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What I learnt spending 5 years at uni: a tale of wasted time and feared responsibilities

Anything related to matters of the mind
D

Deleted78083

Guest
As I'm about to graduate (for good) after I spent 5 years at university, here's what I learnt.

I had just turned 21 when I entered the university of Rotterdam. At the time, I had had some minor jobs as an actor and hoped to pursue this path full time. After all, acting corresponded to all the things I wanted in life: easy fame and easy money. It was a bad start. So instead of going into acting school and face the risk to be rejected at the entrance exam, I action-faked my way into useless communication studies thinking "oH, iF I StUdY cOmMuNiCaTiOn AnD mEdIa, I cOuLd StiLl WoRk iN a MoViE PrOdUcTioN cOmPanY, rIgHt?" Yeah, I could have also studied civil engineering and work in a movie production company.... Deep down, I knew I wanted to study in English (I'm not a native speaker) and that I didn't want to stay in Belgium. I also didn't want to face again this level of difficulty I had faced studying economic sciences for 1 year in Belgium. So, I went for the easy path: communication in the Netherlands.

1st year:
Quickly, I became frustrated with everything around me and felt this was a huge mistake and I should maybe quit. Too afraid to take this decision myself, I texted my older brother who told me "don't quit", so I didn't. I made friend with one German girl of my age because I had seen her sitting alone in the auditorium and thought she couldn't possibly reject me like I had rejected my other classmates (that, from my arrogant point of view, I found childish and uninteresting). And so she became my only friend.

University in the Netherlands ended up being much different from university in Belgium. While in Belgium, university was about 30 hours of courses per week followed by a "blocking period" during which students study memorize books for 12 hours a day every day for 5 weeks only to fail anyway, the Dutch had a chilling 15 hours workweek which soon decreased to 9 hours per week. Exams were divided into 4 periods which helped decrease the workload. Since we had about 3 courses per period, there wasn't much to do. Too lazy and scarred to find a job, I managed to survive with the money I received and the eventual acting jobs I'd get back to Brussels. The idea of going somewhere to drop my resume terrorized me. The Dutch accent was so different from the Flemish one that I didn't bother leaning the language (that I had learnt at school for four years and could already speak).

Since there was nothing to learn at school and nothing to do besides a couple of assignments (limited in their wordings), I grew even more frustrated and started sharing the daily joint my roommates were smoking. Quickly, I started smoking everyday. This did not help with the anxiety of my self-inflicted purposeless situation, and I soon completely cut myself from any person that wasn't smoking weed as well.
I passed all of the exams without studying and got a mediocre note. I got 1/20 for my SPSS exam because I had smoked so much that I couldn't remember a damn thing. The year ended.

2nd year:
The second year started off better since I had managed to secure a job at a local restaurant on campus. Then I got fired after two weeks because I was rude with clients, was I told. I don't know if it was true (certainly was, but it wasn't on purpose), but I certainly sucked balls at my job (I was a waiter) and was adding stress to the team because of my inability to learn quickly and work efficiently. Luckily, I got a second job as a French teacher in an association. They weren't paying much, but it at least gave me a reason to feel useful on earth: I made people more knowledgeable. This must have been the best job I have ever had (outside of acting). I quit smoking weed when I got a break down and was told at the hospital that I should "see someone". I did, and long story short, it changed my life.

3rd year:
In the third year, I went on exchange to one of the best universities in France. There were political science courses and I ended up liking them very much. I worked my a$$ off and passed all the courses with great marks. It was nice to see that I was as able as the French elite students in understanding the courses and writing assignments. "If I had known, I thought, I would have applied to this school". But no one had told me and to be fair, I hadn't researched anything either. When I made my choice to go to Rotterdam, all I wanted was to get out of Belgium.

Coming back after this semester in France, I felt much better. I started studying seriously and my grades went up, I was proud of myself. There still was this episode when, at the end of the year, I burst into tears in my mum's car because I felt that after three years, I had learnt nothing. I was really interested in politics and economics and was reading about it in the newspaper since I was young, but I thought they were too hard for me to understand at university and I was afraid I would never be taken seriously if I didn't hold a diploma in those fields. Communication, sadly, didn't really lead to these topics. More than being knowledgeable, I wanted the recognition that I was knowledgeable. I knew I needed to do something and I knew I wanted to leave the Netherlands. I had more bad than good memories and I probably knew deep down that the sad and pathetic life I had led there was a direct consequence of my actions.

