We constantly meet the need to make choices throughout life. Sometimes it is quite easy and actually meaningless: chicken or fish roll in “McDonald’s”, Lannisters or Starks in “Game of Thrones” series. But sometimes, it comes to the choice determining (no matter how pathetically it sounds) your future.
One of Myessay.us writers met such a dilemma some time ago. He decided to share thoughts about education and to discuss possibilities of both variants he had in his past: to go to the USA and to quit the university, or to stay at home and go on studying, but to lose his dream and much money that was already spend for that trip.
Direct speech follows.
Well… There were two “argumentative arguments” I remember everyone who knew about the situation tried to use when it came to the topic. Here they are.
“The Lost Year”
Like “You’ll go to the USA, drop out from the uni and lose a year of your life”.
Wait-wait-wait-wait!
Let’s get a bit deeper. What does that “lost year” word combination mean at all? Like when you are going down the street and then suddenly a year two-thousand-something falls out of you and runs away laughing upon you?
No? Then there is another example. Each time when I hear about the “lost year”, I imagine a life schedule of my collocutor. It looks quite simply: birth, studying, marriage, death. Everything is determined up to a month. Sometimes, I even think that human life cycle is not too much different from that of hamsters: eat, sleep, run in a wheel. Well, and then die.
I think, that the definition of “life plan” or “life schedule” loses its meaning once you start feeling yourself (relatively) independent. Some people understand thins once they turn 18, when supermarket cashiers sell you some beer with no problem, and people who reached their 30 do not seem that old. Others understand this when they come to a dormitory room where there are four beds and desks, and find out this small box is about to become a place where their student years will pass.
Whatever, your independent life supposes you to fill your days with events by yourself and to build your own fate without paying attention to invisible and uncertain time frames.
“USA? Well, What is About Studying?”
Using a trial and error method, I’ve figured out a perfect answer to this quite rhetorical question: it is always better to remind yourself about hanging out in the USA, then about passing the philosophy exam. We’ve already found out that life wants you to fill it with events, so you just can’t lose such possibilities.
By the way, I flew to America as a result. And yes, I dropped out. I entered another university later. I payed with my scholarship for:
1. The best summer I ever had. I was able to see Washington, to get amazed by Niagara falls, and to understand New York City to be another European town, but enlarged to immense size. Additionally, it is impossible to come back home without much new experience it your mind, and without a lot of cool photos.
2. The possibility to change the university that could only give me some grey hair and the ability to write courseworks by hand.
What’s the point? Sometimes, it is better to do what you want, and not what seems to be necessary. Such adventures usually end successfully, especially if your close people support you.
The University: to Enter or Not to Enter?
Another serious problem appears when you dreamt to develop computer games throughout your life and then you suddenly woke up after two years of studying law. Or when you entered the video game development faculty (by the way, does that one exist at all?) and then you wait for a night to come in order to start reading the Criminal Code.
Strange things can happen with your university education: it is very difficult to enter the faculty you would like to stay at from the first try. Still, many students decide to be patient and to go on visiting dull lectures for three years more. “I need that diploma! People passed through this and I will do that, too.”
Here it comes to the choice again. You can ritually burn your hated notes near the door of your dean’s office and to finish your studying spectacularly. Or you can stay together with your dean and those notes for three long years. Why? Because you are scared: your neighbor had quit his prestigious faculty and now has a band of strange bearded screamers. You can’t understand what to do next. To look for yourself? What is that “self” and where can you find it?
I offer you to get inspired with those mainstream examples of Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg who quit their universities and finally didn’t die on alcohol and drugs. If it seems to you that your choice is right and necessary… why shouldn’t you make it? Most probably, you won’t present a new iPhone, but even a slight turn off the regular direction can help you explore amazing things.
Job During and After Studies: What to Do?
Troubles often appear being connected not only to the university, but to one’s career as well. Or, If you are quite agile and unlucky: with both at a time. My first try brought me only some tears and a burning hate to office parties. And zero salary as well.
I’d ran away from that job in two weeks, and first I worried a lot because of losing a possibility. But isn’t that the way how people look for their ideal place? Shouldn’t they try and make mistakes, and then cry and burn nerves? The point is to be brave enough to make a choice. Again. In the situation like that: to quit the job you don’t like and let yourself move forward.
This all is somehow similar to a bike ride: you can hit the ground hardly and break your wheels, or you can come to a new wonderful place. For instance, a place for yourself. And what is very important: you can’t avoid falling off that bike. It is impossible to live your life without failures. But maybe, they are exactly what makes you feel that you are alive.