I'm depressed

[Nihilmatic]

At the end of Highschool I was super interested in space or how the mind worked so I started looking into jobs related to those fields. I researched astronomy, psychology, physics, etc. Each of these fields had one thing in common, they were extremely stressful jobs and for the amount of stress they had and the blood and sweat they shed working their ass off, they were only able to get a pathetic check to barely survive while there are braindead idiots well off in their life for jerking off in their stupid major.

So I started looking into majors that I could use my curiosity and logical thinking that I love so much in. I found architecture, and this was also as bad a major as psychology however it wasn't as bleak. So I decided to go through with it through my freshman year of college and I gritted my teeth and through struggle and procrastination and a lot of sadness of not finding my passion I finished my first year.

Now it's my 2nd year and I feel like I have made a huge mistake. I've invested so much time (with me I feel like if I change now I wasted a whole year and it just makes me depressed, all the money that my family has put into my decision, we are not a wealthy family and we have struggled financially really heavily throughout my childhood) I just feel like I'm a disappointment. I don't want to be stressed out my whole life and barely make ends meat my whole life. I saw a jobs titled as solutions and software architect and thought maybe I had a chance and I could do that once I'm done with my bachelors in architecture but those two job titles AREN'T EVEN RELATED to architecture, what's worse that is stems from COMPUTER SCIENCE (THE MAJOR MY PARENTS WANTED ME TO PICK). i fucking hate this and I hate myself. I live off campus right now and I basically spend all my time by myself in my free time and I just reflect and become more and more sad. I'm too ambitious for my own good and too invested in my dumb decisions, its like the worst personality traits a person can have.

 

[Sinny91]

Re: im depressed

Sucking on a Galaxy Minstrel helps.

 

[E404]

Re: im depressed

Maybe you should develop a side business (a clean one...) in your spare time. This could turn into a great business and career. That would mean good money doing something you like. Plus, you could start it in your introverted free time, and if it takes off, you won't have to feel bad about quitting your current studies.

Oh, and chocolate does always help.

 

[Bad Itch]

Re: im depressed

Begin learning Unix immediately if you're not already fluent. It's a great way to spend time alone and also start changing direction if you are going to switch majors.

Your fam might be supportive if you're swinging in the direction they wanted you to go; realising the magnitude of the financial implications of doing so.

@Sinny91: Now I want smarties. Jerk.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

Re: im depressed

It just goes to show that when the chips are down and life looks like it really sucks: Xanax!

- Steve o

 

[Nihilmatic]

Re: im depressed

thanks guys you were fucking great what a great help.
"suck on some chocolate"
"start a business"
"learn spanish"
"kill yourself"

nice thanks so fucking much

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Re: im depressed

A year is nothing, that makes you 19 right? You still have a good chunk of your life to figure out your passions, or instead reconcile with not having any. I understand you may feel like a disappointment, but really you are a work in progress, a student and young adult who is expanding their tree roots.

If you'd like some advice, I recommend to arrange a meeting with a school counselor who can give you information on related or alternative career paths that may be suitable for you. You can also speak to some of the professors in your architecture department and ask them how they got through this same situation that you are facing.

College is also about opportunities for networking so if you truly feel depressed forming one or two buddies could perhaps take some of the pressure off.

 

[E404]

Re: im depressed

Actually, I said a side business... Like testing websites while drunk (this was a real thing someone got very successful with)... Although at 19, maybe don't lean towards anything with booze. :0

Blogging is an option... photography...

Maybe you're just depressed because you're grumpy.

You're welcome.

 

[E404]

Re: im depressed

A side business has flexibility, no pressure, can do whatever you want... it kinda fits.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

Re: im depressed

Maybe you should compare your life to those of third world countries. Maybe then you'll see that you have it pretty fucking good and you should do your best to live a good life. Find a hobby, give yourself to it. Take your mind off of shit.

Invest a few years into this shitfest of bad decisions. Grit your teeth and come away with something to show for it. Work, get money, invest in something you want to do for you.