4th year:
I moved to Brussels and entered a master in management, otherwise called business economics. Since I had no background, I had to pass through a pre-program to access the main program and chose to do both at the same time. I passed the equivalent of one year and a half in one year, minus the thesis that I completed later on. Meanwhile, I had finally become financially (almost) independent because I had taken a job at my brother's company. It was really hard at the beginning, but I eventually made it work. That year in Brussels was one of the best of my life, I had a job, friends, interesting studies, I had understood how Tinder worked and was getting lots of dates, something that had caused me great difficulties in the past but that eventually led to a texting udemy course (which sold to 1 person, and that made me very proud). I had a kickass appartment in the center of the city and the best roommate I had ever had. Since classes weren't mandatory and that I had enough money, I had decided to skip the last two months of class and relocated to Colombia to learn Spanish.

Needless to say my life was amazing, I had a job that paid good and that I liked, I could study and hang out with people. And so, I extended it. Why slaving myself in a slowlane if I could be a free and happy student? So I got into this second master in political science. But it wasn't the same thing anymore. The thrill and the adventure were gone. I was bored in class because I knew most of what we were taught. There weren't much challenges to take.

Around October 2019, I freaked out about September 2020. I started applying to all jobs I could find. I eventually managed to get two interviews to work in consultancy in finance and banking. It was around that time that I was reading Unscripted . As I was passing the interview levels, I was feeling more and more ill-at-ease at the idea of "wearing a suit", having to "work" and worse, getting a company car. These fancy offices were for adults, I thought. The silence, the cleanliness, the elegant people working there...that wasn't me, I was (and am) just a student. Becoming like the people that were interviewing me started to scare the sh*t out of me. Worse, they required a real emotional commitment to their company, which I identified as being cult practices. In order not to make the interview a complete waste of time, I acquired info about how the founder had originally built the business. I learnt the compant was created in the beginning of year 2000's and that they had overall more than 900 employees in three countries. For a fastlane, that was bloody fast. The fear of being jobless in September 2020 had been replaced by the fear of actually getting a job in September 2020. When would I go to the gym, I thought, how would I have time to do my own thing if I had to dedicate myself to other people's work and make a commitment to the team, pretending I liked my colleagues, I was motivated, and that I had fun? I was wayyyyy too selfish to do that and was thinking about what I had read in TMF : the slowlane is a trap. So at the fourth or fifth interview (there were 7 or 8 steps) I called both companies and told them I was withdrawing from the interview process. Then COVID came and brought with it the recession. And so I thought that a third master wouldn't be a bad idea even though deep down, I knew I was exaggerating. But I asked what the fastlane (you guys) thought about it an was politely made aware that I was a huuuuuge consumer (of knowledge) and that it was time to become a producer instead.

As I'm about to leave university for good, here's what these five years taught me:

1. What a waste of time:
Had I studied engineering, math, physics or finance, maybe I wouldn't have said this, but communication was a real f*cking waste of time. These studies should be forbidden because it is a mass unemployment production machine. There is this gold thread where the author learnt how to code in about two years, with a lot of dedication and hard work. Now, that's real education. I have read some days ago about a 19-year old on the forum that had decided to skip uni and take a the path of entrepreneurship. That's great, it is usually online and it goes much faster if you do it yourself than in a classroom.

2. What should education be:
Education should be one's learning to resolve problems with a particular set of kills, to quote Liam Neeson. This master in management did teach me some finance and some accounting, which is always nice to have, but that is all i learnt in five years. Fortunately in between, I did get some minor jobs as shop seller, dishwasher, French teacher etc. I also worked a bit as a research assistant. That's always nice to have, but it is nothing compared to 5 years of real experience or better, 5 years building a business.

3. One should take responsibility for himself
I have never wanted to take responsibility for myself because I was really scarred of it and it also gave me someone else to blame if I things went awry. The decisions I've taken in my life myself and for myself without consulting/taking others into consideration can be counted on one hand's fingers. As I'm about to enter "real life" where i'll have to take care of myself 100%, I'm scarred as I have ever been. I don't feel prepared nor resourceful enough to actually do this. Instead of taking the chance to be at uni to learn about real life, I dived into it and positioned myself to be as comfy as possible. So comfy in fact, that now don't want to get out.

