So for those of you that don't know, I dropped out of college. At some point after dropping out I started answering the question "What did you go to college for?" by saying, "I went to college because that's what Valedictorians do."
Of course, "What did you go to college for" really meant "What did you study?" But that is kind of the point. As I approached high school graduation my dad put a lot of pressure on me to decide on a major. Decide what I wanted to do with my life. My poor father. If only his sperm count were higher.
He can't have children, you see. Had to adopt my older brother, had to adopt me. Couldn't just have a big family the old fashioned way. The story was that they didn't have enough money to adopt more. I won't get into that now.
The point is, if my father had been able to send more children off to college maybe there would have been a more gradual easing up to a child who had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. As it was it was just my brother, who had been in love with studying animals his whole life, and unsurprising went to Florida to study Marine Biology, and me, who didn't really want to do anything.
So I eventually put down psychology as a major. I have always been far too cynical to buy into the idea that it would be worth someone's money for me to talk to them, but even if it wasn't going to be a career, I figured I was at least interested in the subject.
I won't go into the exact reasons I dropped out. I'll focus instead on if I regret the decision.
Yes, and no.
Yes I regret it and anyone dropping out of college should just suck it up and finish. ESPECIALLY if your parents or anyone else are paying for it. I feel I was far to influenced by a phone call to my brother in Florida where I heard my father say, "We didn't send you down there to play volleyball and get a tan." I didn't want my father holding anything over me. I didn't want to owe him anything.
Now I find myself with the policy of "accept all charity" and no one has enough to give. We are living in the economy my father warned me about when I dropped out of college. He sat me down and tried to show how much I was throwing away monetarily. Then I got a job waiting tables and was able to make my rent in a week. That left 3 weeks a month for what? Saving and entertainment. Real life was just as easy as school ever was.
But when you're 20 you can't begin to imagine your life at 36. You can't know what it's like to voluntarily kick your own ass running around a restaurant bringing people their pancakes so that you can pay your mortgage. You can't know the irony of wishing someone could adopt you and send you to college, being willing to do anything they want, just for an easier life, when that is EXACTLY what you were offered before, and you threw it away. You also can't imagine that even if college is just some stupid set of hoops your degree only shows you are capable of jumping through, that you might feel compelled to jump even stupider hoops later.
The best reason to have done something with my life, however, comes from the movie Lions for Lambs. I spent my life convincing people not to look to me to do anything great, not to lead them. I reject society and it's silly rules. I'm a rebel. I succeeded in stopping people from looking up to me. Now, I don't even feel like a success to myself.
Do not drop out of college.
No, I don't regret it. My financial situation I'm in now is not about dropping out of college. Not to mention how much I loved my life after I dropped out. There's a good argument to be made that I shouldn't get through college, that it's just too painful, that you shouldn't participate in something you don't believe in.
If I had a job dealing poker, do you really think that I'd be happier in some job I could only do if I had a college degree? I am not my job. Yes, I feel underused, but mostly that comes from this increasing suspicion that my brain chemistry is just different from a lot of people's, and that society has no real systems in place to use people like me, only change us. And *I* have structured my life to keep people and especially drugs from changing my precious little brain. Why? I am guessing I fell in love with how everyone praised the ever loving shit out of it when I was going through school.
I am who I am and that isn't someone who joins a lot of activities so I can put it on my college transcripts. I'm certainly not the type of person who lies about joining those clubs and what not. I do not hide my feelings well. It is very easy for people to look at me and know I don't give a fuck.
Go ahead and drop out.