Limbo With A Deadline

College is dumb and I am stressed out.

I recently found out that I have fewer prepaid credits available to me than needed to graduate with a bachelor’s in psychology as I had planned. Now, this isn’t too big of a strain - I’m lucky enough that my parents are willing to pay for those couple of extra classes out-of-pocket - but that really brought the reality of how I felt about what I’m doing to the surface.

I started thinking about where I was in life and where I saw myself in the future. The truth is, I don’t really see myself anywhere in the future, with the path I’m on now. As I told Ryan when we had a wildly stressful conversation about this on Monday, I feel like I don’t really have a path; I’ve felt like I’m in complete limbo basically since I’ve started college. But now, as I’m nearing the end of my college career and only have so many credits left, I’m on a strict deadline. I’m on a deadline to figure out what I want to do with my life.

Is that at all realistic? Who has their lives figured out at 20 years old?

I mean, I’m a smart girl. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I would often find myself streets ahead of my peers in terms of “real world” stuff - I know how to pay bills, I taught at least 10 people how to do laundry in my first weekend of college, etc. But seriously, I’m clueless. I still don’t know how taxes work (though I’d really like to understand that more, like, ASAP). I have no idea how to get an apartment or house if it’s not student housing. I’m still learning how to be an adult, and I think that should be okay.

I just feel very, very rushed. I feel that these adult careers that we prepare ourselves for in college are completely out of our understanding. We’re in college. Our parents still pay our rent. We’re not ready for adult careers.

And who’s to say we’d enjoy the work anyway? Sure, I’ve enjoyed the subject material of the majority of my psychology classes; that’s why I finally settled on a psychology degree, after all. But that doesn’t mean I’d enjoy being a counselor. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy having a more research-oriented job, either; none of the careers I’ve learned about in my Careers in Psychology class this semester appeal to me. And there is no way I would pay for grad school for any of this. I came to the realization that, if it came down to it, I doubt I’d pay for my last two classes for undergrad.

Upon finding out that I had fewer credits than I needed for my psychology degree, I didn’t call an advisor or try to figure out how much we’d have to pay for on our own. Instead, I started searching for any major I could possibly switch to that would put me on the fastest track to a degree. I didn’t care which one. In fact, I still don’t. I just know that my outlook is a lot less desirable without a bachelor’s degree. I’ve been searching for whatever major will take the least time for me to suffer through just so that I can put “University of Central Florida, B.S./B.A.” on my resume.

How depressing is that?

At the moment, I’m just trying not to stress about college too much. I know the things that I enjoy: music, writing, paper crafting, organization, laundry, customer service. Luckily I’m still able to enjoy these things.

I have absolutely no idea where I’m going in my life and college makes me miserable. However, I’m happy, my part-time job is enjoyable, and I can find peace in the fact that maybe someday I’ll have it figured out. And if I don’t, I’ll at least (hopefully) have a random degree to boost my job applications above some others.

Limbo is a weird place to be.