4. What I'm going to do
I need a giant slap in my face because I live in a fake magical world where everything is easy. So I'm considering moving out of Brussels and into the Flemish part of Belgium to learn Dutch once and for all, which will add a fourth language to my skillset and is always highly sought in Belgium. Since I don't speak it well, I hope I'll manage to get a job where I won't need it too much to get things done at the beginning, so it will probably be an HORECA job such as cleaning or McDonalds. Then once I get a job and can pay my rent, I'd like to build a second udemy course taking into consideration what I've learnt building the first one, and create a consulting company out of it so that I can be mobile and independent. Then I want to build a fastlane business because I'll never feel good about myself if I don't refund my parents all the money they spent on useless education (about 60 000€).

I won't hide that I feel like I'm about to climb an enormous mountain, and have a lot of doubts about whether I'll find a path to climb it, and about my condition to do so. I have two masters and speak three languages (and a half) and they don't serve me much to add value in society. But if there is one thing I've learnt on this forum, is that he who does not take any responsibility, goes nowhere. It's time to leave this fantasy world and get to work. It's time to stop consuming and produce. God, it's gonna hurt. But it is the only path forward. It's time to grow up.
 
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Kevin88660

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As I'm about to graduate (for good) after I spent 5 years at university, here's what I learnt.

I had just turned 21 when I entered the university of Rotterdam. At the time, I had had some minor jobs as an actor and hoped to pursue this path full time. After all, acting corresponded to all the things I wanted in life: easy fame and easy money. It was a bad start. So instead of going into acting school and face the risk to be rejected at the entrance exam, I action-faked my way into useless communication studies thinking "oH, iF I StUdY cOmMuNiCaTiOn AnD mEdIa, I cOuLd StiLl WoRk iN a MoViE PrOdUcTioN cOmPanY, rIgHt?" Yeah, I could have also studied civil engineering and work in a movie production company.... Deep down, I knew I wanted to study in English (I'm not a native speaker) and that I didn't want to stay in Belgium. I also didn't want to face again this level of difficulty I had faced studying economic sciences for 1 year in Belgium. So, I went for the easy path: communication in the Netherlands.

1st year:
Quickly, I became frustrated with everything around me and felt this was a huge mistake and I should maybe quit. Too afraid to take this decision myself, I texted my older brother who told me "don't quit", so I didn't. I made friend with one German girl of my age because I had seen her sitting alone in the auditorium and thought she couldn't possibly reject me like I had rejected my other classmates (that, from my arrogant point of view, I found childish and uninteresting). And so she became my only friend.

University in the Netherlands ended up being much different from university in Belgium. While in Belgium, university was about 30 hours of courses per week followed by a "blocking period" during which students study memorize books for 12 hours a day every day for 5 weeks only to fail anyway, the Dutch had a chilling 15 hours workweek which soon decreased to 9 hours per week. Exams were divided into 4 periods which helped decrease the workload. Since we had about 3 courses per period, there wasn't much to do. Too lazy and scarred to find a job, I managed to survive with the money I received and the eventual acting jobs I'd get back to Brussels. The idea of going somewhere to drop my resume terrorized me. The Dutch accent was so different from the Flemish one that I didn't bother leaning the language (that I had learnt at school for four years and could already speak).

Since there was nothing to learn at school and nothing to do besides a couple of assignments (limited in their wordings), I grew even more frustrated and started sharing the daily joint my roommates were smoking. Quickly, I started smoking everyday. This did not help with the anxiety of my self-inflicted purposeless situation, and I soon completely cut myself from any person that wasn't smoking weed as well.
I passed all of the exams without studying and got a mediocre note. I got 1/20 for my SPSS exam because I had smoked so much that I couldn't remember a damn thing. The year ended.

2nd year:
The second year started off better since I had managed to secure a job at a local restaurant on campus. Then I got fired after two weeks because I was rude with clients, was I told. I don't know if it was true (certainly was, but it wasn't on purpose), but I certainly sucked balls at my job (I was a waiter) and was adding stress to the team because of my inability to learn quickly and work efficiently. Luckily, I got a second job as a French teacher in an association. They weren't paying much, but it at least gave me a reason to feel useful on earth: I made people more knowledgeable. This must have been the best job I have ever had (outside of acting). I quit smoking weed when I got a break down and was told at the hospital that I should "see someone". I did, and long story short, it changed my life.

