I was a precocious child. Always reading. never talking. Sailed through school with no problem, always the top 3 of the class.

I also had the largest pair of glasses, the worst pudding-bowl haircut, trousers up to my armpits, and about...oooh...zero friends.

Then, after crying in the toilets when I was 12 at school because i had no-one to talk to and had to spend lunchtimes in the library, I said 'fuck it'.

So, I stopped trying to show off in fron to show off in front of the class. I tried making friends. I stopped being a snob. And I stopped letting my mum buy my clothes. (I got my older sister to do it, which was much better).

And things improved. I made firends. Not shallow friends. Real friends who, after 8 years of falling out, screaming at each other, getting drunk together, i am proud to call friends. Friends who live halfd a country away who still e-mail me once a week.

Unfortunatly, there-in lies the problem. My grades went down. Not badly. I still came away with 5 A's for GCSE and B's for the other 6 subjects. But at A-level it hit me bad. partly due to not paying enough attention and not goin with my instincts, I chose chemistry and Biology. And fucked up badly.

So I didn't have a huge university choice. I chose Psychology, a subject I am interested in, and all went well for the first semester. I made friends. Not brilliant friends, but people I could talk to. And got 2:1's for my units. But then I was ill for about 4 weeks in the second semester. I missed A LOT. I thought I'd cope. But I didn't, and I now have to repeat some of the units. This means that it's hard/impossible to talk to my old uni mates. On top of that, all my old school mates are around the country. The mate I live with has no interest in doing anything else than screwing his girlfirend every night. I have just walked in. It took them half an hour to come downstairs and say hello, and the first thing that they said was 'can we go to the supermarket? I neeed some food.' He's a nice bloke, but he's happy to stay in eveynight, and do a degree he doesn't enjoy. I'm not.

So, I am tempted to actually make a decision here. I want to chuck in my degree. Take some A-levels, and go somewhere completly diffrent next year. A decent uni. With a decent social life. Away from my home. Somewhere were I can live.

I am tempted to take computer science. But par tof me is saying that it'll be too hard. Another part is saying "Do it now! While you're young". I have until the 15th to apply through UCAS. And I don't know what to do. And lacking anyone else to talk to, I turn to you. Even if you don't reply, typing this out has helped. Thankyou.

AT 26 i finally figured out what I wanted to be... You see.. I was the total opposite of you.. In high school.. I pulled straight C's .. maybe the odd B in there for good measure.. I liked to party.. had tons of friends.. 2 of which I see regularly now as an adult.. (and outta 22 of us in that high school group.. 2 isn't a huge number). I was never a snob.. however, my studies always played a back seat to my social life.
By 19 yrs old I had no direction. I did odd jobs going from sales job to sales job.. AND THAT SUCKED.

At 25, I worked for the Canadian gov't doing General services, and found myself hanging out in the Tech support dept. all the time.. and knew that that was the job for me.. The next year I went to a Private Training Institution, got my MCSE in a year.. devoted 96% of my time in getting good at this line of work (the other 4% was spent organizing my wedding - which almost didn't make it through this whole process).

I'm 30 years old now, and I've spend the last 2 years doing Network Administration and Technical Support for various companies here in the Ottawa area.. and I couldn't be happier.

I'm telling you.. This industry is unplucked and ready to be feathered... We've only scratched the surface of how big the internet is going to be!!!

YOu have my vote on the Computers Sciences career.. but go into it educated.. make sure you know what you're doing before you piss away a degree!!!

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- Alshrim Dax
The Other Dax

I am currently faced with a somewhat similar situation. I seem to have wasted one and a half years post high school so far. That is, I'm almost through with this junior college thing and I still have no idea what I'm going to do afterwards. According to the general plan, I should get my Associate of Arts degree. And then...? The usual and pretty much only reason for such a degree is to transfer to a four year school. Which I would love to do. But for what? And of course if that's what I want to do I need to send out those applications yesterday.

But perhaps I should concentrate on getting through the rest of this year first. So far, it isn't going so well, a state of affairs no doubt helped along by my current policy of leaving for class thirty minutes after the first one starts.

So, what then is left? I think, or at least I hope, that I'm finally coming to the realization that the really important thing is that I enjoy whatever it is that I'm doing.

Hell, people take degrees in their thirties. And I don't want to spend my life worrying about qualifications, or work. I want to socialise, and meet people, and end up under the table.

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*gasp* "The pictures...they're...coming...alive!"
-Abe Simpson, on the miracle of the moving image

I feel the emphasis on academic stuff is unwise though. As you have perceived, why bother with anything if you're so miserable you get no joyout of life. And you do only live once, and youth is fleeting. So yes, try something else if you thnk you can afford to.

Jeeezus Monty, is that a useless reply or what?
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"You see, unlike you I understand history!
My name will blaze across the stars long after your petty treachery has been for-gotten !!!"

Since I didn't get a degree, and I live in a poor state, where jobs are few, I make 18,000 a year. That's after working here for 13 years.

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Fool of a Took, throw yourself in next time!!
Gandalf