Ambrosia Software Web Board: I want to quit - Ambrosia Software Web Board

College. At least leave this college. But where would I go? How would I afford it? I'm getting paid to go to school now. Is it worth it to leave just because you want something new? Probably not. But I need to get out of this town. Know of any cheap good colleges surrounded by fun places to live with lots of good outdoors stuff? Just curious.

I recently changed my major because my old one was really not for me. If where you are is not the place for you, I'd strongly suggest you get out and find someplace you love.

Where would you go?

Consider this:

Where we live is what the rest of the country thinks of as what you describe as wanting.

I guess nobody thinks their hometown is interesting.

cheap, good, and college are rarely seen in the same sentence. (Cornell for natives of NY, honors programs in state schools)

The Journalist, on Feb 4 2007, 01:04 AM, said:

I think there are worse places, like many New Mexico universities. Though I do think Nevada colleges are on the bottom half of the barrel.

If you want to go somewhere else, the first thing would be to figure out where. You might want to retrace the steps in high school you took when searching for colleges originally (assuming you didn't just pick the local university without a second thought) and come up with a list of schools that are good at what you want to do. Yes, there is a high cost for going out-of-state, but there's also the potential to get some financial aid to cover part of it (especially when you have out-of-state tuition), as long as you have an okay high school/college background (ie, a GPA of 2.0 won't go far).

Avatara, on Feb 4 2007, 12:50 AM, said:

I was referring to the"outdoors stuff" bits.

I wouldn't really know about colleges in different states....well, hmm...it's too early in the morning to be thinking clearly.

The Journalist, on Feb 4 2007, 01:57 AM, said:

You should see Kansas, or the Dakotas (excluding Mount Rushmore).

Out of curiosity, what in particular is wrong with your present college? Is it simply boring?

Reno has the best overall outdoor situation of any place I've ever been. However, if what you want is trees on the horizon in every direction and your view of the sky frequently obstructed by trees, I recommend coming to New England. Trees, trees, trees, and more ######ing trees. And unlike Sierra Nevada forests, these trees are deciduous, meaning they are bare and depressing throughout winter. Trust me, it's easy to take Reno's scenery for granted until you go somewhere else.

Is it possible you're simply feeling depressed because of the snowless cold spell Reno experienced recently? I say wait it out until summer and see if you feel any different then.

dude3, on Feb 4 2007, 04:57 PM, said:

They aren't all deciduous. You go some places and all you have is evergreens. New England is a diverse place.

Trah, on Feb 4 2007, 01:27 AM, said:

Cheapness is quantifiable and a legitimate category by which you can rank schools, how good a school is simply cannot be determined except on the individual level. Any ranking list you see generally depends surveying a particular school's/program's reputation and other worthless crap like GPA of incoming students, class size, and funding. Granted, there is a definite difference between Yale and the Central New Mexico Community College, and generally speaking you would be better off going to Yale no matter what area you're hoping to get into. But if you're not talking about schools with such a high level of clear disparity between them, it gets a little more problematic determinining which one is better than another, especially when you consider the problem at the departmental level.

Let's say you want a degree in mechanical engineering. Is Yale better or is MIT? Both are certainly expensive, prestigious, have similar demographics of incoming class, class sizes, and funding levels. Both are "good" but that doesn't help you out any.

Now law school. Yale v. University of New Mexico. Yale, obviously. US News ranks it at #1 in the nation while UNM Law is at #77. But wait, despite the small class sizes, elite student body, no grades, and massive reputation, you want to study Indian Law. Well, in that case you should forego Yale and choose UNM because it happens to be better than Yale in that respect. Incidentally, it's also a huge amount cheaper.

The idea of choosing a college because it happens to be generally "good" is a stupid way to go about things. You should either look at specific programs/considerations or, if you don't know what you're doing, allow the easy and cheap approach to take precedence to start off with (you can always transfer later once you figure out what you actually want to do, or just wait until grad school as you can't do anything with a bachelor's any longer and then where you took care of your undergraduate stuff doesn't matter). College is what you make of it. If you're not being challenged enough at your supposedly "ungood" school, be like ol' Pufer and maintain a 4.0 with a triple major there while working 25 hours a week, acting as officer in a few campus organizations, taking care of his 83 year old grandmother, grabbing a few beers with friends a couple nights a week, and talking with people on the internet for a couple hours each evening. You don't have to be going to Yale to make things hard on yourself.

