I don't think I am cut out for College. Internet or in person.

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Lets just say that this is the last week of this internet College I am doing, and I feel I have not earned high enough of a grade. Especially since I flunked at one of the tests because I failed to realize the exact day it was due for.

And during all this I am completely unskilled in performing required academic skills, especially writing in a academic style such as citing sources and doing research beyond wikipedia and some books I own. I even thought that mabye I should take an English Writing Class before I take a Major in History.

I am also not used to how internet colleges functions since this is the first time I attempted to fully immerse myself in such a thing. I had no idea how their tests would be like. And I was taking 2 classes at once, and to me the sheer amount of work they required me to do was too much on my plate. I think could have handled all of this better if I was only doing one class each semester.

Laziness also is at play here because I tend to take long free times away from school work and doing random things and procrastinate. I got so unmotivated when I am required to do research on cultures that I do not have an interest in the slightest, especially if said cultures have very little or niche information on.

In the end, I feel I was way out of my league when it comes to the more advanced work they required me to do. And laziness, disinterest in some topics, and unmotivation also played a major factor in my poor performance.

What advice can you guys give me?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

My advice is that college isn't for everyone and you don't have to go to college.

One of the worst things we as a society are currently doing is trying to get everyone to go to college. It devalues college degrees, and also makes a lot of people take on student debt which they can't pay for, in order to get jobs they could just as easily do without a college degree.

If you don't like the academic work in college you should go to a trade school. It's much more hands on, and you'll actually learn a skill.

 

[Zontar]

My advice is that college isn't for everyone and you don't have to go to college.

One of the worst things we as a society are currently doing is trying to get everyone to go to college. It devalues college degrees, and also makes a lot of people take on student debt which they can't pay for, in order to get jobs they could just as easily do without a college degree.

If you don't like the academic work in college you should go to a trade school. It's much more hands on, and you'll actually learn a skill.

This, I managed to get through CEGEP but I wasn't cut out for university, and I knew it, so I ended up in a factory and I have to say that it works for me. I make ends met, can afford to keep going, can afford to start a family in a few years and things would be a lot worst if I'd tried to retake CEGEP courses to go to Uni and end up where I am now but with a few years less work experience and a few tens of thousands in debt.

If you aren't cut out for it you aren't cut out for it. Unskilled work is still hiring in most places, and if you take up a trade you're actively in demand.

 

[EvilRoy]

Well, I guess it depends on your ultimate goal in going to college internet/otherwise. If you're doing it for your own personal enrichment then all I can say is that it sounds like you're enriching in the wrong direction.

If you're doing this for work then I guess you need to steel yourself vs the reality that about half of your time in most entry schooling is going to involve a whole lot of bullshit and information that is generally useless. There are reasons for it, but the takeaway is that it won't all be good and you just kind of have to deal with that. If you need a carrot, the reality of most post secondary is that as you progress you can pick and choose more freely how you devote your time, and therefore you spend less and less time on the bullshit in the later years. At the masters, doctorate or post doctorate level, you're basically done ever studying anything outside your area of expertise.

I had a similar experience in engineering - at the undergrad level for the first three years I bounced back and forth between barely passing and exceptional grades depending on my level of interest in the class, then at the masters level barring two classes that made me want to puke I generally excelled. After a while all I did was research on the area I liked, then eventually I transmuted that into working in industry as an expert in a particular area. I did end up having to broaden myself when I joined the workforce (nobody wants to hire a guy who can only design one specific part of one specific thing), but it was much easier to let myself grow outward as an expert than it was to be spread paper thin as a first-time learner.

 

[Asita]

Well first of all, I'd advise against internet courses. Not for any qualitative reasons (though those may apply, depending on whose classes you're taking), but because in my experience online courses are far too easy to procrastinate on and/or be distracted while you're taking the course. That being said, this might not be the case for you, but for me it helps immensely to actually have a classroom where I feel that such distractions are simply not an option.