Life ain't easy and it sure as fuck isn't going to go the way you want it to. But you can build a foundation and mold it towards whatever you like. Pick a goal. A true goal and dedicate everything to it. Don't forget the goal. Ever.

Yes, you have to do something. No, it won't be easy. People are defined by their trials and how they handle them. You have a life ahead of you. You're currently a babe getting your feet under you.

Also; Xanax

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Re: im depressed

thanks guys you were fucking great what a great help.

1. Don't worry about the past. It's beyond your control. That "I wasted a year" stuff is pointless. Focus on the future.

2. Learn or try some coding before jumping into a CS major to see if it's for you or not. Likewise, maybe you could explore other majors by sneaking into classes you aren't registered for, so long as you'll blend in. Experience is the key here. And broccoli

3. Consider seeing a doctor, because, you know, depression sucks.

4. Chill. Seriously. And laugh some too. It's not as bad as you think, and you're more resourceful than you think. You're not going to make good decisions in a bad mental state.

Spoiler

Maybe you should compare your life to those of third world countries. Maybe then you'll see that you have it pretty fucking good and you should do your best to live a good life. Find a hobby, give yourself to it. Take your mind off of shit.

Invest a few years into this shitfest of bad decisions. Grit your teeth and come away with something to show for it. Work, get money, invest in something you want to do for you.

Life ain't easy and it sure as fuck isn't going to go the way you want it to. But you can build a foundation and mold it towards whatever you like. Pick a goal. A true goal and dedicate everything to it. Don't forget the goal. Ever.

Yes, you have to do something. No, it won't be easy. People are defined by their trials and how they handle them. You have a life ahead of you. You're currently a babe getting your feet under you.

Also; Xanax

This might be the best post I've seen you make. Though buspirone also has an antidepressant effect.

 

[TAC]

Re: im depressed

I hate programing (So tedious, I would rather do the concept mapping for what I am trying to accomplish, and then hand it off to coders to write and execute), but it is an invaluable skill to learn. I'm currently getting back into it so I can program some financial modeling spreadsheets for valuation so that I can use them as leverage to get a job in the field.
I started college majoring in philosophy and astrophysics, dropped them both and went to finance sophomore year. I figured that finance is basically the physics of money (It's actually amazing how similar the math is to physics when you get into the fun stuff). I know I have a lot of interests, and finance seemed the only industry where I can change between interests fairly quickly. Say I get interested heavily interested in music, as a financial analyst I get to research everything about the industry and figure out what companies are good or bad, I could look at instrument/speaker manufacturers or record labels/venues advise an investment and move onto something else I'm interested in. That's why I shied away from physics. The only way to make money is to specialize in something useful and hope that companies are still interested in that knowledge for the rest of your life, but you also have to dedicate your life to it. Only caveat to finance is the competitive nature of the field and the majority of people attracted to the field. I am still trying to fight myself into a valuation analyst position (Ideally, I would like to be a valuation consultant for mergers and acquisitions to set the targets for price negotiations on the sell-side). It is supposed to be stressful work, but I am fairly resistant to stress as long as I can pay my bills and that work would fill that gap for multiple lifetimes of bills. Also you could make a years income of work 1-2 major valuations a year (deal with all the stress of high finance and 18 hour work days 3-5 months of the year, and rest for the remainder seems like a better deal compared to working 40 hours a week until I am 65 and I get to enjoy the research portion of the work). Now to get there.

I guess my advice is to set some goals for how you want to live your life, and see what fields can make that possible. That's my plan. So far it's not working, but as long as I am moving in that direction I am sure I will find some degree of success in meeting my goals.

 

[TAC]

Re: im depressed

2. Learn or try some coding before jumping into a CS major to see if it's for you or not. Likewise, maybe you could explore other majors by sneaking into classes you aren't registered for, so long as you'll blend in. Experience is the key here. And broccoli

Excellent advice Lag
Most professors will let you sit in their classes and even take tests if you wish. Just send them an email asking if you can sit in and 9/10 will be happy to say yes. You know how many professors are happy to be teaching introductory/core courses? 0 because they have students who are only there to fulfill requirements for that pretty debt notice so someone expressing interest without requirement lights up their world and they may be willing to teach even cooler shit than what the course offers.

