T10 Student Feeling Lost and Burnt Out

Parents Forum
41

Which college are you enrolled in at Penn? Arts & Sciences? Wharton? Engineering? Have you registered for classes for the fall yet? There are plenty of interesting, quriky classes you can take to meet the Core Curriculum. Try something that intrigues you–Archeology, Cinema, Positive Psychology. Are you required to take a language? Pick a more unusual one which will have smaller classes and allow you to bond with your professor and classmates. Bottom line: it’s too late to apply to transfer for this year, so you might as well make the best of it.

If by the end of fall semester (whatever shape it takes) you are still unhappy, get out transfer applications. You don’t even need to tell your parents at this point. See where you get in and if it’s financially feasible. You won’t have to make a decision until springtime. (Just knowing you have transfer applications out there may make you feel better.) You will need letters of recommendation though, so make sure you forge a relationship with a professor or two. At the same time, look into study abroad for junior year. Hopefully, the world will have a better handle on Covid by then.

You’re not the only one who’s going through this. Many, many students end their freshman year feeling like they made the wrong choice. (The old grass is always greener.) By sophomore year, they love their school. Or they’ve decided to transfer or take a year off. These four years are ultimately but a blip. Use them to explore and find what you are interested in. And remember it’s your life - not your parents’. While you should appreciate all the opportunities they’ve given you (and the tuition bills they’ve paid), you need to help them understand that you need to forge your own path. (Easier said than done, I know.)

Keep us posted, please.

42

OP sent you a PM.

43

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the kind words and advice. I’ll try to tackle everything mentioned here:

  1. Have you tried volunteering or working? That’s a good way to meet people. I have a job reading to inner-city Philly students three times a week. It was a volunteer position that also happened to be pretty well-paying. My coworkers aren’t mean people, but they seem to embody the Penn brand of “colleague professionalism.” In other words, they interact with me only for work-related reasons. There’s no real effort on their part to genuinely befriend me or the other coworkers. In the first few days of the job, I made the gasp terrible mistake of inviting my team and my supervisor (a junior) to lunch before work. You bet I had no one join me in the cafeteria!

After eating lunch alone and completing another awkward volunteering session, my supervisor pulled me aside to generously tell me that “this isn’t really a social space… and no one wants to treat it as such.”

This interaction really characterized the whole essence of Penn— classmates and coworkers are colleagues, and your “real” friends are people that you meet through things that grant you more social capital than volunteering. The social-climby nature of the school disgusts me and is a major contributor to my depression. Most of the students are only friends through exclusive clubs (more on this later) or competitive processes.

  1. Where are you academically right now? I was admitted to Penn in CAS, and I’m still in CAS as of right now.
  2. So... what extracurriculars are you part of? One of the things I cannot stand about Penn is how competitive it is to join clubs at the school. At the beginning of the school year, I applied to over two dozen (!!) business, political, and professional clubs and was rejected by every single one of them. I also auditioned for a ton of acting and acapella groups, but was also rejected by all of them (not surprising since I don’t have any experience). As a result, I’ve found it so so so hard to find an extracurricular niche at Penn.

Adults always told me that “joining activities in college is the easiest way to make friends!” Well, at Penn, joining activities is very very difficult and selective. Even no-cut activities are toxic in their own way. For example, I tried to join the Kelly Writer’s House at Penn (which technically takes everyone) but was shunned by the other members there because I never had any major extracurricular writing accomplishments from high school and wasn’t one of their “recruited” writers (who knew Penn recruited for creative writing?!). It was also pretty cliquey since most of the writers knew each other from the “national level high school writing circuit” (???).

My freshman dorm wasn’t close at all, and the three other people from my high school who came to Penn have no interest in interacting with me (can’t blame them, I also want to forget about high school too). As a result, I had no real way of making social connections at Penn… until…

I know saying this essentially opens me to doxxing, but I was “dirty-rushed” into an off-campus society. This was toxic in its own way, and is probably the most superficial social space I’ve ever encountered. The main source of interaction revolves around money, partying, alcohol, drugs, and sex (this was how I was able to get drugs off-campus).

So right now, the only two involvements I have on campus are this awful society and my volunteering job. I’ve been rejected from everything else. I’ve failed to climb the Penn social latter. I’m disgusted that there even is one in the first place, and it feels like the only way to escape it is to join a selective and competitive club. The Daily Pennsylvanian (another club I was rejected from) wrote an article about the competitive club process and you can Google it yourself to read more about it.

