I've always thought of Yahoo Answers as a place for people who are too idle to google things themselves, but after taking this approach and finding dozens of blogs written by dropouts whining about how "it's not their fault", "everyone's a pompous asshole" and "the lecturers are all idiots" I've had to resort here.
To put it bluntly, university has been on of the worst experiences/ decisions of my life. I entered as a happy, friendly, attentive person and will soon be leaving as a bitter, dispirited empty husk with an enormous student debt and seemingly no prospects, seeing as I have had almost no work experience throughout this period. It has changed my relationship with my family for good; I left high school with exceptional grades and entered university with high hopes, and it has been one long disaster. My parents, whilst they still love me, clearly could not be more disappointed in me.
I'll try to stay as far away from the blame game as much as I can, but in a way it all started with a girl i hooked up with in the first term. I let this girl monopolise all of my time for the first six months or so, before we broke up as a result of infidelity on her part and the realisation that I had made almost no close friends at that point. I just put this info in to give the background that by my third year most of the people I associate with on a daily basis are more necessary acquaintances then friends, and as a result any sign of a valuable social life at university is non-existent.
For the last two years I have been studying history in the UK, a degree which effectively has two avenues- teaching/ academic work, or going into the public sector (admittedly a rather low ambition, but whatever I saw it more as pragmatic). Anyone remotely aware of the current crisis in the UK's economy will know that the public sector is being cut by the government like it's nobodies business- so that is pretty much out. As for teaching… I'd rather not go there (no offence to anyone in this field). On the other hand, I'm well aware that the degree you do may have nothing to do with your final occupation (my dad left university with a degree in archeology and has worked in marketing for the last 30 years), so it's not totally all doom and gloom.
Compounding this, my marks have been almost consistently average, and this morning I received a letter from the university to say that I am being accused of plagiarism and will be attending a hearing in a week. Whilst this doesn't necessarily mean that I am about to be expelled, (there are 'similarity indexes' on a few of the essays I have handed in during my time here of between 10% and 25%, make of that what you will), this is by no means inconceivable. If this happens not only will I have 2 years of student debt, but also nothing to show for it and potentially a permanent mark on my record (I have yet to find out whether this is possible). At the end of the day it will all depend on how well I can defend myself against these accusations.
This post has kind of turned into something better suited for a blog, but basically I was wondering if anyone with any insight, or who experienced something similar to this has any ideally specific advice for my predicament or better yet could tell me how a similar experience worked out for them?
Thanks
To put it bluntly, university has been on of the worst experiences/ decisions of my life. I entered as a happy, friendly, attentive person and will soon be leaving as a bitter, dispirited empty husk with an enormous student debt and seemingly no prospects, seeing as I have had almost no work experience throughout this period. It has changed my relationship with my family for good; I left high school with exceptional grades and entered university with high hopes, and it has been one long disaster. My parents, whilst they still love me, clearly could not be more disappointed in me.
I'll try to stay as far away from the blame game as much as I can, but in a way it all started with a girl i hooked up with in the first term. I let this girl monopolise all of my time for the first six months or so, before we broke up as a result of infidelity on her part and the realisation that I had made almost no close friends at that point. I just put this info in to give the background that by my third year most of the people I associate with on a daily basis are more necessary acquaintances then friends, and as a result any sign of a valuable social life at university is non-existent.
For the last two years I have been studying history in the UK, a degree which effectively has two avenues- teaching/ academic work, or going into the public sector (admittedly a rather low ambition, but whatever I saw it more as pragmatic). Anyone remotely aware of the current crisis in the UK's economy will know that the public sector is being cut by the government like it's nobodies business- so that is pretty much out. As for teaching… I'd rather not go there (no offence to anyone in this field). On the other hand, I'm well aware that the degree you do may have nothing to do with your final occupation (my dad left university with a degree in archeology and has worked in marketing for the last 30 years), so it's not totally all doom and gloom.
Compounding this, my marks have been almost consistently average, and this morning I received a letter from the university to say that I am being accused of plagiarism and will be attending a hearing in a week. Whilst this doesn't necessarily mean that I am about to be expelled, (there are 'similarity indexes' on a few of the essays I have handed in during my time here of between 10% and 25%, make of that what you will), this is by no means inconceivable. If this happens not only will I have 2 years of student debt, but also nothing to show for it and potentially a permanent mark on my record (I have yet to find out whether this is possible). At the end of the day it will all depend on how well I can defend myself against these accusations.
This post has kind of turned into something better suited for a blog, but basically I was wondering if anyone with any insight, or who experienced something similar to this has any ideally specific advice for my predicament or better yet could tell me how a similar experience worked out for them?
Thanks