<p>I’m self-employed. When things aren’t working for me I try to change them. Sometimes I change. I can have work that I love and then I get tired of it and move on to something else. </p>
<p>I certainly understand that because of needing money it is very possible for a person to be stuck years on end with a job they hate. Certainly I had clients and cases I didn’t like but had to stick with because I couldn’t afford to turn them away. But I would call that “income” … not “fit”. </p>
<p>And of course I know kids who transferred. My daughter thought about transferring and my son did transfer. But it is total cop-out to say that my son transferred because his college was a bad “fit”. He transferred because HE SCREWED UP. His good friends who stayed at that school and graduated on time had a good experience because they DIDN’T SCREW UP. </p>
<p>You know, I know people who go their whole lives blaming every failure on externalities – it is always the “fault” of some situation outside of their control. They are always waiting for something to happen to set things right for them. </p>
<p>I made a last-minute switch of a dorm choice that clearly changed my entire experience of college. My d. believes that her first year experience would have been better if she had been on a different floor – she always told me that part of her problem was that she was on a floor with a lot of pre-med students – she had very little in common with them and they were always stressing about their grades so they weren’t much fun to hang around with. </p>
<p>My d. was assigned to a first year writing section with a prof she hated from the start, and students at her school are not allowed to change sections. But my d. went to her advisor and pushed and lobbied and the rules were bent, and she was able to change to a section with a prof she was more comfortable with. So what would have happened if she had not made the change? Maybe she would have been miserable. Maybe she would have changed her mind and liked the teacher after all. </p>
<p>When my daughter started high school because of a scheduling mix up she got stuck in a class she absolutely, definitely did not want to take: Russian. It was “no way, no how”… but the principal said that if she would agree to stay in the Russian class he would let her keep her 10th grade bio & geometry classes rather than move into 9th grade algebra & earth science where she “belonged”. It turned out my d. liked Russian; she traveled to Russia twice in high school, including a semester abroad that she was able to arrange only because she was a year ahead in math & science; she is studying abroad in Russia now and will probably graduate with a Russian minor. </p>
<p>Everything that happens in life is governed by choices that a person makes (or sometimes choices that are forced upon her by circumstance), and no one ever knows where one thing will lead. </p>
<p>I did have a work situation many years ago where things were not pleasant. Everyone was squabbling and harping at each other all the time, projects weren’t getting completed, and it was a generally unpleasant place to work. I could have quit. Instead I suggested that we have a weekly staff meetings and suggested a format for meetings that would require everyone to begin with a “brag” time to tell others about their accomplishments for the week, and also required everyone to give positive feedback to others. It worked - relations improved, and it became a respectful, positive working environment. </p>
<p>There are situations that are extreme and untenable, but it is rare that they are foreseeable. Big changes – like transferring to a new college or switching to a new job – aren’t going to solve every problem – so I think its a lot better to take more personal responsibility in dealing with various problems and set backs. Sometime if the job or the college isn’t a “fit” then the solution is for the person to either change themselves or change their environment to make a better “fit”. </p>
<p>I still wouldn’t label it that way… as I said, I really don’t understand the whole “fit” thing. But if you are stuck on it… well, here’s one last story: ever since my daughter was a little girl, she would take clothes and sew them to make them different than they were when they came to her. We didn’t have a lot of money and my daughter is very petite, so for many years she simply took hand-me-downs from her taller friends, or we’d buy cheap t-shirts at target and she’d get to work with her scissors and thread. I don’t know whether these clothes “fit” when she first got them… but they certainly “fit” after she was done with them.</p>