"What do you want to do when you leave school?" and people's reactions to my answer.

[Triscut900]

im 14 so i have some time to go

 

[Malkavian]

OP

OP, I want to tell you a bit about myself. Not that I have any military experience to share with you, but I understand where you are comming from.

I am 22, and throughout life, I have always been "A smart kid". In all my years of school, my parents, my teachers and my friends always kept telling me how smart I was, and how I woul dhave any education open to me. And it was true, if I may be a bit arrogant here. I AM smart. One of the harder educations to get in to here in Denmark is journalism, since it requires you pass a test which is frankly pretty hard. I aced it, and was set to become a journalist. Just two months of summer vacation, and I'd be off to start being a grown up.

However, over summer, something happened. I am 19 at this point, and something inside me was terrified of going to that school. In my panic, I changed my mind and applied for Philosophy at Uni. I got in, and I loved it. Intelligent people in and intelligent environment. It seemed like heaven, and the studies weren't hard. I have always been good at understanding things, and Philosophy, well it was all about that. However, after 6 months of that, my mind collapsed. I was diagnosed with severe depression, and I had to put my studies on hold. The next year and a half was the darkest of my life, if you can call what I had in that time "a life". I had therapy, I recovered, and I called up my councellor and gave up my place on the courses. It had been a rushed start, and I had had some issues that worsened when I put myself in a stressful environment. Well, everyone said that must be it, the stressful environment. I didn't really feel it was, but hey, of course, it was uni, yes, that had to be it, I had just rushed out into it too soon...

So I spent half a year preparing myself for... whatever else I would figure out. I found another academic education that was just... perfect. It would be a path to working in the growing danish games industry, and it would also give me tools to work in other media. There was stuff about game design, about programming, about animation... it was so many things that I enjoyed or would like to learn in my free time anyways. It was like all my interests condensed into a single study.

So, I applied, and I got in. It's been 6 months... And now it's driving me into the ground again. Like with Philosophy, I don't find it hard, I don't find it stressful... But after I got over the initial rush of being in a new place, with new people, people that I could be a nerd with even, then my enthusiasm started slowing down. Getting up in the morning was getting very hard, and when I eventually got home every day, I wasn't just tired in the usual way, but felt... drained. I had no creativity, I had no drive. When I got home I didn't have any strenght for cooking, for keeping my apartment clean, not even for video games or anything else that was "fun". It's not depression, but I know I can't keep at the studies, because it might become one, if I stay on.

The thing is, I got no joy out of studying. And that is what was driving me down. I know, studying is supposed to be hard and not fun, but in my oppinion, if someone asks you how your studies are, you have to be able to say "It's great!" without lying. Sure, it can be hard, and sure, some lectures may be boring, homework may be stressful, and exams may be balls hard, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to think of what you are doing as worth it. You have to feel happy that you are studying. And I didn't.

The day I admitted to myself that I simply couldn't do this, was great. I felt like a huge load was taken off my shoulders, and after crying a bit, I slept better than I had in many weeks. When I woke up, I felt refreshed. Everyone had always pushed me forward. I'm not saying I was a straight A-grades kid, because I am quite the lazy bugger. But I COULD have straight A's(as indeed, just about anyone has been telling me all my life), and I'm not stupider for it, I just have a diploma from High School that is less worth than it could be. On both courses, Philosophy and Mediaology, I was above most, in terms of intelligence. I am not ashamed to say that, arrogant as it may sound. That was how I felt. Despite all this alleged intelligence, despite all the teachers, councellors, family members, etc. who all held the oppinion that I had the world at my feet, despite my own arrogance and wish to achieve a degree because, well, frankly I felt anything else would feel like a "waste".

Despite all that, I couldn't do uni. Why? Well still not sure. I think part of it may be that I am immature. I am simply not cut out for the responsibility yet to work towards a goal that may be shit now, but from which I will benefit when I have to find a job. That lack of discipline i definitely part of it. Left to my own devices, I can't keep my eyes on the goal.
But more importantly, I think that the method of learning was simply not me. When you got right down to it, I felt like the people weren't that intelligent, just incredibly pretentious(that was especially true of Philosophy), and that I wasn't really challenged intellectually, just doing reading I could, quite frankly, have done on my own. I know that last part isn't true, but that was how I felt. Simply but, university just isn't me. I realized that, while I mught be a smart cookie, I am not cut out for uni. Wow. That's 12 years of parents and teachers guidance out the window.