My suggestion to you µ is to just hang on. I was in my fourth semester before I came up with a good idea of what variety of classes I liked and got a feeling for who I liked to have teach them and what direction I should take with that information. College is a monumental waste of time (and don't let anyone ever tell you differently), and that is true of it no matter where you go. You have to overcome the idea that things should be better or that you could be accomplishing more with your time in order to get what you should out of the experience. That said, UNM is surrounded by lots of nice mountains and outdoorsy stuff and isn't especially expensive (even for out-of-state folks), and is generally ranked by the folks who do such things as being every bit as good as UNR.

-Pufer

This post has been edited by Pufer: 05 February 2007 - 01:29 AM

The TLDR version of Pufer's post is: Just wait.

Erm... where do you live? Do you care where you live to finish up college?

... because BYU is pretty cheap. I realize it's a predominately LDS school, and if you have an issue with that, it's cool, but I think it is cheaper than a lot of other schools around here. It's also probably the best for its price.

...l but like I said, it's a predominately LDS school. And I'll be going there this fall so I'm not sure if you'd want to as well.

I like Reno, but I sort of want a fresh start. It's not so much the college or campus that's bumming me out. It's more what I'm doing. I guess I could just change that. Maybe I just need to study abroad for a semester or something, or move out of my parents' house. It would be nice to see some green every once in a while.

Jeez, just be a hater on New Mexico. It's not all that bad.

You're living at home? You miss out on allot of the social aspect of college by living at home.

moonunit4eva, on Feb 5 2007, 08:19 PM, said:

If you move out of your parents' house, you can pretty well kiss seeing a lot of green in the ol' wallet.

Trah, on Feb 5 2007, 10:16 PM, said:

This too is stuff and nonsense, although I suppose that it might depend on your family situation. I can honestly say that living at home has, if anything, made my social life better than it would have been had I not been living at home. As I don't have to pay rent, I don't have to work all that much to support myself, and thus have more free time. I also, since I'm not paying for utilities, have more money sitting around to spend on hitting the bar and various other activities with my compadres (not to mention that I can afford just about anything else I'm inclined to purchase). Of course, my family splits time between two really large houses so I have loads of space, my parents aren't inclined in the least to exert any sort of control over me (and haven't been for quite a while, I'm fond of saying that my family operates more like a bunch of roommates sharing altogether too much space than a traditional family), and we all generally just leave each other alone. But still, even if my situation wasn't quite as good as it is, I'm more averse to spending money needlessly than most other things so it would still be worth it.

-Pufer

Yeah.. I don't have the money to rent anything other than a tiny studio. The dorms are freakin' expensive after costs of meal plans and stuff (required) Plus the dorms are small... Luckily I get along with my parents. But sometimes you just want to be on your own and with three other people you can't.

What was your major Pufer?

Pufer, on Feb 6 2007, 12:51 AM, said:

From my experience here, the commuter kids are basically a sub-class of the student body. These kids aren't involved in activities and they have few, if any, friends on campus. I only see the commuter kids in class; never around campus socializing, eating, exercising, or going to parties. If you commute, you miss out on dorm life, which is where I, and all my high school friends, have made a vast majority of their new friends. If your experience of college is showing up to class, then having your mom pick you up and driving home, you are missing out on many, if not all, of the social aspects of college.

My college bill for the first semester came to 8$, so I can't comment personally on the money issue, but I do know kids who are quite poor here. Yes, tuition is 33,000 and room and board is another 10,000, but that doesn't mean they're working 40 hours a week to pay for it. If you need financial aid your college will make it happen. Yes, you will have to do work study, as some of my friends are doing, but that isn't bad at all. In fact, most work-study jobs are so relaxed you can do almost all of your studying during your work hours.

This post has been edited by Trah: 06 February 2007 - 03:46 PM

moonunit4eva, on Feb 6 2007, 10:26 AM, said:

Economics, Philosophy, Political Science. Tri-major.

Trah, on Feb 6 2007, 01:44 PM, said:

Out here over 88% of the student body consists of commuter students. If you were to limit yourself to dealing with folks on campus, sure you'd have a lot of close friends and know everybody I suppose, but you'd miss out on knowing an entirely different side of college life (namely that side that exists outside of a one-mile radius of campus) and a lot of really great people.

I will grant you that the on-campus folks generally will have a different set of activities to partake in that we commuters know little of, but I tend to think that "Hey guys, let's go to the quad and have a hawaiian-themed barbecue and water fight! Oh boy, then we can retire to our dormrooms where we share a bathroom with six other guys!" sounds vastly more lame than, "Hey guys, let's go up to the Chama River Brewery to grab some steaks and a few brews. Then we can grab a few growlers and retire to our respective homes with our big-ass beds and private bathrooms."