Second: I'd advise against a history major. History's interesting and there's a lot you can learn from it, but you are setting yourself up for failure when it comes to post-college employment. Unless you're planning to be a History teacher (in which case you'd be well served to get a degree in education), a diploma saying that you majored in history is not exactly going to help your career search, and this is not a job market where you can afford that.

Third, from your description it sounds mostly like your issues are motivational and organizational, so you might do well to use a calendar with reminders on it. Put your syllabus on google calendars (assuming that you've got a gmail account set up on your phone, calendar events on that account should be pushed onto your phone notifications) so that the tests and assignments don't sneak up on you, and set aside time every day/week (as needed) to work on your assignments.

I'd also advise you not to get discouraged. Part of the college experience is learning how to effectively manage your time and projects. Indeed, that's arguably the most important universal skill that you learn at a university. It's not uncommon to have issues with that, especially early on. You just have to be sure to learn from the experience and figure out what works for you.

 

[Terminal Blue]

What advice can you guys give me?

Firstly, it's completely okay not to be cut out for higher education. Many people are not. Just make sure you aren't selling yourself short.

Academic writing takes time to perfect. Even as a PhD student, I still feel like I struggle with academic writing, but at the same time I look back at my writing and see a vast improvement year on year. The more you practice, the easier it will be and the better you will do. Those people who write beautiful, rich and detailed books all started out as students learning how to reference and what an academic style is.

Self-motivation is difficult. I procrastinate a lot (why do you think I'm here?) and something that helps me a lot is using productivity tools, apps and gameification. I use a pomodoro timer for short term productivity, and set targets and rewards for daily progress. As long as you are focusing on something, you will make progress with it even if you are bored. Unfortunately, you can't expect everything you research to be interesting, so you do need ways to get that motivation going.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

My advice is that college isn't for everyone and you don't have to go to college.

One of the worst things we as a society are currently doing is trying to get everyone to go to college. It devalues college degrees, and also makes a lot of people take on student debt which they can't pay for, in order to get jobs they could just as easily do without a college degree.

If you don't like the academic work in college you should go to a trade school. It's much more hands on, and you'll actually learn a skill.

I agree. If you have an affinity for physical work, the skilled trades (carpenters, plumbers, ironworkers, electricians, etc) are desperate for workers to replace the retiring Boomers, will often pay for your training, and have starting wages at an actual livable level.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I was always leery about post secondary education. I could never think of anything I was interested in enough to go to school for 4-6 years to try out. I just went with a trade instead. I'm kind of meh about it, but at least I'm not down thousands of dollars and years of my life with nothing to show for it. My cousin went to school for 6 years and when he finally got a job in his field, he found out that he didn't really like it all that much.

It all seems like a bit of a waste of time anyway. I was a straight A student in high school, but it still feels like I forgot around 70% of everything I ever learned there a year or two after learning it.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Reading through your post the first thing I'd advise is to get more organised. Figure out what needs to be done, how long you have to do it and then plan accordingly what time you can spend doing things. If you set a certain number of words to write per day, or something like that, then having actual set targets instead of "oh better do something on this culture I'm not interested in" which apparently just causes your attention to wander off.

I would also suggest getting feedback from whatever group is giving you these courses. If you think you didn't get a high enough grade, find out why. What could you have done better or just differently to get that higher grade? I'm sure they could also point you towards some resources that might help with the academic skills you said you're coming up short on, they're bound to have some sort of guide to citations for instance

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Is there any publicly funded adult literacy & writing courses in your area? Like a technical school for adult education nearby? UNSW has a large number of migrant students from all over East Asia, and one of my friends from Vietnam during my bach undertook some advanced literacy courses when she started doing her first year courses. She swears by them... by her second year her essay writing abilities had improved extensively.

A combination of her studies in tandem with focussed literacy exercises meant she was acing those papers.

As for improving motivation... this is tough. The reasons for such procrastination can be many and varied. But assuming it's pure laziness, the best way to get motivated is quite specifically set yourself deadlines. Meet them. Create a study schedule, live by it, do it, and ransom things you would otherwise buy yourself only if you complete that study load.