So I started thinking, what the hell else could I do? I know there were options, but I had never really looked into them because, well, all my life I had been told I should go to uni, and it had been presented as the first prize, like any other option wasn't really an option because it would be choosing something worse. And then I started reading about the military.
And I read more.
And more.
And more.
And something... Some little dream once had by a little boy that I left behind when I was 6 was taken out of the mental box on the ceiling it had been hidden in. There were so many options. Damn. I mean, I knew you could be a contracted private, or go to sergeants or officers school, but I was looking at IT-degrees, degrees in Arabic or Afghan, degrees in... Well, just about anything. And then I was more or less decided...

I have half a year now, to whip myself into shape. I am a fat, lazy kid, but I now feel motivated like never before to get out and start exercising. I have plans for a diet and for exercise, and I am quite sure what my goal is. I am gonna get in shape, and then I am taking the basic training of the army. And from there? Well, right now Language Officer, studying Arabic or Afghan, seems very cool.

So that's me. Like you, the army seems like a better prospect, even though I could easily apply to just about any college education. But I just don't think it'll make it happy. Now, the army is no cakewalk, I know, but it's what I need. It has discipline, and it has challenges like nothing else I have ever tried. Is it where I will spent my life? Maybe not, but it's where I need to be right now, and it can give me an education I can used on the job market later on.

So, I hope that was an interesting read. The "moral of the story" is supposed to be "you are not alone". I am not trying to say that the army is the right choice for you, but I will say that it might be. It is possible. And thus, don't let people get to you. Go for what you feel is right, but if the UK has a short basic training, go there first. I hope what I wrote made sense, and that it can be, if not of some help, at least of some comfort. While I don't have anyone telling me my aspirations are stupid, I do have 12 years of being conditioned to think so myself to struggle against. But yeah, I hope you can use it, and I hope it made sense(I only just got out of bed).

Good luck with it all man.

 

[RocksW]

I think if thats what you want to do go for it. Its admirable to actually know what you want now but I wouldnt tell everyone because you might change your mind later.

 

[StealthyNinja]

I get where you're coming from with the whole ''don't want a boring office job'' it just doesn't appeal to me either. As for peoples opinions of your future career choice, just ignore them. If you want to join the military, join the military, screw the rest of them, it's your life. Plus you can rub it in their faces when you become an officer.

 

[KiLl_RoY]

The same situation happens here, I too don´t want the monotomy of college, or have a lame office work where i have to stay in place all the time.
I always been an adventurous type, i enjoy going on camping trips, hunting or just beign on the outside.
And when i tell people i want to join the army they tell i´m bat-shit crazy sometimes.

 

[RocksW]

snip

That was really interesting to read, hope it works out :]

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

I say, good for you! Very noble cause, and heck, and least you know what you want to do with your life.

I'm in year 12 at the moment, and I have ambitions of continuing Classical Civilisation at University...but I don't have a clue what I'm gonna do after that.

My hat goes off to you sir, and I wish you the very best of luck:].

 

[JasonBurnout16]

i imagine the "you do realise people will be trying to kill you every day you are at work ?" thing probably has something to do with it.

Yer pretty much this is why I wouldn't join up.

I like having working limbs. I also like living.

 

[Octorok]

Snip't

As said before, extremely interesting read. Thanks, and good luck back at ya.

I plan on joining the Army as well, They reaction is either.

"OMG OMG OMG YOU'LL DIE!"

Or "lolololololol you play too much Call Of Duty"

It's fucking annoying, to say the least.

The CoD one gets me too. I know CoD players who do actually think that they are all tough and military, and talk about real-life in the infantry as though it were a game of bloody Black Ops.

I don't hate the army and those who join it. I merely hate their methods of choice when dealing with issues. I hate how it is always "killed or be killed" rather than negotiations and spies. I guess I like the more peaceful thought of war than gruesome violence and severe mis-treatment of soldiers nowadays. But for me, I heading into teaching. If you think about it, there are always 5 major things a country needs whether or not it's economical status is going well or poor. Doctors, soldiers, government, farming, and teaching. I hate politics, not much of a hard worker and I get sick at the sight of blood. And I do enjoy teaching others anyways.

