Throw away account lmao, I just get a huge amount of anxiety and dread every time the subject is even broached. Going to college is the end of it all, the true beginning of being tossed into the American world of exploitation and privatized idiocy. Am I just being childish? I need to do this, I kind of want to do this, but I need to make something of myself. I just keep running into a wall and going :cri:, freezing until I put it off in some way.
I'm slacking in my work, and my theory as well, senioritis is hitting hard, and it isn't even the end of the fucking year! I keep missing fucking assignments, and I know they are there, that I need to do them, I just put them off and read something else. I'm royally fucked. In the head.
Like, am I even going to be alive long enough for this devotion to college to be useful? Will I even learn anything worthwhile other than overall demeaning social experiences with american liberals who are already enough of a hassle to deal with on their own. I can't even interact right with the ML I know IRL!! I could be something! Or nothing! god just let me die! Or let me live! I don't even know where I'm at! I'm being dramatic.
I may not even want to go. Does that even matter? I'm more scared of being a worthless chump, with no special skills people may want, or no way to truly contribute. I want to be useful, but I'm so fucking scared! I feel like I'm ripping apart my own mind! I can't fucking sleep anymore! I can't even work on assignments correctly!
AND I ACCIDENTALLY SUBMITTED MY HALF FINISHED APPLICATION :kitty-cri-screm:
Im so fucked
The process is super daunting. As a 16 or 17-year-old you're told that you have to plan and research and execute a decision that no one has taught you to do, and make it a year in advance, and that the following 4 years of your life (and perhaps everything after that) depends on it. It's a filter and a barrier to class mobility, for sure.
The standard 4-year university is a great place if you know exactly what you want to do with yourself. Some liberal arts colleges are good for people with familial wealth, or scholarships, or at least some idea of where they're going. At age 17 it's completely normal to not know where you're going. But you do want to be building experiences.
As others have said, community college is a great option. You can knock out all of the "core" classes that all majors require, you can take classes to explore your interests and potential on the cheap, it's a better cross-section of society than the status-obsession and career climbing/jockeying that you often see at universities. Once you put a few semesters in at CC, you can transfer pretty easily. Some people speed-run college and others take 5-7 years.
The idea of "if I don't get it done now then I might as well not do it at all" is anathema to you. The world remains the world, and there are many ways to grow in experience and wisdom, many ways not to.
If you feel like traveling, go travel. If you find volunteer opportunities, that's a great thing go do. If you feel the need to work, then work. Many things you might feel lukewarm about may end up being strengths that you discover through experience. The only wrong course of action is not doing anything, or doing something over and over again that's getting you nowhere and not making you feel good.