It comes down to discipline.

Now... this is going to sound weird... but if you do have an adult education technical colleges ... take on a bigger study load of something you want to study. I studied design and patternmaking ontop of uni because I had additional time on my hands. Something you want to do, but might loosely bridge into your studies.

What it sounds like you need to do is re-engage with your productivity. Basically find motivation and optimizing your time use.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Frankly, college nowadays is a waste of time and money unless you're planning for a career track that involves some level of post-grad education. Even then it's iffy, because our post-secondary educational system here in the West overburdens students with elective and general education/liberal arts requirements that ultimately do nothing for the student except maximize debt. Online degree programs take many of those problems to the Nth degree, by in essence being overly expensive diploma mills.

Technical and vocational schools that offer certificate programs, and diploma tracks that are equally accepted in the chosen field as associate's or bachelor's degrees, are the way to go. And trades, especially trades -- unionized, good to excellent pay and benefits, and extreme labor shortages guaranteeing employment and increasing pay over time to increase supply.

 

[CaitSeith]

What you do with your free time makes a world of difference on your future options. If you don't go to college, look for something else. Something that gives you enough passion to overcome laziness; and better start searching now (maybe in the future you won't even have that option due to work or other obligations).

 

[Trunkage]

I barely passed my two first years of uni. They had no practicums so I had no relationship with any potential jobs. Once I had that in the third year, my results got better.

But my cohort was 40 at the start of the third year. Six months in, there was 20. So uni could not be for you

 

[Pseudonym]

I can't really speak on the decision to quit uni too much since I've been sticking with it for 7 years now and entertain somewhat realistic hopes of getting a PhD within the next year or two. I live in a place where it is vastly more affordable so I have a very different situation from yours. You should consider what you hope to get out of your studies though. A better job? Personal enrichment? Meeting family expectations? Don't do it just because you think you ought to for poorly understood reasons. We have enough of those people failing their first years over and over. It is years of your life paying money rather than earning it so it should be worth it to do so. If you do decide to keep on studying I have some advice though.

First, do not try to run on sheer willpower but use every dirty and clever trick you can think of to force yourself to keep on studying and to keep yourself motivated. Consider the social, physical and personal circumstances of your studying and set them up in ways that makes it harder to procrastinate. Study with friends, leave your smartphone out of reach while reading, read from paper and not a screen connected to the internet, etc. Be creative with this and know your own strengths and weaknesses.

For such reasons I would also recommend against internet colleges. The social aspect of being with a group of fellow students who can talk to each other about their work and who will ask about you if you are absent makes a great deal of difference in motivating you. Also, not everyone is mentally equipped to study in solitude. Many people study at university libraries where it is harder and more embarrassing to be distracted.

And during all this I am completely unskilled in performing required academic skills, especially writing in a academic style such as citing sources and doing research beyond wikipedia and some books I own. I even thought that mabye I should take an English Writing Class before I take a Major in History.

Writing, searching and citing can be learned though the process is somewhat painful. You also need to habituate yourself to using the relevant software and websites. Searching is a matter of seeking out some search engines relevant to your field (your uni library, google scholar with uni proxy, common search engines and sources in your field, etc) and forcing yourself to use those at the start of every project until that becomes normal. Citing is a matter of learning the citation habits of your field and installing some software like Zotero to automatize most of the painful work. Writing is the hardest to get better at, as this requires you to submit your work regularly to somebody critical of it to criticize writing style and substance and rewriting it based on their comments. This is another reason why knowing the people in your class can be helpful as they would be people naturally capable and willing to look at your work before you hand it in. Improvement in these matters will go slowly but it can be done.

 

[Avnger]

Lets just say that this is the last week of this internet College I am doing, and I feel I have not earned high enough of a grade. Especially since I flunked at one of the tests because I failed to realize the exact day it was due for.

And during all this I am completely unskilled in performing required academic skills, especially writing in a academic style such as citing sources and doing research beyond wikipedia and some books I own. I even thought that mabye I should take an English Writing Class before I take a Major in History.

