on regardless but I had been aiming for veterinary medicine before I started university. I even took the Bio-Medical Admissions Test for Cambridge and came in the top percentage of candidates but I only had the necessary subjects for admission to apply to do vet med at two universities in the country which wasn't realistic. So I went with a degree that involved some element of practical work and focused on my strengths in maths and physics. I can't stand most of what I study these days.

Main plan is to get a grad job, live frugally, save up and travel the world for at least a couple of years.

I also don't know what to do.

Sucks that you spent all that money.



Maybe you should try tech school.

i was a photography student.

then i realized theres no money in art, unless you a) teach or b) go into graphics. commercial photography isnt a viable option anymore, because the market is shrinking, rather than growing. and portrait...you ever notice how all portrait studio portraits look the same? its cause they are. they use the same light setup, same f/stop and shutter speeds for freakin every single shot. its why they can hire someone with no experiance, cause they dont actually have to know anything.

so i've switched to business. not the most entertaining option, but practical for my life goal of owning/operating a bar.

actually been thinking of doing accounting, cause i seem to be rather good at it.

You're going to OSU? Sweet! I'll probably go there next year. I'll be doing electrical engineering. You can't tell me it would't be cool to design video cards.

Yeah, that sounds like a blast.

Haha. Yeah, man, OSU is great. I love it. It's pretty much perfect. If I knew what I was doing, I'd be in heaven. Have fun with electrical engineering...that's not sarcastic, either. I have a friend who lived across the hall from me last semester that is doing that.

Avenger, wildland like forests and such, or more like grassfires? I remember a year or so ago, me and some friends were coming into town from Tulsa and we saw an orange glow rising from the northwest of the city, so we all rushed out to track it down. We drove out onto the dam at bar dew lake since that was as close as we could get and watched a huge fire sweep from behind the hill across the lake to right up on the shore, and start wrapping around. It was incredible. Of course, now my family bought 82 acres and upon reflection I see that our 82 acres are just south of where that happened, and upon further inspection of our land, yeah, the north section was definitely on fire within the last year or two.

You say it's hard work...but I've come to terms with the fact that anything is going to be hard work. The question is: is it worth it?

If you do become a firefighter, I hope they're treated a bit better over there than they are here. I was reading a story in the paper today that some little punks (I think it was in Shropshire?) set fire to some wheelie bins, called the emergency services, and threw bricks at the firefighters when they turned up -_-

CS major currently, working towards a PolySci Minor.

If life were perfect, I'd like to do one of two things.

A) With my current work experience, tied with some decent grades, I get a really nice Co-Op with some nice company. Go on and work with them for 4-7 years, maybe jump around if the market suits it, whatever works. Retire, die happy.

B) (This is more of a long shot) Become a lobbyist in DC for the Tech industry. Advocating Net Freedom, software freedom, open source, etc. We need some counter Big Buisness advocates for the Tech Industry in Washington. This is, as I said, a much harder position to achieve, I don't even know if something like this exists, or how one would go about getting a job like this. I just know that something that combines my love of politics with my love of technology would be really nice.

Studying Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University, in my Junior year. I honestly wouldn't know what to do with my life if I couldn't be an engineer. With all the work it involves, and its obvious usefulness, I've come to consider just about every other profession a joke. And the few other professions I do respect, I just don't see any enjoyment in.

I'm doing fine in it gradewise, but a police officer was always the backup plan. Hope that helps.

It's both grass and forests here

I'm currently majoring in history and minoring in secondary education. I wanna do that because I like teaching and I really enjoy history. I would assess what your interests are and decide a major from them.

Studying computer science so I can be a software engineer. Hopefully I'll get a co-op position in 3rd or 4th year, and that's when I'll find out if it's really for me or not. I'm in my second year and it's still way too early to tell if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I'm a first year mathematical engineering student. Which means I wasn't good for either but got accepted to both. Or at least, that's what it feels like.

I haven't got a clue what I'm going to be doing in three years' time. Or four. Or whatever.

