Crises

[PremLeela]

Hi guys, I just want to share with someone my current situation. I FEEL THAT I AM IN ANOTHER CRISES… this time I completely screwed up. I don’t know how to fix thing and I am afraid of facing the consequences.

Basically I'll try to be direct, honest, without any exaggerations:

I am a university student, 2nd year.
I live with parents, they paid most of my tuition. I tried to help them out as much as I could, paying for my books, transportation and part of my tuition. My parents are immigrants, money does not come easy to them and to put me through school was the greatest gift they could give me and my siblings. They really wanted to give their children a good future, have us remain debt free. They had to sacrifice these things when they came to Canada.

I don’t want to give any justifications or excuses of my actions. Lets just spill it all out:

First of all school was always a challenge for me especially when it came to writing, self-discipline (time management, procrastination, ability to focus, organization skills, persistence, and commitment).

I am not sure if I was ready for academia. It feels like being put on a trade mill at a blazing speed. Can’t manage anything.

I changed my major 2 times thinking that the major is the reason for poor performance. The environmental studies major certainly doesn’t have any appeal to me. This makes self-discipline even harder, it is not just about time management and attendance to classes, but actually pushing oneself to even open the books. I spend more time on motivating myslef to start, then doing the work. And when it comes to exams, tests and essays I panic!!! I trying to prepare as early as possible, but the more time spend on these, the less actually gets done. I feel as if it is impossible to finish anything.

This is actually pathetic. I didn’t submit any of my essays. I spend hours trying to do the work, writing the essays, doing the research, jotting down the ideas, developing a thesis, etc, but when the time came to actually writing it all down and submitting it on time, I was unable to manage. I missing all the due dates. When tests came – I was not prepared for them.

I wanted to quit all year. I didn’t feel ready for the challenge. But my family could not allow that to happen. First of all, I was already on Academic warning, I needed to get more credits to get back the money from the children’s education fund. As I said, this money is a lot for them, they can barely manage to pay the mortage, it that are working so hard, so should I. And they have both gone through university, they have gone through 2 immigrations with small children, there is no challenge that is too hard.

Eventually I gave up. I allowing myself to be late all the time and miss half the lectures and tutorials, then I quit with the readings. But I still felt responsible for the classes, and put effort to catch up. At first I did not allow myself to do anything but schoolwork. Saying – fist you finish I finish my schoolwork, then I deserve a break, time for hobbies and friends. What actually happened is there was no time for anything, and schoolwork never gets done.

I spend a few months in anxiety. Low self esteem. Lack of motivation to get out of bed. Anger. Intense anger towards family because they are the main reason for me keeping this up. Can’t quite, can’t let them down. Need to keep trying. The more I struggled with the work, the worse the anxiety became and the more difficult it was to focus.

Finally I decided to give up the struggle and accept whatever comes. I accepting the situation, accepted any results, and deciding to stay because the money was already invested. Why not give it one last try? But with new rules: A) as much socializing as my heart desires. B) participating in clubs, discussions and university socials. C) engaging in hobbies as much as I like. I came out of anxiety, enjoyed university. My self esteem and confidence improved, but not my grades.

Finally: it is April. I am back to square one. I spend a full month trying to write all my essays. Tried to prepare for all the tests. Failed.

But I realized how much I love being in university. Now there is an eager want to stay. I enjoy the social life too much, all the clubs, all the new friends and open-minded people I get to meet, the scholarly atmosphere feel – it is so wonderful! I have a new found motivation to stay not for the results but for the experience, not just academic, but the social. I want to take leadership courses, I want to organize events with the meditation and C.A.F.E club, I want to move out from my family home, I am excited to start again.
I signed up for summer school.

However, it is very likely that I have failed all my courses.

I am not sure what to do – to stay or to quit or to take a break from school and start again. To cry or to laugh. To spend more money on redoing all my courses or to change my major again or to transfer into to college. I am so lost.

I can say that I know that what I want is not the academic success but a social experience, and it is too expensive for my family. I can’t drain anymore money from them, while I experiment and learn from my mistakes. These are too expensive.

The thought of taking a lighter work load, doing something much simple and hand on – like crafts or something art related feels wonderful. I very talented in art. It comes really easy for me, it is my hobby and passion. I would love to be able to get a job in this field and be more independent.