I actually did this when I changed majors with a programming class that wasn't required for my new major and it was one of the few times it felt worth going to college.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

Re: im depressed

This might be the best post I've seen you make. Though buspirone also has an antidepressant effect.

Go through my history. I'm pretty sure my solving of world hunger and simultaneously equalizing the world's population problem is the best posting I've ever done. I'm a fucking genius

 

[Kuu]

Re: im depressed

Each of these fields had one thing in common, they were extremely stressful jobs and for the amount of stress they had and the blood and sweat they shed working their ass off, they were only able to get a pathetic check to barely survive

Life is stressful and often unfair man. We were taught that life would be awesome and we'd be able to have everything we wanted with ease if you just go to school... it was a lie. It sure sucks but that's how it is. It's ok to rage and feel depressed about it from time to time, but you got to deal with it.

I've invested so much time (with me I feel like if I change now I wasted a whole year and it just makes me depressed, all the money that my family has put into my decision, we are not a wealthy family and we have struggled financially really heavily throughout my childhood) I just feel like I'm a disappointment.

If you hate it so much it would be worse not to change now, and end up wasting 4, or 5 years... And surely you must at least have learned something? Rarely are things a complete waste.

The reality is that academic titles and building a mono-disciplinary career from them is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The pace of change in society is so fast the old stability of jobs is being severely disrupted. So you should focus more on the diversity of skills you can learn (and having a way to show them) than the single-tracked careerism that society continues to misguidedly shackle people in. Humans are incredibly adaptable.

Why do you feel like a disappointment?

I saw a jobs titled as solutions and software architect and thought maybe I had a chance and I could do that once I'm done with my bachelors in architecture but those two job titles AREN'T EVEN RELATED to architecture, what's worse that is stems from COMPUTER SCIENCE (THE MAJOR MY PARENTS WANTED ME TO PICK).

Yeah the hijacking of words by computer science is really annoying. But you could study computers on your spare time, it's never been easier. The future of architecture is computers anyway, the designer-programmer profile is growing more and more common.

And you might go around ask some programmers and see the grass is not always greener. Many are struggling with bad jobs, bad pay, layoffs, outsourcing, fierce competition, and the constant stress of keeping up to date with the insanely fast technological change.

I hate myself.

Why?

I live off campus right now and I basically spend all my time by myself in my free time and I just reflect and become more and more sad.

Stop and spend more time outside. You already know that what you're doing is unhealthy. Perhaps seek counseling?

I'm too ambitious for my own good and too invested in my dumb decisions, its like the worst personality traits a person can have.

INTPs obsessive identification with their Ti intellectual pride and reluctance to show "weakness" Fe is an utterly unhealthy perfectionistic attitude.

There are two ways to deal with mistakes: you can be stubborn and 'proud' and neglect to accept them, making them worse and getting stuck, or you can accept them and quickly move on, learning the lesson.

Rigidity leads to brittleness. You must learn to be flexible and resilient.

It's a common mantra in business, in programming, in design (they actually teach this in architecture... or try to), even in dating: that you should fail fast, fail early, fail often i.e. experimentation is good and failure is a natural aspect of experiment that helps to weed out the bad and learn the good. Conquering the fear of failure and learning to get up when you inevitably fall are tricky but important steps everyone must take in their development.

Trial by combat and error is the way humanity has achieved pretty much everything it has.

Experts become so after countless hours of practice (and failures). You just don't see them, the media tends to emphasise only the good, people curate their social media to only show the best. I think it's unhealthy and has led to more depression in our society, to have such inflated unrealistic expectations. Read some biographies of successful or historical people... they're full of fail.