I'm currently studying at CCAD to become a starving artist.

Or Illustrator. Whatever.

I major in AWESOMEOLOGY and I minor in SCHWING....OLOGY

I have a plan, a job offer with ridic money, and am going to graduate. Life is good when you do **** and have a plan.

ever thought of selling your photos as stock photos? there's plenty of money in that (selling the rights).

Bob, you might want to start looking to see if there are any kind of seasonal fire fighting jobs that you can apply for over the summer. Good experienec and it will give you some idea of what you'd be getting into.

I'm going to school for Computer Science. My real goal is to get out of college and get a job in graphics/animation somewhere. If that doesn't work out, at least I'll have my CS major to fall back on.

And right now I'm doing an internship for Epic Systems (medical software) where I get to decide when I'm done... I'm hoping to stretch it until I graduate and maybe get a nice starting job out of college there.

I've thought about it, but the market round here aint that great, and i'm not sure how i'd feel about my hard work making people money that isnt me.

but this thread isnt about me.

Murc:

How do you like Epic? My friend just interviewed with them...

I'm majoring in chemistry, and I hope to go to grad school after that. no idea where I want to work, though.

I have a double major because I'm obviously bent on academic suicide, and it's two of the most time consuming majors in my school. Vocal Performance and Marketing Communications. I plan on getting a masters in Marketing or public comm or some such and getting a cushy six figure government job (haha, nah, I figure with a handy masters in something like that I can pretty much make a good living in whatever I end up doing)

Why the voice major, you may ask. Again, obviously I'm an idiot. That and once you get really involved in music, it's like a bug that you just can't get out of your system. wherever I go, it haunts me, music just won't leave me alone!!

That's cool. When's the last time you heard of someone majoring in Chemistry? Pretty much never? Exactly.

I hear it quite often, actually, but then again, my alma mater has a huge, renownd chemistry department.

it's dying out, particularly over here. while I was at uni our chemistry department was in the process of closing down.

I did a physics degree, and really hated the whole process (as evidenced by the fact that I didn't do very well!), but trying to get a job over here without a degree is virtually impossible. you would have to start at the very bottom of any profession (ie, unskilled - officework or the such) and slowly work your way up. it doesn't necessarily matter what your degree is in, the fact that you can show you made it through a three year course is all most places want to know.

if you do want to get into something specific though (like the emergency services) there should be plenty of information from public sources, as there is always a need for more people to do that.

I hear ya, Bob. My own motivation seems to be slowly dropping. I've been attending UMBC, where I initially majored in digital animation. I recently had to switch to the next closest major (in hopes of graduating sometime sooner than later) -- interactive art (web design and Flash and whatnot). I've been taking the art majors because I'm hoping to break into the videogame industry as... well, anything, really (though I know slim to nothing about programming). It seems that my actual strength is in creative writing though (which I'm hoping to minor in as well). If I thought I could secure my future well enough in it, I'd stop everything and just put all my efforts into writing novels or something. As it is though, it's something I think would be better on the side.

I really like it a lot. They seem like a great starting company for everyone, lots of young people, awesome campus, good pay....

Depending on what he/she would be doing there, I could offer some more insight, but overall the company is great.

It seems to be alive and well here at Mizzou.

[QUOTE=Murc XIII]I'm going to school for Computer Science. My real goal is to get out of college and get a job in graphics/animation somewhere. If that doesn't work out, at least I'll have my CS major to fall back on.[/QUOTE]

Same.

I'm a senior in high school and up until now I've pretty much assumed that I'd be doing engineering or physics or programming of some sort, but I just discovered that I can barely imagine myself doing anything other than acting. Unfortunately, making it as an actor is really hard and it's scaring me. I really like physics and programming, but I never imagine myself doing it when I envision my future.

This is my first semester as a freshman in college, and I'm planning on majoring in CS. I'm still really undecided for my minor, though. There are several other things that are appealing to me, but I really have no clue what to minor in.

Let's hear it for just going out there and winging it.