Your future
I don't really use this any more to post things, but I feel that this one thing must be said.
There's a lot of stress in deciding what you want to do after school. This one choice defines a lot of people's careers, so you really want to get this right. Out of personal experience, I tell you this:
Do what you love.
4 years ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was very indecisive, because I wanted to get it right. My one passion in life is video games. Yes, that does sound completely childish and mindless, but that's not the point here. It's just what I love doing. You might like books, and someone else might like decorating rooms. We're all different people.
However, my parents hate video games. They think it is a colossal waste of time, and what is driving the future generations into failure. I didn't even want to mention that I wanted to start a course on video games in university; I knew the response already.
So instead, they pushed me into architecture. Architecture, while it is a really long course, 7 years, sounded amazing on paper. Design, software, art, creativity, it just seemed like the dream. But it wasn't. It was a nightmare.
I guess you just kinda know when something isn't for you. You don't perform as well, you don't feel motivated to pursue the subject more, and find out about it. You're just doing the work, in order to get it out of the way. But this was so much more than that.
I used to be a happy person. I had a lot of interests, I liked experimenting with different media for art, I liked photography... I was motivated. But all that just slowly started fading.
In my first year, the transition from school to university standard work was a little extreme for me. In school, you could pass by producing some average work which didn't take too long to complete. However, in university (or maybe in architecture), your work has to be of a professional level. I couldn't handle it. And more importantly, it seemed so strange to me that everyone else was actually quite on top of things. It just seemed these guys knew exactly what to do. They were made for Architecture. And this was further discouraging. Even work that me and my family thought was incredible, that work would receive at most a C -. I just couldn't understand.
I didn't pass the first year. I told my parents that this wasn't for me. But they insisted that I stay on it and try again.
Over the years, struggling with this course, I kept changing for the worst. I didn't even want to talk about architecture outside of university. I've lost my interests, and had very little time to socialise. I felt more tired than ever, because I had to pull constant all-nighters in order to finish work, which was then negatively criticised. And there's that certain time in the all-nighter that is truly horrible: the "what am I doing with my life" time.
It's the time where you suddenly remember all the bad choices you've made, all the things that maybe you shouldn't have done, and the realisation that this just isn't for you. It's also the time where you start thinking that you've reached a dead end. If this course doesn't work out, then what? Where will I work, what will I do, what will happen to me. I'm going to fail, I'm going nowhere. I've honestly had these thoughts countless times. I was depressed every day, even just thinking about my future. My self esteem plummeted. It was difficult to smile at any point during the day.
Suicide didn't sound so bad. It would've been so easy. We have all sorts of tools to cut materials to make small models for Architecture. My parents wouldn't have to pay thousands for university, they wouldn't have to put up with me being depressed any more, I wouldn't have to suffer through this course. I get to write to everyone how much I appreciated them.
But in the end, I didn't. I dropped out of this course after not passing the second year, due to unfair reasons might I add. My parents felt incredibly bad for choosing this and making me lose three years of my life.
So now, I do Video Games Programming. It's been slightly more than a month, and I love it already.This is for me. The people, the modules, the teachers. All interesting.
I know people like to say this to people who are depressed or can't see any brightness in their future, but there is truth in this statement:
It gets better. Do what you love.
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