College: Do. Not. Want.

I'm getting to that age. The age where all of my friends are excitedly touring colleges, picking majors, and filling out applications. Whenever they ask me about my plans, they all say the same thing: "What?! You haven't started planning for college yet? You do realize you only have a year left, right?"

Yep. I realize it. I just don't really care. I can't bring myself to get excited about continuing my education for yet another 4-8 years. Whenever I start thinking about college, my stress meter goes from a comfortable "fidgety" to a panicky "OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS GOING TO END".

The only sense of comfort I get from the idea is finally being able to cut the apron strings from my parents and branching out into a hopefully supportive environment...but why on Earth would I waste so many years of my life working towards a degree I could care less about? Why would I fill up that empty seat with my apathy, when there are several students who would kill to have that opportunity? Sometimes I disgust myself.

So anyway, what would you suggest? Do I suck it up and go to college to make my family proud, or do I follow my gut and disappoint my parents?

well do you have plans if you don!t go to college?

Yes. Unfortunately, it involves being what my dad affectionately calls a "starving artist".

That hardly sounds like "don't care". College was an easier route for me into "Life" (I waited until my junior year of college, age 20, before I changed from fidgety to panicky world ending :-) where you have to go eventually and going from high school presents more problems and less possibilities than from college.

Decide you want to feel something other than terror or apathy and work on that the next 5 years? Pick a subject you do like; writing, art, music, drama, obscure bugs :-) and start toward a major in that?

Thanks, Perna. I guess I'm just so obsessed with getting a high-earning degree so my parents can be happy, but at the same time, most high-earning degrees take a substantial amount of time to get.

I'm currently looking into trade schools to see if there's anything that intrigues me.