3rd year:
In the third year, I went on exchange to one of the best universities in France. There were political science courses and I ended up liking them very much. I worked my a$$ off and passed all the courses with great marks. It was nice to see that I was as able as the French elite students in understanding the courses and writing assignments. "If I had known, I thought, I would have applied to this school". But no one had told me and to be fair, I hadn't researched anything either. When I made my choice to go to Rotterdam, all I wanted was to get out of Belgium.

Coming back after this semester in France, I felt much better. I started studying seriously and my grades went up, I was proud of myself. There still was this episode when, at the end of the year, I burst into tears in my mum's car because I felt that after three years, I had learnt nothing. I was really interested in politics and economics and was reading about it in the newspaper since I was young, but I thought they were too hard for me to understand at university and I was afraid I would never be taken seriously if I didn't hold a diploma in those fields. Communication, sadly, didn't really lead to these topics. More than being knowledgeable, I wanted the recognition that I was knowledgeable. I knew I needed to do something and I knew I wanted to leave the Netherlands. I had more bad than good memories and I probably knew deep down that the sad and pathetic life I had led there was a direct consequence of my actions.

4th year:
I moved to Brussels and entered a master in management, otherwise called business economics. Since I had no background, I had to pass through a pre-program to access the main program and chose to do both at the same time. I passed the equivalent of one year and a half in one year, minus the thesis that I completed later on. Meanwhile, I had finally become financially (almost) independent because I had taken a job at my brother's company. It was really hard at the beginning, but I eventually made it work. That year in Brussels was one of the best of my life, I had a job, friends, interesting studies, I had understood how Tinder worked and was getting lots of dates, something that had caused me great difficulties in the past but that eventually led to a texting udemy course (which sold to 1 person, and that made me very proud). I had a kickass appartment in the center of the city and the best roommate I had ever had. Since classes weren't mandatory and that I had enough money, I had decided to skip the last two months of class and relocated to Colombia to learn Spanish.

Needless to say my life was amazing, I had a job that paid good and that I liked, I could study and hang out with people. And so, I extended it. Why slaving myself in a slowlane if I could be a free and happy student? So I got into this second master in political science. But it wasn't the same thing anymore. The thrill and the adventure were gone. I was bored in class because I knew most of what we were taught. There weren't much challenges to take.

Around October 2019, I freaked out about September 2020. I started applying to all jobs I could find. I eventually managed to get two interviews to work in consultancy in finance and banking. It was around that time that I was reading Unscripted . As I was passing the interview levels, I was feeling more and more ill-at-ease at the idea of "wearing a suit", having to "work" and worse, getting a company car. These fancy offices were for adults, I thought. The silence, the cleanliness, the elegant people working there...that wasn't me, I was (and am) just a student. Becoming like the people that were interviewing me started to scare the sh*t out of me. Worse, they required a real emotional commitment to their company, which I identified as being cult practices. In order not to make the interview a complete waste of time, I acquired info about how the founder had originally built the business. I learnt the compant was created in the beginning of year 2000's and that they had overall more than 900 employees in three countries. For a fastlane, that was bloody fast. The fear of being jobless in September 2020 had been replaced by the fear of actually getting a job in September 2020. When would I go to the gym, I thought, how would I have time to do my own thing if I had to dedicate myself to other people's work and make a commitment to the team, pretending I liked my colleagues, I was motivated, and that I had fun? I was wayyyyy too selfish to do that and was thinking about what I had read in TMF : the slowlane is a trap. So at the fourth or fifth interview (there were 7 or 8 steps) I called both companies and told them I was withdrawing from the interview process. Then COVID came and brought with it the recession. And so I thought that a third master wouldn't be a bad idea even though deep down, I knew I was exaggerating. But I asked what the fastlane (you guys) thought about it an was politely made aware that I was a huuuuuge consumer (of knowledge) and that it was time to become a producer instead.

As I'm about to leave university for good, here's what these five years taught me:

1. What a waste of time:
Had I studied engineering, math, physics or finance, maybe I wouldn't have said this, but communication was a real f*cking waste of time. These studies should be forbidden because it is a mass unemployment production machine. There is this gold thread where the author learnt how to code in about two years, with a lot of dedication and hard work. Now, that's real education. I have read some days ago about a 19-year old on the forum that had decided to skip uni and take a the path of entrepreneurship. That's great, it is usually online and it goes much faster if you do it yourself than in a classroom.

