College Shmollege

Many students struggle to "cut it" and "make the grade" attending college. Let us dwell deeper into my personal life, shall we? I am sort of in a pickle. I kinda said fuck off to the major I had, and got the information on how to switch out to something different; something I had no idea might be. So I went all depressed-like and hated everything, until I thought I found the right replacement major, but then decided, "What's the point of school?" and kind of went deeper into depression, then fought to not get smothered last minute-like. I have a good feeling things turned out tragic. In the light of my situation, I decided to look up the failure rate in achieving a degree in college and what I found was astounding.

"...54 percent of students entering four-year colleges in 1997 had a degree six years later..." - a MSNBC report "U.S. college drop-out rate sparks concern" states.

That's more than half the people enrolling in college achieve their goal. Let's do the American thing and figure out who to point the finger at. Why not the colleges themselves?

I went to the ACT website and found the results of a recent survey, recent being a little under 2 years ago. ACT survey officials say, "...at more than 1,000 two- and four-year colleges and universities...an alarming number of schools have no specific plan or goals in place to improve student retention and degree completion." Why is that? Don't they want students to complete their degrees?

Of course they do, but if you're in college and you're not responsible for that kind of material by then, should you really be in college?

There is the shell-shock factor of it all - shell-shock a term coined during and most notably after wartime when a soldier is overwhelmed with the tribulations of war. Same thing is suggested to happen to a good number of students in college. This might explain why a lot of students fail out of college.

You have to go into college with the right intentions. Don't expect to party and booze it up your whole first and second semester, and still pass all your classes. If you can succeed in doing that, you must be a true genius. You have to work at succeeding in college. But don't over stress.

"College is something you complete. Life is something you experience - So don't worry about your grades, the results, success. Don't focus on the finish line, or how you're doing compared to everyone else - or why you've had a rash for over 20 years now - Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may."
- Jon Stewart; "The Daily Show"

Failing all your classes isn't ever good, don't get me wrong, but, realize why you are in college, and make sure you want be there, before you put forth the money. Van Wilder might have been a cool movie, but don't follow by example on that one...