You can't negotiate with the enemy we have currently to any real extent. This isn't a conflict between two countries' armies, who can formally agree to a truce. This is a scattered guerrilla enemy that relies on ambushes and the will of their soldiers to deliver bullets and bombs, no matter the danger.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

to be honest i plan to join a UN army regiment in Ukraine who plan to make expeditions to Africa to deliver water supplies etc, im almost 16 myself, and I'm a pretty good driver, so ill be driving a truck through africa handing out free water and food, i may sound crazy, but look at it this way, i get to drive through the desert in a massive lorry,
just as i wanted to be a paris dakar driver for kamaz master when i was 4

This has the advantage of not making 28 million people hate your entire country. Compared to invading Iraq, it's a frickin' AWESOME idea.

I actually think it's a good diea on its own merits, too, and really, "compared to invading Iraq ... " just about anything's pretty good that way.

I'd advise doing some careful research on sites that aren't *.gov.uk/* or *.mod.uk/* before you decide. Bear in mind the job of the armed forces is to support government policy, not to serve their country or do the right thing, and watch Warriors [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warriors-Dutch-DVD-Ioan-Gruffudd/dp/9076818916/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1294066782&sr=8-4] too.

It's your decision. It has to be your decision. It should be a well-informed one.

Oh, on that subject, don't believe everything you read in the Sun either. They're a little bit too "embedded".

 

[Octorok]

to be honest i plan to join a UN army regiment in Ukraine who plan to make expeditions to Africa to deliver water supplies etc, im almost 16 myself, and I'm a pretty good driver, so ill be driving a truck through africa handing out free water and food, i may sound crazy, but look at it this way, i get to drive through the desert in a massive lorry,
just as i wanted to be a paris dakar driver for kamaz master when i was 4

This has the advantage of not making 28 million people hate your entire country. Compared to invading Iraq, it's a frickin' AWESOME idea.

I actually think it's a good diea on its own merits, too, and really, "compared to invading Iraq ... " just about anything's pretty good that way.

I'd advise doing some careful research on sites that aren't *.gov.uk/* or *.mod.uk/* before you decide. Bear in mind the job of the armed forces is to support government policy, not to serve their country or do the right thing, and watch Warriors [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warriors-Dutch-DVD-Ioan-Gruffudd/dp/9076818916/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1294066782&sr=8-4] too.

It's your decision. It has to be your decision. It should be a well-informed one.

Oh, on that subject, don't believe everything you read in the Sun either. They're a little bit too "embedded".

I don't read the sun, and I'm not opposed to following orders, even if I disagree to them, and I tend to lean toward things like the UK presence in Afghanistan. It's a fight worth fighting, and if you get sent to do something you'd rather not, I view that as an occupational hazard.

 

[Tib088]

I left school almost 2 years ago now. I took a year out and did volunteer work for a year which really helped me choose the path I have chosen. Now I've started Health and Soical Care at my local collage and I've got a well paid job as a disabilites assistant. Taking a year out may put you behind your freinds (all of mine are going to uni next year while im still one year off finsihing my BETEC) but it really helped me turn into a better person.

Bottom line, find a goal and do what ever you can to reach it.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Well, if you told me that then I wouldn't care less so I don't know what their'e problem is.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

can anyone tell me what army is REALLY like? for some reason it facinates me, mabye too many games...

Spoiler: Quotes here

Home wasn't really the home I wanted. I'm not sure I live there any more and I can't live here.