Also, I don't know a single person out here who does not own a car (hell, I only knew maybe one guy in my senior class back in high school who didn't have either a car or a motorcycle), so there's very little of "having mom pick you up and drive you home."

Trah, on Feb 6 2007, 01:44 PM, said:

Yeah, but work-study doesn't pay worth a damn, debt is for suckers, and actually having to work sucks. There is a difference between not having to work too hard because you have no expenses and not having to work too hard because you're just building up massive amounts of debt. Not to mention that, as µ said, dorms are greatly overpriced for what you get.

-Pufer

You're right that dorm life isn't all good- I'd kill to share a bathroom with just 6 guys. There are 22 guys on my hall, 4 showers, and 3 toilets. Plus you always risk having a bad roommate, or noisy hallmates.
The beds, though, aren't bad at all (at least here at Lehigh). I actually like my bed more then the one I have at home.

You're partially right about the freedom thing- as a freshmen I am stuck on campus. However, next year I'll be able to have a car.

Yes, 10,000$ for 7 months worth of food and housing is allot if you look at it based solely on what you get materially, but there are other, less obvious benefits. (one of which is that your parents aren't around to nag you if they find you posting on online forums at 230 in the morning when you have a paper to polish and class at 8 )


And in µ's post, she stated she wanted something new. Living away from home on your own with your peers/friends is certainly something new and exciting.
In fact, my house is literally 5 minutes from my dorm, but it feels like two completely different worlds.

Me thinks you are just tired of home. I know I was. Not that I don't like my family, and not that I didn't like living in my home town (I love both), but I just needed a change of seen. I could have gone to a college three miles away from my home, and enjoyed the outdoors there, but it wasn't the same I didn't have the independence. Now I live in a dorm 500 miles away from home...it gets lonely sometimes, but I love the freedom and independence. I love dealing with problems on my own and having difficulties of my own that have to be resolved.

I guess it is just your personality. I see merit in what Pufer says, but I could never be like that...I would just hate myself for living off my parents that much...I already try and find ways to get off their tab as much as possible...by being and RA I don't have to pay for housing, and by receiveing the WUE (western undergraduate exchange) scholarship I pay 150% in state tuition, a fraction of the tuition my brother currently pays at a private institution.

The dorms themselves can be a solid experience, I would recommend them. In most job applications you don't have the choice of who you work with and that is often synonymous to having a dorm roommate...they may be good and they might not be...you have to deal with that problem and come to a resolution.

Further, I myself am triple majoring in mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, and manufacturing engineering technologies. I plan on someday getting a masters degree and maybe even a Ph.D.

I guess what I wanted to say is that there are a lot of ways things can be done. There are many places you can get a quality education. You don't necessarily have to pay an arm and a leg to go out of state if you look in the right corners. Of course there always are trade offs, but maybe you are willing to risk those in search of something you find more valuable. Just remember to contemplate all our options and don't get into the Abilene Parodox...make sure that your parents understand how you feel and you maybe surprised how willing they are to stretch and help you out.

Note: I assume you are going to the University of Nevada-Reno as it seems to have been inferred from your, and others comments from above.

Zed, on Feb 13 2007, 11:22 PM, said:

Just to defend my honor ( ), I actually don't live off my parents quite as much as many do. They didn't technically pay for either of the places I live (family corporation did, which didn't affect their profits at all), they don't pay for utilities except for cable, I pay for my own vehicle, clothes, computers, school, etc., don't eat at home too often, buy my own beer, and have a job that pays me pretty damn well. All things considered, I probably screw them out of my share of the cable bill and the occasional meal (although, I also occasionally pay for the groceries). Like I say, we're really more a bunch of roommates than a traditional family.

-Pufer

Pufer, on Feb 14 2007, 01:36 AM, said:

I am sorry I implied that you live off your parents. My own mother becomes quite overbearing when I go home (she feeds me insane amounts of food, and claims I"m too thin). It was incorrect to apply my own sitution (which involves parents who are giving almost to a fault) to another person situation (not to say that your parents aren't giving). I'm sure you are just a very thrifty person who doesn't mind bucking the society stigmas of living at home after college. In fact it sounds like your family, with an extra wage earner, gets more out of their place of inhabitance than many less thrifty families who buy monster houses and have two people living in them.

AS I stated for myself, however, (although I am also thrifty) my independence prevents me from living in close proximity to my family for the vast majority of my time...call me a free spirit if you like.