Everyone can fail, failure will happen. It's ok. If you or your family expect you to be perfect then you need to adjust expectations.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Re: im depressed

It sounds like you need a part time job. And yes, systems/software architect isn't related to architecture at all. Go to a nearby mall and see if there are part time jobs around. Get numbers, call them. You need something neutral and menial to keep your mind off of things.

If you are struggling financially go to the Financial Aids office and seek a finance counselor of somesort and keep looking into scholarships the school provides on their website.

In the meanwhile alcohol and friends in moderation is helpful.

edit: and also don't forget to vote for Hillary Clinton this coming November

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Re: im depressed

I would recommend self-study in more pure/abstract disciplines such as pure mathematics (toplogy, abstract algebra and number theory would be a good trio of subjects to learn), philosophy and spirituality/religion - try for the more esoteric information. As well as this, I would recommend building general survival/life skills and training the body and mind.

Given your username, I take it that you are interested in lessening the effects of ways of living and seeing the world which are ineffective, and much of the working world is rife with this.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA7_1px1aV4

 

[bvanevery]

Re: im depressed

Most professors will let you sit in their classes and even take tests if you wish. Just send them an email asking if you can sit in and 9/10 will be happy to say yes.

Or just take a fucking computer science class, for credit. If you are not a morning person, don't take it too early in the morning. Make sure the class is at an appropriate level for your current ability, i.e. an intro course if you don't know much / anything about this. DROP the class if it's too difficult. I really don't get the idea of wasting time in school on classes that you're not getting any credit for. You need credits to graduate. Don't waste your time, at least get an area course out of the way.

You know how many professors are happy to be teaching introductory/core courses? 0 because they have students who are only there to fulfill requirements for that pretty debt notice so someone expressing interest without requirement lights up their world and they may be willing to teach even cooler shit than what the course offers.

Although in theory it could work out that way, in practice computer classes are large, at least at large universities. In practice at Cornell I often had 200 people in even my advanced undergraduate classes. It's not a "personal attention" format. And frankly, if you need a lot of personal attention to do the work, you are in the wrong field. This is computers, you are going to sit in front of the damn box for many hours a day by yourself. You'd better be self-directed or you're not going to amount to anything in it. There are all kinds of people out in the world who can handle it just fine, who will do it, who even like to do it. I've got friends of mine who had the raw intelligence to handle computers, but they couldn't sit still and they didn't like being by themselves. So they never got anywhere with it and that's predictable. Fortunately this is INTPforum and INTPs generally can be expected to handle this sort of thing, as long as they're not fundamentally confused about what their MBTI really is.

 

[bvanevery]

Re: im depressed

I would recommend self-study in more pure/abstract disciplines such as pure mathematics (toplogy, abstract algebra and number theory would be a good trio of subjects to learn),

I'll wager that applied math would make more money. I'm not exactly sure what they do, but I am aware of it as a distinct area of focus.

Well I don't know if the OP said he was a mathematician or a computer programmery guy or not, he said he was an architect. Whatever. I thought I was going into college to do physics and holography / art. I ended up doing sociocultural anthropology, computer science, and expository writing. A liberal arts degree is often called "majoring in Undecided". Sound INTPish?

Of the things I did in school, I kept going with computers, partly because they're worth far more money. Partly because there are things I actually enjoy about them, although I also hate buckets of things about them, and am very much at odds with them. Definitely love/hate for me but I will find a way eventually. I could certainly "just make money" with computers if I wanted to, and I did actually do that when I was in my mid-20s. It wasn't that bad for me back then, I just ended up setting my sights higher eventually. Perfectly decent way to transition out of college into actually making money. Once you're making money, then you can decide if it's all it's cracked up to be and you want something else. Or hey, maybe you end up genuinely happy doing whatever you're doing, who knows?

 

[Robin]

At the end of Highschool I was super interested in space or how the mind worked so I started looking into jobs related to those fields. I researched astronomy, psychology, physics, etc. Each of these fields had one thing in common, they were extremely stressful jobs and for the amount of stress they had and the blood and sweat they shed working their ass off, they were only able to get a pathetic check to barely survive while there are braindead idiots well off in their life for jerking off in their stupid major.

