Failure- it is an option.
 

My recent education and my current lost direction...

I wasn't really concerned about acedemics in high school; post-secondary education wasn't something I was interested and it wasn't a financial possibility either. Besides, I was pursuing athletics and having a good time.

Well, the being an olympic caliber skier didn't pan out after a blown knee and a loss of heart. I had worked part time in various trades while I trained, so I took a coaching job and went to work in a glass shop. Unfortunately, being unedumacated as I am, I soon realized that my potential for upward mobility was somewhat limited. When I broke my thumb (Darwinian job training, but more the fault of a co-worker then mine), I decided that I should go to school.

So fall of 2002 I enroll at a local college in a business transfer program. Still working, but a full course load. I was surprised at how easy I found things. Then again, english 101, introductory economics and statistics are not the most difficult courses in the world. Nonetheless, I felt like I was wasting my time and money with those 'mickey mouse' courses. My potential future as a cubicle drone never had that much appeal anyway.

So winter semester 2003 I transfer into the Science program at the local University. Thinking Computer Science. I did some general science, did my easy calculus, some java, and some c++. Not bad, but in the big picutre I couldn't see coding for a living.

Alright, so fall 2003, I enter the first year Engineering program at the university. My marks from the college and from my previous semester were good enough to get me in. With the mortgage payment, the small business loan, etc, I didn't qualify for student loans and they wouldn't have been suffcient anyway. Which meant working full time to maintain current cost of living, a bit of overtime to pay the balance of tuition, and six classess of engineering courses. My marks were marginal after the first semester but I was pretty sure I could pull them up over the winter semester.

Well most my marks have come back and I didn't. During the first week of eng classes, we had the cliche speech "Look around you, at your classmates... they won't all be here this time next year." Yeah, sure, I thought at the time. Turns out they were right. Failure was an option that I never really acknowledged until it was a reality.

I suppose in retrospect, I could have tried to better manage my finances to take the pressure off, but short of selling my home and renting somewhere, I don't know what I should have done. And at the heart of it, I don't know if it made that big of a difference, because I was able to get in a few hours of homework when I was at work.

So here I am, employed with jobs I hate, with two years of higher education that mean nothing. I don't know how to tell my fiance, who so happens to be in Med school. Or my parents who are chock full of pride at how I'm making a life for myself, or anyone on either side of our extended families.

I've spent the last couple days in a lost drunken stupor. I'm just wondering what I should do when I wake up tomorrow morning or with my entire future.

Did you learn anything? If so, then you have acomplished more than alot of folks. Plan again, Apply new knowledge, live the failures as part of life.

Bossnass, while you did fail out, most universities allow failures to restart after a year or so off. Or at least my univerity did.

You now know what it takes, so you can try again and avoid the same mistakes.

BTW, the classic line I've heard is one of:

"Look to your left and to your right. The odds are one of you three won't be here this time next year."

"Only one of you three will graduate in 4 years".

depending on the program.

Besides, it's not the end of the world. Plenty of people go into success without college. It's more up to you than anything.

success is deemed by you and no one else.

i have no college degree.... i'm making a great salary and doing very well.

it's what you make of the rest of it that matters...

Bossnass,

BTDT.(Honest, almost exactly)

First, don't wallow in pity. Doesn't sound like you are, but just don't. Be positive.

Second, (here is the hard part), decide what you want to do with your life. You have had a fair amount of life experience, (sports, college, work) use that to decide what you want to pursue for good. Do not let the lack of a college degree influence your decision. Oh sure, you are not going to be a college professor but really, there are very few careers that absolutely require a college degree to succeed. Sounds to me that you are responsible and have been successful in your life so far - own your own home, hold down at least one job, engaged to a smart girl in med school, so just build on that. The people you know respect you and think you are smart. Don't let them down. Do the smart thing. Leverage your knowledge. Have you taken any business classes along the way? If you haven't, just get the books and read. If there's one thing engineering school does teach you, it's how to learn.

You need to have a heart-to-heart with your fiance. Tell her your situation (I bet she has some idea already) and ask for her advice. Once again, no pity, you are moving forward into the next chapter that's all.

Finally, don't think you have to decide your entire future right now. It would change anyway. Just move positively forward into the next thing. What that is is the hard part that only you can determine.

Good Luck my friend.

Man, there's a lot to your story that hits close to home for me. I've been down the engineering road before, heard the speech "look to your left and right... one of the three of you won't be back" My situation at the time was that I didn't care about being there, wasn't happy with it and didn't try, which led to me failing out of it. I was devistated at the time, especially with the thought of explaning things to my family. But hey, shit happens, as long as you learn from it and move on, life goes on. Hard to see right now being right in it, but believe me it will pass. I knew that it wasn't for me and I moved onto business where I did a great job and was much happier. I look back on that whole part of my life now with humor.

My fiance is just graduating from Med School, smart girl. I can understand how you might not know how to tell her your situation. You can be sure that she's a smart girl and that if you explain to her what happened and why, she'll be able to understand and help you out.