2. What should education be:
Education should be one's learning to resolve problems with a particular set of kills, to quote Liam Neeson. This master in management did teach me some finance and some accounting, which is always nice to have, but that is all i learnt in five years. Fortunately in between, I did get some minor jobs as shop seller, dishwasher, French teacher etc. I also worked a bit as a research assistant. That's always nice to have, but it is nothing compared to 5 years of real experience or better, 5 years building a business.

3. One should take responsibility for himself
I have never wanted to take responsibility for myself because I was really scarred of it and it also gave me someone else to blame if I things went awry. The decisions I've taken in my life myself and for myself without consulting/taking others into consideration can be counted on one hand's fingers. As I'm about to enter "real life" where i'll have to take care of myself 100%, I'm scarred as I have ever been. I don't feel prepared nor resourceful enough to actually do this. Instead of taking the chance to be at uni to learn about real life, I dived into it and positioned myself to be as comfy as possible. So comfy in fact, that now don't want to get out.

4. What I'm going to do
I need a giant slap in my face because I live in a fake magical world where everything is easy. So I'm considering moving out of Brussels and into the Flemish part of Belgium to learn Dutch once and for all, which will add a fourth language to my skillset and is always highly sought in Belgium. Since I don't speak it well, I hope I'll manage to get a job where I won't need it too much to get things done at the beginning, so it will probably be an HORECA job such as cleaning or McDonalds. Then once I get a job and can pay my rent, I'd like to build a second udemy course taking into consideration what I've learnt building the first one, and create a consulting company out of it so that I can be mobile and independent. Then I want to build a fastlane business because I'll never feel good about myself if I don't refund my parents all the money they spent on useless education (about 60 000€).

I won't hide that I feel like I'm about to climb an enormous mountain, and have a lot of doubts about whether I'll find a path to climb it, and about my condition to do so. I have two masters and speak three languages (and a half) and they don't serve me much to add value in society. But if there is one thing I've learnt on this forum, is that he who does not take any responsibility, goes nowhere. It's time to leave this fantasy world and get to work. It's time to stop consuming and produce. God, it's gonna hurt. But it is the only path forward. It's time to grow up.
People will always gravitate towards what they like to do and it is a comfortable zone. Probably in a few years you will have another master and learnt one more language but that is probably not what you want.

The general truth is working for someone is harder than schooling, and doing a business is harder than working for someone. If you decide to pick the hardest, which can be more rewarding in the long term, it is good to have a crisis mentality now to get panic a bit now and start with action, or you probably will hate yourself two years later again for wasting time.

I am against you moving another city to get “independent”. If you have good support and family financial backing you could start the game easier and not waste it. It is a double edged sword. You just need to be the person pushing yourself.

My view is to do research and picking an industry now, in conjunction with your own skill and resources. An industry that has stable demand and will not be killed totally by technology in the next 30 years. Then you can look at specific niche and Need within the industry. Because it takes years of work to build your barrier in the sector it is good to research about this...You do not want to regret years later.

Examples to consider

-Funeral and Eldercare (Aging population and good margin)
-Wedding (Good margin. Its seems that traditional value is enduring. People are willing to spend big on once a lifetime event), and is unlikely to change Anytime soon.)
-Internet Media ( a trend that is replacing traditional TV and newspaper)
-Education (learn a Practical skill or teach people how to pass standardized exam)
-Property and Insurance (main financial assets for the middle class, I don’t think it will change and there is nothing to replace their sheer size) As long as population and income per capital grows incrementally, the whole market grows.

Personally I do not want to
-provide service to drivers..Human drivers will probably be a lot less soon with automated driving

-highly cyclical business like cryptocurrency. In addition there could be future regulatory risk to just declare them as illegal.

-Things are good to have but not that necessary. Example teaching piano, sports And chess in The education sector ...instead of more necessary needs like passing a mandatory exams (GMAT/SAT), computer literacy courses for old people, or languages and learning coding for people looking for career switch. And people do not do what they should do they do what they have to do....teaching them contents that help them pass exams, solve daily problems and get a job to pay bills will always be a easier sell than teaching a fat person to lose weight Or general “Self-help” related education themes.
 

ZF Lee

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As I'm about to graduate (for good) after I spent 5 years at university, here's what I learnt.

