[imnotokayipromise]

I love to learn. My interest is music, and I've spent hours studying music theory, music history, everything involving music. My issue is school.

In a few years I'm most likely going to begin college. I really want to study music, but I simultaneously don't want to. If that doesn't make sense, let me clarify: school ruins things for me. I used to enjoy writing. School ruined that for me because it was forced upon me. I no longer enjoy writing like I used to because of school. And I'm scared that will happen with music.

I don't know why I'm posting this. Just to rant, I suppose? I just don't want the one thing I care about to be screwed up for me.

I guess if anyone has advice, you can leave it. But yeah.

School sucks.

[wisedude]

What are your problem with school?

Unfortunately there are NO OTHER alternatives (at least that I am aware of), the only possibility is some sort of study at home via correspondence school.

Is it a social thing? Do you have social problems at school? (It would not surprise me, especially in teenagers, school is AWFUL)

[IndieBerry]

I had the same problem in college. I majored in creative writing and it ruined it for me. There were so many 5 and 10 page papers to churn out by such and such a date. And then there were the nit-picking critiques. I ended up dropping writing and switching my two minors to majors (art and spanish). In a strange way, having two majors took the pressure off of me so I wasn't so extremely focused on one. (I think it was an issue of trying to be perfect at that one thing). I still experienced some of the same problems in art, but the students and profs were a little bit more mellow in the art department than they were in writing.

I decided to ride it out, regardless of how terrible I felt about my grades and how many mistakes I saw in my artwork. I resolved to let myself purposely make mistakes and embrace them, because in any form of art (writing, music, visual), those eccentricities are what make our styles unique. Happy accidents are the magic inside the creative process, which is something they forget to tell you at school. Once I began seeing myself that way, I started to enjoy what I was doing again. I'm even enjoying writing again.

My advice would be, if you're going to stick with music, do the work, BUT FORGET ABOUT THE GRADES/ OUTSIDE OPINIONS and embrace the experience... your experience. You don't have to like everything you're exposed to at school. It's ok to disagree with your profs and peers no matter what the "group think" is. Just see their opinions and advice as interesting and use what you think is good. Let change happen naturally. Also, you don't have to like what you're doing all the time. There are days when you'll be bored or fed up. That's a good day to do something else entirely or enjoy other people's works and get inspired by what you see/hear. The best advice I can give you is to in college is to slow down and let loose (a little).

But yes, I can totally relate to you. I'm still figuring out life myself but that much advice I can give.

[imnotokayipromise]

Originally Posted by wisedude

What are your problem with school?

Unfortunately there are NO OTHER alternatives (at least that I am aware of), the only possibility is some sort of study at home via correspondence school.

Is it a social thing? Do you have social problems at school? (It would not surprise me, especially in teenagers, school is AWFUL)

The other students, the teachers, the pressure, the socialization, the insane amounts of work given.
Everything.

Nobody likes me, so that makes it very difficult.

Originally Posted by IndieBerry

I had the same problem in college. I majored in creative writing and it ruined it for me. There were so many 5 and 10 page papers to churn out by such and such a date. And then there were the nit-picking critiques. I ended up dropping writing and switching my two minors to majors (art and spanish). In a strange way, having two majors took the pressure off of me so I wasn't so extremely focused on one. (I think it was an issue of trying to be perfect at that one thing). I still experienced some of the same problems in art, but the students and profs were a little bit more mellow in the art department than they were in writing.

I decided to ride it out, regardless of how terrible I felt about my grades and how many mistakes I saw in my artwork. I resolved to let myself purposely make mistakes and embrace them, because in any form of art (writing, music, visual), those eccentricities are what make our styles unique. Happy accidents are the magic inside the creative process, which is something they forget to tell you at school. Once I began seeing myself that way, I started to enjoy what I was doing again. I'm even enjoying writing again.

My advice would be, if you're going to stick with music, do the work, BUT FORGET ABOUT THE GRADES/ OUTSIDE OPINIONS and embrace the experience... your experience. You don't have to like everything you're exposed to at school. It's ok to disagree with your profs and peers no matter what the "group think" is. Just see their opinions and advice as interesting and use what you think is good. Let change happen naturally. Also, you don't have to like what you're doing all the time. There are days when you'll be bored or fed up. That's a good day to do something else entirely or enjoy other people's works and get inspired by what you see/hear. The best advice I can give you is to in college is to slow down and let loose (a little).

But yes, I can totally relate to you. I'm still figuring out life myself but that much advice I can give.

Thank you for the advice!

[Perna]

I have trouble with textbooks, only because I "have" to read them; I love to read and might well pick up the textbook and read it on my own but when it is assigned, forget it

I would not worry about what you love/don't love but your interactions with the rest of the world. We can easily get things set up and well-imagined in our heads and hearts but if they aren't "reality" there is going to be conflict. It has taken me a great deal of time (I'm 63) but I figured out how to set up my loves and studying them for myself, getting around the assigned textbooks, over or through them if absolutely necessary (tests wholly based on them) by making things work for me instead of being dependent on what someone else wants. School is a guide, we have to learn the principals of things, the basics and that is not fun or what we imagine a subject to be like; it's like practicing scales, you have to do it or you can't play music well. Sure one has a good "ear" but we can't do it all on our own, we need to be grounded in the basics of reality first.