Things will move on from here. Don't let it get you down, sounds like you've got a lot going for ya.

Good luck

You may try going to the admissions counselor and laying out your tale of woe. Sometimes they will take pity on someone who is trying to do so many things at once and who went from having good grades to bad so quickly. Tell them you'll take fewer hours of less difficult courses and will willingly do so on probation. Consider changing your major. If you have any undergrad you have put off, offer to take those courses. If that doesn't work, go to a junior college, take classes online, find another nearby university that will let you in with your grades. Although success without a degree is certainly possible - look at Bill Gates and Cynthetiq ;)! - the number of financial success stories of those without are few and far between - don't take the gamble and don't despair! I was no student and I turned my academics around and am doing well now. I put a lot of pressure on myself to live up to my parents' expectations and that right there led to my academic demise. Once I got past that and figured out I had to go to school for myself, everything fell into place. Hang in there.

No such thing as failure, my friend.
It's all about the choices you make and the drive that gets you motivated. Find that drive- go for it. You can never fail.

Thanks for all the words folks. I don't know what I expected posting here and I apprecieate the response.

I'm not without options, but I am/was attached to my carefully laid plans for the future. I made the time to speak to an academic advisor today but I didn't learn much new or anything helpful. And so it goes. The worst part so far wasn't the advisor confirming that I was out of luck, it was having to get the point across to my girl. I loved the support and faith she had in me. It was hard to start explaining, and even harder when she just didn't understand that it wasn't something I could fix.

Anyway, it's only a matter of figuring out what my fall back plan is.

College can be tough. The adjustment from highschool to college schedules and work load can be a humdinger.

My personal college life went like this: Started freshman year 1992 with 12 credits. Got into trouble with a bad boyfriend. My parents came at Christmas and demanded I come home. They even packed up my stuff leaving me with little choice. Come Spring semester I was adamant I wouldn't go back at all. I stayed out until 1994 fall semester when I went back to college at a different school. My grades from my first semester were so poor that only 6 credits transferred. For the following 4 years of school I got D's or even an F in 4 classes, one of which I took twice. What got me through was a certainty that this degree is what I needed to do the work I wanted to do. I didn't get that certainty until I stayed out for a year. Sometimes getting a taste of college and then working in the "real" world for a while gives you the knowledge and determination that you need to get through. This is only a step on the road that you need. Time off is a good thing. I would even recommend it to my daughter when she is college age. If you are sure of what you want to do then nothing can stop you. Not even tough teachers and failed classes.

Boss that sounds just like what happened to me. I didn't go to high school to learn, I went to play sports. I made it to college because of my athletic ability. I lost a full ride to college for football my sophomore year due to injury. I left school. I got a shitty full time job. I made okay money, nothing spectacular. I decided that I didn't want to do what I was doing at the time forever (moving furniture). So I went back to school, and got a part time job. I realized then that I can't stand school and quit. I stuck with my part-time job (GNC). Eventually worked full time, and three years later, I own my own store.

Basically all I'm saying is just don't give up man. You never know were life is going to take you, and what will fall into your lap.

I suppose I can answer this question by talking about myself and my brother.

I'm graduating in August with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Besides carrying a full course load, doing research, writing a thesis, working about 25-30 hours a week, and trying to start a company. How do I get it all done? Simple- I love engineering. That probably makes me about the biggest nerd in the world, but there it is. I love this shit, what else could I do with my life?

Meanwhile, my brother graduated with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering after being in school for 6 and a half years, and has just kind of drifted along in a tech support job that he is over qualified for.

What's my point? We both pay the bills, stay out of debt, and keep ourselves in good health. In other words, we're both self-sufficient adults, despite our very different career paths. What more could matter? I don't think your fiance would be bent if you dropped out of college, or failed, as long as you figured out what you wanted to do with your life. That's all that's important.

Hey hey, I find statistics VERY difficult.

I'm 39 and still plugging away at a degree (CS), so don't give up!

Hey, shit happens, but you don't have to put it between two slices of bread and eat it. I was down in the dumps at one point, my girlfriend cheating on me on the verge of me asking her to marry me, then living back home with my parents in the sticks, making gas money on an internship that stretched for a whole year, with a two-hour commute and little hope of a permanent hire--and now I'm living on my own, in the city, with a good job and decent pay. It can't rain all the time, although it will feel like it.

You have a fiance who's graduating from med school, so build on the strength of your relationship. You own a home, so you have equity. You're gainfully employed and making enough money to meet the bills. You sound like you're still young, so you have time to continue higher education and get that degree, which I wholeheartedly recommend you do, especially for CS and Eng. Without the diploma, you won't get a foot in the door in the tech sector, no matter how well you network. People aren't willing to go out on that limb, not these days.

Don't give up. Try another advisor. Ask some friends. Build up some funds, somehow. And I wouldn't settle for technical school. Those specialized degrees are a tough sell to the hiring manager.