I had just turned 21 when I entered the university of Rotterdam. At the time, I had had some minor jobs as an actor and hoped to pursue this path full time. After all, acting corresponded to all the things I wanted in life: easy fame and easy money. It was a bad start. So instead of going into acting school and face the risk to be rejected at the entrance exam, I action-faked my way into useless communication studies thinking "oH, iF I StUdY cOmMuNiCaTiOn AnD mEdIa, I cOuLd StiLl WoRk iN a MoViE PrOdUcTioN cOmPanY, rIgHt?" Yeah, I could have also studied civil engineering and work in a movie production company.... Deep down, I knew I wanted to study in English (I'm not a native speaker) and that I didn't want to stay in Belgium. I also didn't want to face again this level of difficulty I had faced studying economic sciences for 1 year in Belgium. So, I went for the easy path: communication in the Netherlands.

1st year:
Quickly, I became frustrated with everything around me and felt this was a huge mistake and I should maybe quit. Too afraid to take this decision myself, I texted my older brother who told me "don't quit", so I didn't. I made friend with one German girl of my age because I had seen her sitting alone in the auditorium and thought she couldn't possibly reject me like I had rejected my other classmates (that, from my arrogant point of view, I found childish and uninteresting). And so she became my only friend.

University in the Netherlands ended up being much different from university in Belgium. While in Belgium, university was about 30 hours of courses per week followed by a "blocking period" during which students study memorize books for 12 hours a day every day for 5 weeks only to fail anyway, the Dutch had a chilling 15 hours workweek which soon decreased to 9 hours per week. Exams were divided into 4 periods which helped decrease the workload. Since we had about 3 courses per period, there wasn't much to do. Too lazy and scarred to find a job, I managed to survive with the money I received and the eventual acting jobs I'd get back to Brussels. The idea of going somewhere to drop my resume terrorized me. The Dutch accent was so different from the Flemish one that I didn't bother leaning the language (that I had learnt at school for four years and could already speak).

Since there was nothing to learn at school and nothing to do besides a couple of assignments (limited in their wordings), I grew even more frustrated and started sharing the daily joint my roommates were smoking. Quickly, I started smoking everyday. This did not help with the anxiety of my self-inflicted purposeless situation, and I soon completely cut myself from any person that wasn't smoking weed as well.
I passed all of the exams without studying and got a mediocre note. I got 1/20 for my SPSS exam because I had smoked so much that I couldn't remember a damn thing. The year ended.

2nd year:
The second year started off better since I had managed to secure a job at a local restaurant on campus. Then I got fired after two weeks because I was rude with clients, was I told. I don't know if it was true (certainly was, but it wasn't on purpose), but I certainly sucked balls at my job (I was a waiter) and was adding stress to the team because of my inability to learn quickly and work efficiently. Luckily, I got a second job as a French teacher in an association. They weren't paying much, but it at least gave me a reason to feel useful on earth: I made people more knowledgeable. This must have been the best job I have ever had (outside of acting). I quit smoking weed when I got a break down and was told at the hospital that I should "see someone". I did, and long story short, it changed my life.

3rd year:
In the third year, I went on exchange to one of the best universities in France. There were political science courses and I ended up liking them very much. I worked my a$$ off and passed all the courses with great marks. It was nice to see that I was as able as the French elite students in understanding the courses and writing assignments. "If I had known, I thought, I would have applied to this school". But no one had told me and to be fair, I hadn't researched anything either. When I made my choice to go to Rotterdam, all I wanted was to get out of Belgium.

Coming back after this semester in France, I felt much better. I started studying seriously and my grades went up, I was proud of myself. There still was this episode when, at the end of the year, I burst into tears in my mum's car because I felt that after three years, I had learnt nothing. I was really interested in politics and economics and was reading about it in the newspaper since I was young, but I thought they were too hard for me to understand at university and I was afraid I would never be taken seriously if I didn't hold a diploma in those fields. Communication, sadly, didn't really lead to these topics. More than being knowledgeable, I wanted the recognition that I was knowledgeable. I knew I needed to do something and I knew I wanted to leave the Netherlands. I had more bad than good memories and I probably knew deep down that the sad and pathetic life I had led there was a direct consequence of my actions.