Six years of my life in the fucking army.
Six years of dickheads telling me I know nothing because they have stripes.
Six years of working at some pretty damned unsociable hours.
Six years of working with some utter shits.
I've had to take courses in which we were told that "when a ball is thrown, two forces act on it, these are it's velocity and gravity." Any students of GCSE English Language and/or Physics, feel free to laugh. "As it reaches the top of it's trajectory," they told us, "velocity ceases to act on it and gravity starts to act on it."
I've been pushed away from a computer (yes, physically), by someone who thought I didn't know what I was doing, despite the fact I'd been doing the damned job for two years. When I tried to explain this he got angry. He then showed me a lot of stuff I already knew, then showed me how to do the job ... and spent half an hour getting utterly shite results, while telling me I would get good ones eventually if I persevered and learned from him. I went back to the way I'd been doing it before and got results five times better in half the time.
I've put up with verbal abuse and worse for years.
I've been seriously dressed-down for calling someone an immature little prick after months of highly offensive verbal abuse.
I've been falsely accused of deliberately withholding information from a colleague to make her look bad, and the sergeant who dealt with that accusation told me to my face that he didn't care how often it had happened or even whether it had happened at all and that my job was to get along with the others on my watch, including the one who told him that lie, and not cause any dissension that could make him look bad. He also sent a clueless little shit round to get in my way and go over work I'd already done in a highly irritating manner, causing us to miss out on reporting some high-priority events. Having recognised the events in question, an hour late and on the fourth attempt, he told me to "start switching on". Once upon a time I'd have killed him for that, right there on the office carpet.

...

Our new supervisor, however, doesn't {specific stuff} and knows fuck-all about {specific stuff}. He's quite happy to tell us this over and over again, and also quite happy to tell me who's good at the job and who isn't even though he knows, by his own admission, precisely fuck-all about it. Nice.

... and that left Charlotte, who couldn't have been more of a man-hating proto-dyke if she'd worn a dalmatian-fur coat and smoked through a cigarette-holder. She was full of shit and full of herself. She had no faith at all in anyone else and thought anyone in a green suit was stupid and men were all totally useless. She got put in charge of the section. The only explanation available is that of a former colleague: "Yes, but she does have a pussy." If you'd met our supervisor, you'd understand. He's a chauvinist, a bully, a lout, obsessed with his own rank and status and rather fond of brown noses.

...

I sent off a collection of one day's mistakes to the senior transcriber, who referred it upwards to the expert, who emailed me back, agreeing with every single thing I'd picked up, agreeing with what I said was wrong, agreeing with what I said was really going on, agreeing with me on whether there was enough evidence or not and saying he'd have to check up on everyone's skills because it was ridiculous that supposedly experienced operators were making such basic and fundamental mistakes. ... It would have been vaguely gratifying to have people all over the planet laughing at such a fucking ridiculous report. Such a shame it never went out. The thing is that it was obviously bollocks, but she flapped and panicked and jumped up and down and yelled and never thought and this is the ***** that our dumb bastard of a supe put in charge. Yeah. Me? Bitter? No shit, Sherlock.

...

You'd think six years in the regular army, including three and a half as an NCO in the Intelligence Corps, would count as valuable work experience even if you can't tell people what you did. Well, it doesn't. You won't get that promotion, you won't get to Cyprus, you won't go on those operations, you won't get any qualifications you can take away, you won't get any experience you can share, you won't get to go on any of the things they tell you about in the office, you won't get the cost of the hotel in which you had to stay while on a course you had to attend paid back to you, you won't get to keep the overseas-duty pay they've already given you, you won't get even a week's notice that it'll be deducted from your next pay packet, you won't get your payslips for six months, some of you won't get your pay some months, your boots are supplied by the lowest bidder and will give you blisters inside a mile if you don't run around in them so often your feet are one big callus, your trainers are supplied by the lowest bidder and you will suffer more lower-leg injuries in basic training than you have in the two decades preceding it and your rifle's twice as heavy as an M16 and half as reliable. The doctor prescribes yoga lessons for sprains, stress, diabetes and lesions on the testes. The only place to go other than your room or your mate's room is the bar. The nearest place to do something other than drink is ten miles away.
I wonder whether I could sue them for breach of contract. What a fucking waste of time. I don't even know whether I was correctly paid. Is "We can't find anyone to promote you" a valid reason for delaying a promotion?
When I left, they gave me a questionnaire to fill in. It said they wouldn't try to trace me. The first few questions included: gender, age, region of last posting, regt or corps, rank, time in post and time in service. One of the questions was "What advice would you give to someone thinking of joining the Army?" How about "Don't"? How about "Try prostitution instead"?
Twenty-eight years old and slightly less employable than most 16-year-olds. Marvellous.
Fuck the lot of them and any piece of paper I ever signed. What a load of shite. What a waste of the thousands and thousands of decent young men (and maybe even decent young women, although I doubt decent young women go off to join the army very often) stuck in that shitball.

