What's on your mind today? - Part 5

[MrRabbit]

I've been struggling with my studies. The honeymoon period ("oh, most of the exams are easy, and everything's new and interesting") has been over for some time now. I've come to realize not everything is easy, and if you don't enjoy it - it just gets tougher. I was never into programming, I never even knew what it actually is and how it's done, I just wanted to study that because when you finish it, you've got a job and a good starting salary.

Both myself and my roommate are having similar thoughts, and it's not rare that we talk about what would we do if there was no money involved. Is this because we both didn't pass our exams well, would we feel better if everything was going smooth as silk? I don't know. But this is definitely not something that interests me.

I don't want to be a quitter when something gets tough, but I also don't want to be miserable for the rest of my life. Next week I'll try to figure out what's best for me and what should I do.

I think I can really relate to your issues. I've been in a similar spot myself. I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you about my experience which I think has been quite similar. Beware though as this will be a long post.

After finishing secondary school I had no idea what to study. I was interested in a wide range of topics so I investigated very different studies, law, philosophy, archaeology, physics, artificial intelligence, educational studies, criminology and many more. Honestly I had no idea and decided to not commit myself to anything yet and just take a year off, work a little and then maybe figure out what to do. Didn't help much really, by the end I didn't even care that much as long as I'd be able to finish it and find a decent paying job. That's all I cared about at that point. I then decided to study artificial intelligence for a number of reasons, mostly because I thought it would be quite diverse (branching psychology, philosophy and biology with information technology, programming and more technical stuff (how to build a robot, etc.)) and I was interested in pretty much all those facets (save for language )). Plus I would be able to learn some programming skills which I thought would be really useful in finding a job later. At that point in my life that last part was perhaps my biggest driving factor. My mother often told me to study what I thought was interesting but I personally really wanted job security as well.

Anyway, I started studying and in the first week I realized I wasn't that big a fan. I had to program in this program called 'Prolog' and I hated it, wasn't good at it and didn't receive the help I needed from the university I was studying at (because by helping me they would be giving away answers and I was to be graded every week so instead they gave really obscure hints...). I thought studying would be sort of like paradise, hardly having to go to lectures, having lots of freedom and way more free time than at secondary school. It was in fact the opposite for me and I really just tried to 'survive' those weeks. It was really tiring and depressing me and after a month I quit and decided to spend the rest of the year in the same fashion as the year before. Which, with the mindset I had at that time, wasn't really as great as it sounds!

So then there were two studies I was seriously considering, physics and astronomy on the one hand and philosophy on the other. I have an interest in both disciplines, but I thought physics would be the harder choice, plus I didn't have the mathematical background needed to even apply so I'd have to take care of that as well in the time I had left before college was starting again. I also knew it would mean giving up a lot of free time and studying really hard, but, if I am allowed to trust in the statistics it would give me good job security. On the other hand there was philosophy which I loved in secondary school and just looked so interesting. However it would probably give me a harder time at the job market after graduating. I practised the mathematics I was missing needed for physics by myself in the year I had left to fill and would in the meanwhile think about what to study. I had both a written and oral examination for maths and while the written one went okay, the oral one I completely blew, or so I thought. I had to wait 3+ hours at that location before hearing the results or just go home and wait for 3 weeks and receive the results by mail. I was seriously planning on going home because I knew I failed, it went so bad. But my mother convinced me to stay there and wait and, miraculously, I passed. After that I decided to try physics and astronomy.

Initially it was quite hard. Mostly maths, which is way more advanced than the stuff in secondary school which really is child's play in comparison. My little brother was actually starting his study in the same year, he decided to study business economics and we compared our homework for some of our courses, his was way easier and he didn't nearly have as much lectures as I had, which at the time I thought was a tad unfair given that his study generally results in jobs with better salaries. But there was some satisfaction I found in (natural) science which made it so worthwhile for me. Besides if I studied economics I would probably just bore and depress myself to death, it's really not my thing at all. Anyway, not too far in I was seriously considering quitting once again, I just didn't get it at all and hated this particular course. I also thought the courses were really hard in general. But I hang in there because I didn't want to waste another year. After the first round of exams I passed 4 out of 5 on first try. Not with the best grades but a pass is a pass. In fact the only one I failed was the easiest course in this entire study, which is basic mechanical physics. Anyway that boosted my confidence a little bit. By the second round of exams I even got a perfect grade for one of the courses I thought was quite hard and passed all of them with better grades this time, including my retake of the failed one from before. To my surprise I then got an obligatory course in programming (in C) and I ran into a lot of the same frustrating problems as before when I was studying artificial intelligence. However I thought it was slightly easier this time around and I received more and better help from assistants. I decided programming was definitely not for me but I tried my best to finish the course and move on.

Right now I'm in the second year of this study and things are going quite smooth. So smooth in fact that it is starting to get a little boring. Fortunately there are things in life outside my study which I am now really exploring for the first time, which really help in adding some much needed spice. Before I was always only focussing on studying but I finally truly realized how boring that is and how much more life has to offer. But that doesn't really have much to do with your post here I'm guessing. Back to topic, I got another programming course this year (in Python) and, I really loved it! Python is just so much more user friendly in my opinion, and it really allows you to do some really cool stuff. In fact I use it for some of my own spare time projects and regularly use it for other courses. I don't know what languages you have been learning, maybe if you hate programming like I did, you will eventually find a programming language you really like.

The university I'm studying at right now also allows me to follow courses from any other study I like, so I decided to follow some philosophy courses because that still really interests me. I really liked them, but after some time they didn't really satisfy me in the way that physics did. There aren't really answers, no hard foundation or testability like with science. That is one of the reasons why I stopped following those courses, at least for now. I've been thinking a lot about it and I think if I did study Philosophy instead of Physics & Astronomy I would probably be equally interested in the subject matter, but there would always be a part in the back of my head burdening me with the idea that I wouldn't find a well-paying or fulfilling job, at least back then when I cared a lot more about those kind of things. Besides I've really discovered my love for science and physics in particular, you learn so much about the world around us that is very easy to verify, if you want answers I can't think of a better field to find them in.

A few other points: if things are going well, naturally you'll feel better. Failing exams will of course give a very biased view on whether or not you should continue with your current study. But if you truly think it's not for you and you feel miserable whenever you're studying then I think quitting might be the best thing to do. I am incredibly happy I quit my first study, though at the time I was feeling miserable about it (mostly because it meant I had spend 2 years not progressing much while all my friends had found the study that was right for them from the get-go). At the same time I am incredibly happy I hang in there and carried on with my second study. I was really close to quitting once again not too far in the first year. But passing that course which I hated so much and then passing the follow-up I had lost a lot of doubt and gained some more confidence I had made the right choice.


In conclusion you should definitely study something you can at some level be passionate about. I'd say job security and good salaries are not something you should completely disregard, but don't get hung up on them! Money isn't everything and very rarely does life pan out as planned. There are so many opportunities in life, whatever you decide to study, with enough motivation you can probably make it work. Not everything depends on the study you choose, but you will spend a considerable amount of time living with the consequences so I'd say you should really choose what YOU think is best and stop caring about what others think or about being seen as a quitter or whatever. If your study is actively blocking your happiness and you think there is a better alternative, go for it! Is there any other study you had in mind?