4th year:
I moved to Brussels and entered a master in management, otherwise called business economics. Since I had no background, I had to pass through a pre-program to access the main program and chose to do both at the same time. I passed the equivalent of one year and a half in one year, minus the thesis that I completed later on. Meanwhile, I had finally become financially (almost) independent because I had taken a job at my brother's company. It was really hard at the beginning, but I eventually made it work. That year in Brussels was one of the best of my life, I had a job, friends, interesting studies, I had understood how Tinder worked and was getting lots of dates, something that had caused me great difficulties in the past but that eventually led to a texting udemy course (which sold to 1 person, and that made me very proud). I had a kickass appartment in the center of the city and the best roommate I had ever had. Since classes weren't mandatory and that I had enough money, I had decided to skip the last two months of class and relocated to Colombia to learn Spanish.

Needless to say my life was amazing, I had a job that paid good and that I liked, I could study and hang out with people. And so, I extended it. Why slaving myself in a slowlane if I could be a free and happy student? So I got into this second master in political science. But it wasn't the same thing anymore. The thrill and the adventure were gone. I was bored in class because I knew most of what we were taught. There weren't much challenges to take.

Around October 2019, I freaked out about September 2020. I started applying to all jobs I could find. I eventually managed to get two interviews to work in consultancy in finance and banking. It was around that time that I was reading Unscripted . As I was passing the interview levels, I was feeling more and more ill-at-ease at the idea of "wearing a suit", having to "work" and worse, getting a company car. These fancy offices were for adults, I thought. The silence, the cleanliness, the elegant people working there...that wasn't me, I was (and am) just a student. Becoming like the people that were interviewing me started to scare the sh*t out of me. Worse, they required a real emotional commitment to their company, which I identified as being cult practices. In order not to make the interview a complete waste of time, I acquired info about how the founder had originally built the business. I learnt the compant was created in the beginning of year 2000's and that they had overall more than 900 employees in three countries. For a fastlane, that was bloody fast. The fear of being jobless in September 2020 had been replaced by the fear of actually getting a job in September 2020. When would I go to the gym, I thought, how would I have time to do my own thing if I had to dedicate myself to other people's work and make a commitment to the team, pretending I liked my colleagues, I was motivated, and that I had fun? I was wayyyyy too selfish to do that and was thinking about what I had read in TMF : the slowlane is a trap. So at the fourth or fifth interview (there were 7 or 8 steps) I called both companies and told them I was withdrawing from the interview process. Then COVID came and brought with it the recession. And so I thought that a third master wouldn't be a bad idea even though deep down, I knew I was exaggerating. But I asked what the fastlane (you guys) thought about it an was politely made aware that I was a huuuuuge consumer (of knowledge) and that it was time to become a producer instead.

As I'm about to leave university for good, here's what these five years taught me:

1. What a waste of time:
Had I studied engineering, math, physics or finance, maybe I wouldn't have said this, but communication was a real f*cking waste of time. These studies should be forbidden because it is a mass unemployment production machine. There is this gold thread where the author learnt how to code in about two years, with a lot of dedication and hard work. Now, that's real education. I have read some days ago about a 19-year old on the forum that had decided to skip uni and take a the path of entrepreneurship. That's great, it is usually online and it goes much faster if you do it yourself than in a classroom.

2. What should education be:
Education should be one's learning to resolve problems with a particular set of kills, to quote Liam Neeson. This master in management did teach me some finance and some accounting, which is always nice to have, but that is all i learnt in five years. Fortunately in between, I did get some minor jobs as shop seller, dishwasher, French teacher etc. I also worked a bit as a research assistant. That's always nice to have, but it is nothing compared to 5 years of real experience or better, 5 years building a business.

3. One should take responsibility for himself
I have never wanted to take responsibility for myself because I was really scarred of it and it also gave me someone else to blame if I things went awry. The decisions I've taken in my life myself and for myself without consulting/taking others into consideration can be counted on one hand's fingers. As I'm about to enter "real life" where i'll have to take care of myself 100%, I'm scarred as I have ever been. I don't feel prepared nor resourceful enough to actually do this. Instead of taking the chance to be at uni to learn about real life, I dived into it and positioned myself to be as comfy as possible. So comfy in fact, that now don't want to get out.

4. What I'm going to do
I need a giant slap in my face because I live in a fake magical world where everything is easy. So I'm considering moving out of Brussels and into the Flemish part of Belgium to learn Dutch once and for all, which will add a fourth language to my skillset and is always highly sought in Belgium. Since I don't speak it well, I hope I'll manage to get a job where I won't need it too much to get things done at the beginning, so it will probably be an HORECA job such as cleaning or McDonalds. Then once I get a job and can pay my rent, I'd like to build a second udemy course taking into consideration what I've learnt building the first one, and create a consulting company out of it so that I can be mobile and independent. Then I want to build a fastlane business because I'll never feel good about myself if I don't refund my parents all the money they spent on useless education (about 60 000€).