 

[Lerxst]

Here's the scary part about the military and what lingers in the backs of other people's minds that causes them to be frightened when a kid (sorry, I can have kids your age so you qualify as a "kid" in my books) decides to join the military.

The result of a military, any military, anywhere is one thing - dead people. You could be a mechanic but your job is still to maintain the vehicles used to kill the enemy. You could be a medic and your job is to treat people so they can continue to kill an enemy. You may have your own personal agenda that doesn't involve killing people but it doesn't change the historic purpose and role of a military.

I live in the US. I had friends and family serve in the Army and Air Force back in the 90's. Something completely unexpected happened in 2001 and suddenly those people who joined simply for a good salary with benefits were being shipped to Afghanistan or Iraq where they were given guns and told to point them at an enemy and pull the trigger.

It's one thing if you're ignorant when you join and don't think about the purpose your role serves in the overall goal of the military. It's another thing to be fully aware and still have the desire to join. That's what makes people nervous. If you know full well why the military exists and you still want to join, it shows others that you have a desire to kill people or promote violence against others. You may be clicking a button on a drone that takes surveillance pictures, but those pictures are eventually going to be used as a weapon as well when orders are given to attack them.

I'm talking about a volunteer military of course, not a draft.

I know full well what I'm talking about. I graduated college and was planning on entering the Air Force for officer's training in January of 2002. Then something happened in 2001 and the reaction of the country after that, made me realize I didn't want to be a part of that mentality.

So think it through first.

 

[Rockchimp69]

Being just shy of 16, this question crops up a lot from other teenagers, comparing notes on future plans, and adults, curious to see the direction I want to go.

However, when I answer this question truthfully, people react in a variety of odd ways. I plan on applying to Officer Selection for the Sandhurst Military Academy, as I want to join the Royal Regiment of Scotland, 3rd Battalion (my local chunk of the Infantry). Upon hearing this, despite knowing my character (while nerd-like, if I didn't play computer games I'd be about as stereotypical as British officers get in Scotland), people are invariably shocked, or at least surprised.

My friends tend to laugh it off a bit, my teachers seem too polite to say, "No, you're stupid, go write books." and other people in my age group either condemn me as some kind of murdering murderer, suicidal, or just wrong somewhere because I have no interest in studying a pointless degree at a university, before going into a depressing office job.

Why on Earth does this happen? Do people just hate the army now? Or do I look and sound different from how I thought I looked and sounded for the past 16 years?

I can sort of get behind the idea that I look kinda lanky, and my friends know I'm lazy, but in the cases for people who literally have no way of gauging whether or not I could successfully command men on a battlefield, or perform duty under extreme pressure, they still seem to think that either I'm wrong somewhere in the brain, or I'm just trying to sound heroic and impressive.

Any other hopeful recruits find this? Is it just a UK thing? The war has little support here, I know, but I'm unsure of things in places like the US.

I feel kind of ashamed to say that I also laugh at a kid in the year below me about wanting to join the army. Although it's really because I think he doesn't understand the reality of the kind of danger he could get himself in. Not because I think that it's stupid to join the army.

 

[Terminate421]

I want to be a game developer. Then people give me strange looks. I honestly think that no-one can take me seriously.

 

[Gavmando]

Ok. Let's put a little bit of perspective on it:

My mates:
1 Doctor,
1 Doctorate in Marketing,
1 Mechanical Engineer,
1 High up manager who answers to CEO's personally,
1 Finance guy,
1 IT professional.

Between them, they all have a car each, and one guy owns his own home.

Our other mate who works as an aircraft mechanic in the RAAF, (Corpral):
1 year long round the world holiday,
2 cars,
4 houses,
1 boat that he bought on a whim,
100+ women slept with.
And he's only 28.

Of course my other mates cant understand his lifestyle, because most people think that the only way to be successful is to go to uni and get a 9 to 5 job. And when someone comes along who is successful without following the "formula" people get upset and jealous.
The simple fact is, you dont have to do what everyone else thinks is good for you. If joining the military is the right thing for you, then do it. Especially if you're going to RMAS. That place makes Westpoint look like a kiddies party.

There's nothing wrong with joining the military. It is a great career. Plus, there's a hell of a lot of jobs that need officers that arn't on the front lines. You dont have to catch bullets to work in the armed services.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Despite Wilfred Owen's poem, I think it still stands.