  1. Have you tried going to therapy? I went to CAPS therapy at Penn. Generally, CAPS refers you out after a few sessions. When this happened to me, my parents refused to use their health insurance (I’m on their insurance) to get me therapy. Mental health is heavily stigmatized in Asian cultures, and parents regardless of race can be hesitant to send their kids to therapy because doing so would admit some possible wrongdoing in their relationship.
  2. Where would you transfer to? My parents won’t let me transfer to Brown since “that’s a super liberal, lax school that’s less prestigious than Penn and academically much weaker.” Obviously this isn’t true, but there’s no changing their mind about this. They’re okay with me transferring to HYPSMC (and only those six schools), but that’s obviously a long shot I can’t rely on.

The suggestions for studying abroad and using the Quaker consortium particularly resonated with me— thank you for that! I feel so mentally, emotionally, socially, and academically stuck. I just feel so lost with little hope. I don’t have any adults I can talk to in my life besides my sister since I’m not close with my extended family at ALL and am not close with any adults in the Bay Area either (this is a pretty common theme I’ve noticed among my Asian peers). Every day I wake up wishing I was born to nice progressive white parents who’d let me study the humanities at a nurturing LAC… but we all want what we can’t have I guess!

44

Reconnect with the school’s counseling services. Tell them your parents refuse to pay for private sessions and ask what resources are available. Be honest with them that you are self medicating with drugs and alcohol.

You need to stop socializing in this “club” promoting drugs and drinking. These self destructive behaviors are just going to make things harder for you. If you can’t stop, it’s time for AA. Meetings are free and plentiful. They also have online meetings.

Have you tried finding a faith community on or near campus? Often they can also provide free counseling.

If work isn’t fulfilling, find another one.

IMO, you need to get professional support first and foremost. Your parents are just flat out wrong about mental health providers. It’s no different than going to a doctor to treat strep. The good news is you are a legal adult and don’t have to tell them. There are free avenues of support.

45

Agree with momofsenior about dealing with professional, mental health support. You are smart and talented and have lots of social capital at your disposal- use it to find a therapist either covered by your Penn healthcare (so your parents don’t see the paper trail) or someone at a clinic, etc.

Re: the activities- I’m going to say this gently because you don’t need a pile-on right now- the only way you are getting “rejected” from EC’s, or feeling marginalized about your involvement is because you have brought your SV outlook to Penn. Yes, there is a social pecking order. The only way to get off the ladder-- is to just get off. forget about clubs where they have to accept you, forget about activities where there is any sort of screening. Heck, I know kids who are/have been at Penn who are disabled, International and poor (so not the cool rich kids from a snazzy boarding school overseas), are the most socially awkward folks on the planet- and they ALL have found a niche. It’s like entering a beauty pageant and complaining that all people care about is being thin and having good hair. Yup- that’s why it’s a beauty pageant and not a Mensa meeting.

You are swimming in the wrong lane my friend. And you can do this-- just get out of the pool.

Swing dancing/folk dancing. They have this at Penn and there are grad students as well as undergrads, so you get to branch out socially. If your volunteer position isn’t a fit- don’t go back to it, try something where the “cool and pre-professional kids” don’t do it- Philadelphia has hungry people, homeless people, animals who need shelters, kids who are going to need winter coats (Covid or no Covid, it will still get cold in November). The country needs activists- climate, BLM and racial justice, Innocence project, Bail project. Women get incarcerated for standing on a street corner and handing over a bag of heroin. The men who RUN the drug cartel- and make millions of dollars off of the women’s labor- go free with a handslap and probation. Doesn’t that make you mad? Women and children are trafficked-- the men who run child porn rings and prostitution schemes which bring women here from overseas claiming they’ll work as waitresses and they end up enslaved because the men take their passports- doesn’t that infuriate you?

Find a cause you care about. There will be other people at Penn who already care about it- professors, law students, med students, undergrads. Find a form of exercise you love- archery, bowling, croquet-- and there will be other people at Penn who are likely already doing it. Knitting blankets for newborns in the ICU, organizing the archives at one of the many underfunded historical societies in Philadelphia, teaching crochet to teenagers in a group home, singing sea chanties at a nursing home, organizing a writing seminar at a local prison (yes, most college campuses do this, and it’s a great way for the literary-minded who don’t want to be part of the “Writing clique” to really make a difference in people’s lives- they may be marginalized and incarcerated, but they have stories to tell).