So I started looking into majors that I could use my curiosity and logical thinking that I love so much in. I found architecture, and this was also as bad a major as psychology however it wasn't as bleak. So I decided to go through with it through my freshman year of college and I gritted my teeth and through struggle and procrastination and a lot of sadness of not finding my passion I finished my first year.

Now it's my 2nd year and I feel like I have made a huge mistake. I've invested so much time (with me I feel like if I change now I wasted a whole year and it just makes me depressed, all the money that my family has put into my decision, we are not a wealthy family and we have struggled financially really heavily throughout my childhood) I just feel like I'm a disappointment. I don't want to be stressed out my whole life and barely make ends meat my whole life. I saw a jobs titled as solutions and software architect and thought maybe I had a chance and I could do that once I'm done with my bachelors in architecture but those two job titles AREN'T EVEN RELATED to architecture, what's worse that is stems from COMPUTER SCIENCE (THE MAJOR MY PARENTS WANTED ME TO PICK). i fucking hate this and I hate myself. I live off campus right now and I basically spend all my time by myself in my free time and I just reflect and become more and more sad. I'm too ambitious for my own good and too invested in my dumb decisions, its like the worst personality traits a person can have.

Sorry, but you pretty much have to choose between doing something cool and doing something that makes money. It's extremely rare to be able to do both.

 

[E404]

Sorry, but you pretty much have to choose between doing something cool and doing something that makes money. It's extremely rare to be able to do both.

I think too many people settle

 

[bvanevery]

I think too many people settle

Well I haven't settled. But I'm living out of a car, at 46, and it's not an easy life. Not something everyone is capable of. I haven't given up, but my own attempts to get paid for something I personally think is cool, have taken a depressingly long time to go anywhere. If they're going anywhere at all. Just a warning. Such projects of "finding yourself" can take 2+ decades. It impacts other life choices, such as finding a significant other, getting married, and having children.

 

[E404]

Well I haven't settled. But I'm living out of a car, at 46, and it's not an easy life. Not something everyone is capable of. I haven't given up, but my own attempts to get paid for something I personally think is cool, have taken a depressingly long time to go anywhere. If they're going anywhere at all. Just a warning. Such projects of "finding yourself" can take 2+ decades. It impacts other life choices, such as finding a significant other, getting married, and having children.

It's not an easy life for sure... and it might take a long time, but I think it's worth it. I can't seem to make a decision I KNOW I'll be miserable with forever, just because I "have to"... I'm still looking for what I'm passionate enough to work in.

Passion for something usually does get in the way of those things, unless those things are you passion.

 

[bvanevery]

I can't seem to make a decision I KNOW I'll be miserable with forever, just because I "have to"...

I think we, as individuals, should take on the burdens and adversities we're suited for.

For instance, I'm not suited for being a waiter, or any kind of work that requires me to be servile to other people. The only circumstance I'd be willing to do that kind of work, is say in a war zone or other situation where my likely alternative is death. Then I could do what I had to do. But with any other option available, I'm not doing it. I'm not suited to it.

I am suited to fixing my car and living out of it. I can handle minimizing my expenditures just fine. Even if I hate many things about computers, I'm still suited for them in many ways.

For survival jobs, I preferred manual labor such as mowing lawns or digging ditches. It doesn't demand anything demeaning out of my intellect, and I get a bit of "wax on, wax off" out of such work. Having said that, I don't feel like mowing lawns now, as I have strong feelings of "been there, done that" from doing it before. I'm not suited to going backwards in my ambitions. Forwards or lateral, fine, but never backwards. I'm not going to retread the same ground I've already been over.

 

[E404]

I think we, as individuals, should take on the burdens and adversities we're suited for.

[I just summarized to show I was replying to you, I did read it all] At least you're doing what suits you. I know no job is perfect, but I don't want to be stuck with something I hate just because it's a job. I work because of necessity, but I'm always keeping a look out for opportunities of things I would love to do instead.