[imnotokayipromise]

Originally Posted by Perna

I have trouble with textbooks, only because I "have" to read them; I love to read and might well pick up the textbook and read it on my own but when it is assigned, forget it

I would not worry about what you love/don't love but your interactions with the rest of the world. We can easily get things set up and well-imagined in our heads and hearts but if they aren't "reality" there is going to be conflict. It has taken me a great deal of time (I'm 63) but I figured out how to set up my loves and studying them for myself, getting around the assigned textbooks, over or through them if absolutely necessary (tests wholly based on them) by making things work for me instead of being dependent on what someone else wants. School is a guide, we have to learn the principals of things, the basics and that is not fun or what we imagine a subject to be like; it's like practicing scales, you have to do it or you can't play music well. Sure one has a good "ear" but we can't do it all on our own, we need to be grounded in the basics of reality first.

Thank you! You definitely made some good points.

imnotokayitromise,

are you talking to anyone about this?. a councelor, someone like tha?

it sounds to me like some of your issues could be talked through and found solutions for

work load, for instance. perhaps you can be given extra time to finnish assignments. perhaps you can get extra support. perhaps you can ask your teachers for help

[imnotokayipromise]

Originally Posted by shattered sanity

imnotokayitromise,

are you talking to anyone about this?. a councelor, someone like tha?

it sounds to me like some of your issues could be talked through and found solutions for

work load, for instance. perhaps you can be given extra time to finnish assignments. perhaps you can get extra support. perhaps you can ask your teachers for help

a bit.
i'm trying to talk more about the issues i have with school. thank you for the advice!

Originally Posted by imnotokayipromise

a bit.
i'm trying to talk more about the issues i have with school. thank you for the advice!

and, have you got any advice from the people you've been talking to?

if so.. do you think you can follow it?

[blossoms]

I can relate. I have a lot of trouble motivating myself to read the required textbook readings even though I really like to read books in my spare time. I always find it pretty much impossible to read as a hobby during the semester because the forced class readings end up making me sick of it. :/

[BlueWisteria]

I feel very much the same way and I have avoided subjects that I've liked for the same reasons. School at higher levels can be so critical that it can induce a kind of learned helplessness... There isn't enough reward and there is a lot of punishment and negative feedback. Some of my hobbies were ruined because of school burn out. I haven't really been able to fix it. One course in particular I took purposely failed everyone on every assignment to prove a point, then they did some mathmagics on the marks at the end so at least some people would pass. It all felt very hostile and I had no way of really knowing the true quality of my work, even when I pressed the TAs to explain the marks they were vague and distant. I went from loving essays to hating them and not caring about school because of that. It felt like there was nothing I could do to improve, I was just a punching bag for disgruntled TAs.

What people are saying above is true, but it's easier said than done. I've always been made to care about grades and it's hard to let go of that when your entire life it's been the goal. If you can somehow switch how you feel rewarded from external (grades) to internal (judging the quality of your own work) it would make things easier I think. I haven't figured out how to do that for myself. I feel like I've been hard wired to accept what authority figures say as truth, even if I consciously know they're full of it.

From people I know who have graduated though, the grades don't mean anything compared to an excellent portfolio, resume, and networking. If what you want out of this is a paid career then don't worry about getting the top marks, worry about adding value to yourself and retaining your passion so that people will want you as a musician, music teacher, composer... or whatever it is you aspire to be.

[coleychi]

i can really relate to this. i'm an english major and i love reading. i don't think i've read anything this semester that i haven't enjoyed. but for classes, i have to do things within specific (and often ridiculous) time frames. there's a huge difference between reading a book for pleasure and savoring every word and rushing through it to make sure you have it prepared for discussion.

i don't really have advice because it's something i still struggle with. but i can definitely relate. for me, i have the (really rigid) understanding that the only way to live a successful and meaningful life is by getting a well-paying legitimate job and the only way to do that is by getting my degree. it's not fun. i've been told by numerous people-- therapists and my parents-- to slow down and take a break. i'm a perfectionist too so i'm not happy with a b or even a b+... it always has to be an a, but of course, that doesn't always happen and then i get depressed, blame myself, and my self-esteem takes a nose dive. but i've already taken a year off and i kind of want to "rip the band aid off" in hopes that i'll feel better once academia is behind me. sorry-- probably not super helpful but i can relate. i still believe i'll love reading again once the pressures of college are taken off. and i also try (sometimes, i need to work harder on this) to look for the positive. if i am assigned a book that i don't like, i try to tell myself that it'll make me a better writer because i'll know not to do x y and z... or little things like that. just looking for a faint silver lining in the situation.

[Rayan Adams]

Me too ): , The School and school routine is the worst in this world

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by imnotokayipromise

... school ruins things for me. I used to enjoy writing. School ruined that for me because it was forced upon me. I no longer enjoy writing like I used to because of school. And I'm scared that will happen with music.

For me, there wasn't much to like about school. Through junior high, high school, and the first year or so of college I learned to dislike writing assignments more and more. I was fascinated to notice, however, that a few years later I was finding things I wanted to say -- and I was enjoying both saying them as best I could, and learning to say them even better.

A few months after graduating from college I was working as a research assistant and had occasion to take a class in computer programming. To my surprise, I enjoyed the whole thing. It occurred to me that it was probably the first class I'd taken where there were no grades, no deadlines and no pressure, and I was there only because I wanted to understand the subject.

Unfortunately I have no advice for how to get from hating school and classes to enjoying them. I could probably have gotten there more easily than I actually did but I haven't a clue how, nor (perhaps more important) what else it would've cost me.

Fwiw, I once found myself thinking that there were two activities that were definitely not part of my self image: riding a motorcycle and writing a thesis. At the time I had that particular thought, I was riding home on my motorcycle after submitting my (undergraduate) thesis.

[SingDanceRunLife]

I love learning and hate school too. You get through it as long as have the end goal in mind and keep it there. Taking classes online has helped me immensely. It's so much less work and feels a lot less like school. Maybe consider doing that!