I am also not used to how internet colleges functions since this is the first time I attempted to fully immerse myself in such a thing. I had no idea how their tests would be like. And I was taking 2 classes at once, and to me the sheer amount of work they required me to do was too much on my plate. I think could have handled all of this better if I was only doing one class each semester.

Laziness also is at play here because I tend to take long free times away from school work and doing random things and procrastinate. I got so unmotivated when I am required to do research on cultures that I do not have an interest in the slightest, especially if said cultures have very little or niche information on.

In the end, I feel I was way out of my league when it comes to the more advanced work they required me to do. And laziness, disinterest in some topics, and unmotivation also played a major factor in my poor performance.

What advice can you guys give me?

I would look at what Community Colleges are in your area.

Aside from the benefits that having structured "class time," community colleges also often offer courses in a much wider variety of topics such as that writing course you mention. When I was forced to take a break from my university for a couple of years, my local CC was very beneficial for taking some 'catch-up' or simply 'non-traditional' classes; it was also helpful because I struggled taking a couple online classes due to my own procrastination/laziness and having to show up to a class in-person forced my to work through that.

Community colleges also offer the benefit of being able to drop-in/drop-out and taking anything from single classes to "full" semesters for a program and have counselors/officers dedicated to helping students who are unsure of the path they want to take.

 

[Agema]

What advice can you guys give me?

1) Firstly and perhaps most importantly, if you're not the sort of person suited to academia, then you're not. Don't feel bad about it, don't think it makes you any the less, just go use your skills with something else. (You might find in five or ten years time things have changed and you feel ready, but if not that's still no bad thing.)

2) It might be you're not doing the right course for you.

3) My experience of university is there's plenty of learning about things you don't really care about. But then, that's kind of a bit like life. There's lots of dull stuff to deal with alongside the stuff that really interests you.

4) If you really think you shold have a degree just as a means to an end (traditionally, employability), grit your teeth and plough through the pain. I know a few people for whom this has beeen the case.

 

[Baffle]

Take up a trade then. I've never met a poor builder (I mean, I've met rubbish ones, just none who don't have a lot of money).

I'm not sure wet plastering is very in-demand in the States, which is a shame because watching a good plasterer is like watching someone do magic. Watching me plaster is like looking in the monkey cage at the zoo.

 

[sneakypenguin]

My first 3 years were barely passing. my last 2 were essentially 4.0 gpa. Its work the only difference between me failing and sailing through was the amount of effort. That said I wouldn't go to college if I had a do over. I'd do flight training. I'm a pilot now but I wasted 6 years of college and work doing something I didn't want to do. If I started off doing what I wanted I'd be pulling in 150-300 a year vs the 60 i make now.

 

[meiam]

I'm guessing this is more for personal enrichment than actual job prospect so it just sound like the problem is that it's not focused enough on what you enjoy, that usually gets better when you make it pass the first years, advanced course will go from "General european history" to "what did the greek eat on sunday between 350 bc and 300 bc" with a teacher who dedicated there live to answering that question, at that point you just pick what you like the most.

As for organization, I'll go against the grain and say not to use calendar or organization software, at least that's how I work. I try to always look for systemic solution, i.e. something that I don't have to think about because I set it up in a way that takes care of itself. So for example, when I was an undergrad I had no idea when things were due, I'd just did them asap and would leave them in my school bag that I took to every class, so when something was due I'd just take it out of bag and hand it in. This isn't about hard work, it's about advanced laziness if you want. I'm just too lazy to organize a calendar so I just always look for the option that take the less amount of energy and time. Ultimately if you do something last second, you're still going to spend the same amount of time and energy than if you did it earlier, it's just easier to organize and then you don't have to clean up the mess. My solution to laziness is just to double down on the laziness.

For things like citation, don't even learn it yourself, it's a useless skill now that computer do it for you. Look up mendeley, it'll do it all for you (I'm a teaching assistant who correct 500 or so report every year or so and I have no idea if they do there citation the correct way since I haven't had to do it in years).