I just graduated from UCLA, and my college experience was awful. I got poor grades despite studying hard and going to office hours, got rejected from every club, made no friends, and got denied from every research opportunity. I got denied from every fraternity chapter, club sport, SAA, the Den, and engineering clubs. It was so frustrating. I worked so hard in college only to get nothing.
The biggest lesson I learned in college is how cold and selfish the world is. People don’t care about you. I was chewed up for four years in college before I got spat on the street to be eaten by wolves. Parents are so ignorant about college now.
That’s not everybody’s and there are always outliers.
Now that you have your degree, find a job, and move to the next step in life. Not all companies are great and even at great companies there are bad bosses.
But take your experience of the last four years - there’s ALWAYS something to learn - and see how you can be a productive, contributing teammate.
Nothing is perfect but to be relevant you need the skillsets to contribute and the ability to work as part of a team.
For many college is the best time of their lives. For others, not so much.
So your “best time” is coming.
Be positive, be thankful you made it through, and best of luck with your next step - whether it’s working in fast food or behind a desk in an office.
Parents tend to see college as a time of opportunity.
OP: You need to focus on things within your control.
You can control how many resumes you send out; you can control your exercise program; you can control your diet, and you can control which goals you set.
Use past disappointments and rejection as fuel toward achieving your goals.
Focus on positives. Learn from negative experiences. Look forward–not backward.
My S most likely wouldn’t say that he had a horrible time in college, but he didn’t have a great time. He didn’t make real friends in college. He is glad that he has a degree, but he doesn’t believe that the degree itself did him any good (other than being a requirement for many jobs). He didn’t have a job coming out of school. He worked some pretty crappy jobs the first few years out of school. He kept looking for better jobs, working through a series of progressively “better” jobs. It took 8 years after graduation for him to secure a job he really likes, and he wouldn’t have envisioned that he would like this job back when he graduated. Life is not a destination … it’s a road that we continue to travel. Keep working on moving forward. Just because things aren’t hunky dory today doesn’t mean that they won’t be in the future. @Publisher gave great advice. Work on what you can control.
I completely agree with this. It cuts across numerous issues (the recent thread on tiger parenting comes to mind), but I wish there were broader social approval of alternative paths post-high school.
The only thing we can control is ourselves. I would encourage you to get counseling as your issues are beyond the scope of this forum. And, of course, deeply personal to you, and we on the internet can never have the full picture. Focus on yourself, and what you can do, and control, and your situation will change.
This is heartbreaking! I am so sorry it turned out that way for you. As an adult out of school now, I think things can look up for you. Please don’t let a crappy college experience ruin your outlook on people and your life. Hoping you can have a positive outlook and look Forward to leaving college behind. It doesn’t define you.
I agree. However, OP, you have a degree from UCLA, shake off the experience and get on with the rest of your life! College is over and it’s time to move on. If you can’t do that, you need more help than we are able to give.
Yes, to clarify, I didn’t mean the OP should try to undo what happened. I just meant to show that not all parents actually believe that college will be good for everyone, and again I am particularly not fond of pushing everyone to go straight to college.
But what’s done is done, and presumably the OP is still quite young. So it is not too late by any means to get on a healthy, happy, sustainable path.
UCLA has such an idyllic reputation; your experience goes to show that it isn’t a golden ticket to happiness for everyone. I’m sorry you had such a rough time.
I’m interested in your phrasing, though - what do you mean about parents thinking “you can turn your life around in college?” This implies that you were already having a tough time before UCLA, and that UCLA was supposed to make things better for you. If so, that’s a cautionary tale too.
A UCLA degree is still a great accomplishment, especially considered that you persevered in spite of being so unhappy. The question is, what do you want to do with your life? You’re still young, and obviously you have strengths, or you wouldn’t have a UCLA engineering degree in hand. But you also have problems that have caused you a lot of suffering. Maybe it’s time to get some support in addressing those. You know from experience that you can push through being miserable, but you also know from experience that that isn’t how you want to spend you life.
There are mental health professionals; there are various kinds of life coaches (career-oriented, executive-function oriented, social skills oriented)… look into the possibilities and get some help with figuring out how to get from the life you have to the life you want. I wish you the best.
My point is so many parents on this very forum talk about how college is such a great time socially and academically, and it is frustrating when that just wasn’t the case for me