I won't hide that I feel like I'm about to climb an enormous mountain, and have a lot of doubts about whether I'll find a path to climb it, and about my condition to do so. I have two masters and speak three languages (and a half) and they don't serve me much to add value in society. But if there is one thing I've learnt on this forum, is that he who does not take any responsibility, goes nowhere. It's time to leave this fantasy world and get to work. It's time to stop consuming and produce. God, it's gonna hurt. But it is the only path forward. It's time to grow up.
Woah, thanks for the long sharing!
Really appreciate your honesty and the effort you took to go through those days.

3rd year:
In the third year, I went on exchange to one of the best universities in France. There were political science courses and I ended up liking them very much. I worked my a$$ off and passed all the courses with great marks. It was nice to see that I was as able as the French elite students in understanding the courses and writing assignments. "If I had known, I thought, I would have applied to this school". But no one had told me and to be fair, I hadn't researched anything either. When I made my choice to go to Rotterdam, all I wanted was to get out of Belgium.

Coming back after this semester in France, I felt much better. I started studying seriously and my grades went up, I was proud of myself.
The environment for studying (or entrepreneurship) REALLY is important.
And also the people, teachers and friends we meet.
If I didn't have a kick-a$$ lecture for my Intro to Statistics unit in my first year, I might have not taken Business Analytics as a major at all.

He taught me Forecasting much later, at a time when I was considering dropping out of university, as Biz Analytics was getting tougher and tougher, with the other units taught by other lecturers getting more indifferent.

Instead of boring me with shitty statistics theorum regurgitation, he told sharp and snappy stories about data, and how it could help improve decisions. Even navigated me through R programming, with a lot of in-class demos.

The same teacher went on to advise me to take a second major- Finance- as a single major in Business Analytics would leave me with empty, context-less data knowledge to use.

Didn't know much about Finance at that time, but I took it, and it was a decent decision- even though much of the financial markets are in reality, fluff.

1. What a waste of time:
Had I studied engineering, math, physics or finance, maybe I wouldn't have said this, but communication was a real f*cking waste of time. These studies should be forbidden because it is a mass unemployment production machine. There is this gold thread where the author learnt how to code in about two years, with a lot of dedication and hard work. Now, that's real education. I have read some days ago about a 19-year old on the forum that had decided to skip uni and take a the path of entrepreneurship. That's great, it is usually online and it goes much faster if you do it yourself than in a classroom.
Yeah...not sure why communications as a degree came about.
I look at the folks working with traditional TV, radio and the Internet, and I've never heard of Communications as a totally compulsory degree.

I am currently taking Finance and Business Analytics, and even though I am stuck with the dogma of the textbooks, external sources like Seeking Alpha and DataCamp have helped a lot.

Even one of my current graded assignments on R regression is based on a DataCamp course. I just need to complete it, and get marks lol. Sweet and prompt!

Yet, I still have to attend Zoom calls with the lecturers and peers. Otherwise, motivation and loneliness comes in haha.

By all means, you can go learn online, but it helps to have teachers and peers working with you, face-to-face.

If you still intend to go the Udemy/consulting route, do get some 'study buddies ', mentors, accountability partners, whatever-both online and local.

The first is easy to get here on TFLF, and other places.
The second needs moe effort. I've found church business meetups and meetup.com to be decent outlet.

The general truth is working for someone is harder than schooling, and doing a business is harder than working for someone. If you decide to pick the hardest, which can be more rewarding in the long term, it is good to have a crisis mentality now to get panic a bit now and start with action, or you probably will hate yourself two years later again for wasting time.

I am against you moving another city to get “independent”. If you have good support and family financial backing you could start the game easier and not waste it. It is a double edged sword. You just need to be the person pushing yourself.
This.
Maybe for the moving to another city, OP could try it for a few weeks.
Rent a room for a few months, land a temporal job, and see how you feel about staying and working on your own...

Probably no different than the caveats of habits cold-turkey or fasting...you can't fast or quit 100% all at once, or else your adjustment falls short.
 

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