You aren’t on a tiny campus in the middle of a rural area. You’re in a big city with museums and orchestras and community theater and political activism and food pantries. Surely there is something-- or a few things- that speak to you.

Any of the religious organizations on campus will welcome you, even if you don’t believe in a higher power, and even if it’s not a faith tradition you grew up in. Campus chaplains have office hours; they can connect you to activities and people and involvement-- and likely with “nicer” folks than you’ve been dealing with up until now.

I had two inspirational religious leaders when I was in college- one because his MO was “if you don’t like something, fix it, and come to me when you need help” which changed my life. And the other because she was just the nicest, kindest, least judgmental person I’d ever met.

These people take jobs on campus because they really, really, really want to connect with people in a meaningful way. And you are looking for meaningful connections!!!

Costume design?Pottery?Bridge, Mah Jong, Trivia??? Surely there is something you love to do???

Hugs. You can do this.

46

Let’s focus on the good stuff from your freshman year:
Your GPA is good.
You’ve completed a year of college.
You don’t like the vibe at Penn. Yes, it’s as important to know what you don’t like as what you do like because that’s how change happens.
I’m guessing you got to be independent and not live under your parents’ thumb for most of a school year.
You probably got a bunch of credits out of the way, which might make it easier to take some interesting classes in the fall.

“Every day I wake up wishing I was born to nice progressive white parents who’d let me study the humanities at a nurturing LAC… “

I do think you are generalizing. Not all whites parents are progressive, not all kids are happy at LACs. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. Make your grass greener.

I mean this kindly, but I get a strong feeling that because you’ve been busy conforming to stereotypes (don’t blame you for that), your parents’ desires, peer pressure, and unrealistic expectations, you seem to be very lost as to what YOU actually care about and what you are interested in. And I think you are starting to understand that all this stuff you’ve been doing that doesn’t mean anything to you, doesn’t have to continue. And you don’t know what to do about it. You feel lost because you finally have a chance to be who you want to be and you don’t know how to get started.

I really like what @blossom said in #44. Get out of the pool. Get off the ladder. If you are stuck at Penn, at least you are in a place where you can find yourself. And I also urge you to read this post, which has helped MANY students: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/2016222-to-those-who-feel-lonely-homesick-friendless-think-they-chose-the-wrong-school-etc-p1.html

Your freshman year might be a write off, but that doesn’t mean ALL of college will be a write off. I urge you to read the whole thread, which is only three pages. And it is possible you might never feel comfortable or happy at Penn. That doesn’t have to dictate the rest of your life. I didn’t make a single friend at my commuter college. I’m a happy person and I’ve had a good life. Has every day been great? No, but I’m glad things have happened the way they have. Take the bad and learn from it, and make it better as you move forward.

I know for a fact that the counseling center at Penn will have other counselors you can talk to, so reach out and find a different one. The good news is that just coming here means you are being proactive. You clearly want to be a happier person. Stay on this new path you’re making for yourself. Keep making it better, bit by bit. Your sophomore year doesn’t have to be a repeat of your first year.

47

There is validity to what you say about clubs and competitive activities that you have to apply to and many get rejected. I just PM’ed someone on the Harvard forum telling him about this phenomenon. I also know kids who go to Ivies and refuse to participate in this kind of thing, even when recruited. To paraphrase, “just say no.”

Your parents cannot prevent you from seeking mental health care but you are right, once referred out, they will probably see the appointment on their explanation of benefits from insurance. But they cannot stop you.

There may also be support groups on campus (I know Harvard has one for freshmen who are lonely, for students with disablities, etc.)

Finally and maybe most importantly, freshman year is tough for everyone. So many students want to leave around the holidays. COVID interfered with your natural development and settling into campus.

Once you are in a department, there is often more interaction.

I would major in whatever you want to major in and not talk to your parents about it. They do not have a right to access to your grades or your major.

If they say they won’t pay, then fine, tell them they can withdraw payment and you will leave. I don’t think that will really happen.