But I have been through university for 2 years now, and I would love to stay just for the experience. I am not sure that now that I like it, I am motivated to be more disciplined, organize myself, etc, that I should keep trying. Will I be able to push myself? Will I handle it next year? Will it be better to just apply to college instead?

And the pressure from family is too strong. I have finally let them down. don't know if I can face them now.

Leela

[supertom]

You should pay your own fees, otherwise your gonna feel like you owe them. I would recommend taking a really hard job where you have to work long hours.

I understand being in the cycle, my parents always made things easy for me, but i dont know hard work and discipline

[PremLeela]

First of all I want to say that I have been working since age 13. I have always paid the part of my tuition myself and next year under any circumstances will I allow my parents to pay for me. I wanted to take a student loan when I found out that I didn't get enough credits to get the money from the children's education fund, but parents refused to sign it, insisting that I will get it back through hard work in my studies.

This summer/spring I am going to be working full time for a lawn care company. I am also going to take summer school. I plan to pay back my parents whatever they invested in me as soon as I save enough money and I am also planning to move out after August.

I haven't been this direct and open before. All this time I did not take full responsibility on myself and accept the situation as it is. I refused to accept the truth. I wanted to force a different reality to go my way and when that didn't happen I went through intense anxiety and depression.

Posting this feels liberating! Now I feel ready to face whatever happens. This is definetely cathartic. Thank you!

Love!
Leela

[Shorebird]

Hi

In my opinion, you should give a break to your studies and join a job. That way you will earn money. After your whole day's work you can obviously join your friends at clubs and enjoy with them.

As for studies, who knows you might get to know the right career path while doing a job. It seems the subject you had never interested you that much though there was a pressure to study and succeed.

Maybe you'll end up studying another subject depending on what work-life teaches you.

I would like to give my example. I liked my subject in University but somehow the results were not that good. So I lost further opportunities in that field. I was lost. Nothing interested me anymore. Then I joined a job meant for ordinary graduates and at that time I had no intention of trying to studying further. The job was of data entry which did not require any technical knowledge in any field except knowhow of using MS-word and MS-excel. I worked and just kept my eyes open. I switched job after 6 months to join a telemarketing firm. In the meantime I got interested in another field. I wanted to study further for my new interests. I joined a course after a gap of three years after university. And then there were no fears , no pressure. I have completed that course and now I'm at a better position.

What I would suggest is to join a job, work hard and enjoy even harder. Meet friends and see how they cope up in their lives. Afterall No one has NO PROBLEM....I mean everyone have problems. As for studies, keep your fingers crossed for now. But increase your awareness about what all is going on around you. Always look out for opportunities and take them because its your right to seek those which you get.

[PremLeela]

Thanks, that is a great advice.

Can any of you through a few ideas of the kind of job that would suit me?

I am not up for fast food (too meager of a pay).

I don't like working in restaurants, even if the tips could be good. I don't work well under pressure, I get stressed out too easily, mix things up, I don't believe I will last in this job.

Nothing in sales either.

I like to work outdoors. I enjoy technical, hand on work. (i.e lawn care company)

I also know that I would do well working in inventory, shelving library looks, etc. But I enjoy being physically active and interacting with people.

I need a job that will pay min between $12 - 15/h.

I am a girl. Trades is not an option for girls (at least that is what I believe, I could be wrong.) I really enjoy carpentry & building things but I doubt that anyone will hire me, I am petite 20 year old.

Any ideas? I can't think of anything right now.

[The Cloud]

If staying at school is what you want, and academics is what you need to get it, then turn your academics into a job. You can do this by either making a time-based or task-based schedule.

For time based, set aside a certain number of hours a week, and during those hours commit to working on school work as if it is your job.

For task-based, designate a day for each task that you need to accomplish, and on that day do not allow yourself to go to sleep until that task has been accomplished.

To make sure that you have time for a social life, designate certain days of the week as off days where you do not allow yourself to do school work. To make the schedule more flexible for additional work, you could designate one or two of your off days as contingency days where you will allow yourself to work if there is an extra task, such as studying for an exam or doing a term paper.

This method works very well for giving you guaranteed off time where you don't have to feel guilty about not doing your studies because you only allow yourself to work on school during certain times or days. It also helps you do much better in your classes because you have specific times where you do not allow yourself to do anything other than school work, not even checking your e-mail or facebook or any other time-wasters.

[PremLeela]

thank you this is really good advice!