Penn is a great school but it has drawbacks, which you are correct in describing. COVID has really made a mess of things and social life won’t likely improve, though you may end up in a small cohort, which would have advantages.

Please get help in whatever way you can. Call CAPS and tell them the whole story.

Take care.

ps If you feel truly hopeless, please go to an emergency room. I mean it.

48

Something else that’s important to remember: your parents always love you and they always want you to be happy, even if you think that doesn’t seem to be the case. Parents don’t always get it right. Ultimately, they want you to succeed and be happy. Maybe it seems a bit misguided, but they think they know what’s best for you. Try to remember that, even when they are overbearing or whatever it might be. That’s why they pay for your education. They see it as the road to happiness.

49

Can other parents clarify the situation with clubs at Penn? Aren’t there lots of clubs where no one is rejected? I have a hard time believing that Penn for a Green New Deal (I’m sure there’s such a club, under some name or other) would throw anyone out, or the chess club, or the College Republicans, or the group that gets together to watch anime films.

50

You can’t chose who your parents are but you can control who you are. Start being an adult and let them know exactly how you are feeling. Maybe show them this thread and have an honest discussion with them about your mental health, your drug use, and feeling of hopelessness at Penn.

Not easy but critically important to start addressing your issues in a constructive manner.

Good luck to you.

51

Cardinal- there are over 450 official student clubs at Penn (i.e. registered and funded by the student activities office) plus dozens of unofficial ones (“is there anyone who wants to get together to play badminton once a week?” or “come to my dorm kitchen Sunday night if you want to learn to make authentic Ramen or Vegan or Instapot tacos”.)

There are the ones which are competitive (if you can’t play the viola, you are not likely to win a spot in the viola section of the student symphony orchestra) and the VAST number which are not. It is easy to bring your HS assumptions to campus (if it’s not competitive, it’s not prestigious and if it’s not prestigious, why waste my time?) but since once you’re at Penn you no longer have to worry about getting into college, you have the luxury of finding your own tribe your own way.

Most of the adults I know who loved college found that they could indulge their wacky, creative, dumb or just gratifying interests without having to be an expert at it (just like real life). You can be a middling chess player and still enjoy playing, you can be a terrible dancer but still love your ballroom class, and you can make ugly pottery but still love clay and the camaraderie of working in a studio with other ugly pottery makers. The OP can find lots of like-minded people with a little effort…

52

One of my favorite sayings is *If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly. * Not that you should try to do things badly, but you shouldn’t be deterred from doing something you like to do just because you’re not good at it.

53
  • Look into Gregory and all their film series. -Check out Society for creative anachronism. I promise no one's in it because it's professionally useful :) -Figure out how to get into Benjamin Franklin scholars. Yes it's competitive but it's up your alley: humanities seminars for students who aren't humanities majors. -Register for a non Asian foreign language, first semester. German ("Engineering", "European economic power") if you worry your parents will disapprove of French (although it's useful for Math as well as tourism) or Spanish (if you've not studied it in high school). Then attend the weekly language table. You'll be lost but you'll meet cool people.
54

Cardinal- I love that saying and shall adopt it immediately.

I have a friend in a choral society. She loves music of all kinds but her absolute favorite type of music is the big, complex pieces designed for 80 voices and 50 instruments.

She really cannot carry a tune. I am never sure if she knows this or not- because she is part of a choral society which performs some of the greatest vocal works ever composed, and they get an audience, and sell tickets which almost covers the rental of the spaces they need for performances. She owns many long black dresses and gorgeous pearl earrings (her “good luck” jewelry) and is an expert on which ballet flats look dressy from the front but are comfortable for standing for long stretches.

Does the director even let her sing? I have no idea. Her buddies come out to “hear” her, we drink prosecco in the parking lot afterwards. You cringe when she sings happy birthday at a friend’s dinner- and yet, she’s a loyal and passionate member of a choral society.

Life is so complicated but OP- you too can make a joyful noise in some way with people you admire/care about while doing something meaningful to you.

55

If that’s what you want, get yourself into all the courses that you can through the Quaker Consortium–those liberal arts colleges may offer courses that spark your interest. As long as your parents are financing your education, you are stuck trying to make the best of your situation. You can’t control them, but you can control your actions. Also, choose a volunteer activity that’s off campus or where there aren’t other college students.