Need help/Advice

[tfreer85]

Okay, as some of you may know quarters for CSU's are coming to an end and I'm not doing the very well (B minus high C average in most classes). As I come to think of school I realize how I have never really had the desire to be there, I'm in my second year of College and am thinking about dropping out. I live at home with my parents, been in the same house for 20yrs, have no friends in town anymore, and there is little to nothing at all to do except drink at shitty bars with a bunch of tools. I feel like I need to get out of this town and start living my life for me for my interests in life. I, in part am going to school for 3 reasons: one I wanted to get my business degree, two to make more money afterwards, and three because my parents wanted me to be. However, I have only one real interest in life cars. Now I'm considering a couple of options: I drop out of my CSU and apply to Wyotech or other school for me to get my ASE certification and move out of CA to the Mid-west (cheaper cost of living) or stay in CA while having a sh*tload of debt. Open myself up for large career oppurtunities in automotive field. Drop out of my CSU and get a job at a custom car shop. Stick with my CSU get my Bachelors in Business Admin get a job and keep cars as my hobby. Drop out of my CSU take time off to discover what I want to do with my life and possibly come back to it.

The problem is that if I drop out of my CSU my parents will no longer support me nor my decision as my brothers both have graduated from 4 year schools and grad school (one a movie producer the other a lawyer). I'm in a bad spot because I feel that if I don't stick it out and get my 4year degree I will burn the bridge between my parents and I. Conversely I feel that if don't do what I want to do then I'm not living my life for me but for someone elses goals. I'm not the average 20yr old and am very business savy and a relatively smart guy I can do anything I put my mind to (I don't apply myself to things I don't like doing therefore not do very well in school), but I don't know what I should do. That is why I'm posting is I would like your guys' opinions on the situation and what you think I should do. Sorry for the long post and sounding like a whiney bitch, but I've got no one to turn to who understands why anyone would want to work on car. Thanks for any help.

 

Tyson

[SHO-Z]

Hey Bs and Cs in college is nothing to be ashamed of! There are people who would die for grades like that. After your first job no one will ever ask what your GPA was.

 

Do you want to run the garage or work for flat rate fixing cars. There is nothing wrong with being a mechanic either, it is a good profession. If you finish your education you still can look at being a mechanic, but it will be hard to return to school after you are working. I went back to college after 20 years due to a back injury in the construction trades, and believe me it was no fun. Do I miss working in the trades you bet but then again it is nice to be out of the weather.

 

If I were you I would finish my education then look at my options. You might want to explore other majors too.

 

Just beware of the “Should-a Would-a Could-aâ€

[260ZRED]

Have you considered getting an engineering degree instead??

Just something to consider.

 

But I think finishing school (with good grades), is a good idea. I mean you got this far, there's not that much left, right? Finish it, get that degree and move on.

 

I see people at 25, at 30, at 35 try and go back to school. Most of them can't do it. Theres a right time for everything I guess.

 

BTW, I'm finishing my 4th semester @ UH, for Mechanical Engineering. It's one hell of a roller coaster.. but I love it!

[tfreer85]

Its not that I'm ashamed of Bs and Cs its just not acceptable in my household, causing a lot of turmoil and aggravation. Which since I have been in the same household for 20yrs it means I have payed for nothing that is mine and have nothing to claim for my own. Allowing a dangling effect by my paretnts to control aspects of my life. I've already have could-a should-a when I didn't apply to any colleges except the local JC because I didn't have the money for the applications and the parents didn't help out either leaving after fulling supporting both the bro's through their grad schools, with fully having the capability to support me, but did not. I don't know its aggravating as hell because I constantly feel like my choices aren't the right choices. I just want to finally make the right choice for me and this is critical decision that will affect the rest of my life.

 

Tyson

[tfreer85]

Have you considered getting an engineering degree instead??

Just something to consider.

 

But I think finishing school (with good grades)' date=' is a good idea. I mean you got this far, there's not that much left, right? Finish it, get that degree and move on.

 

I see people at 25, at 30, at 35 try and go back to school. Most of them can't do it. Theres a right time for everything I guess.

 

BTW, I'm finishing my 4th semester @ UH, for Mechanical Engineering. It's one hell of a roller coaster.. but I love it![/quote']

Well I would do engineering, but am not good enough in math (not to mention i hate math) for a degree from the CSU system. I know its hard to come back I've seen it as well, I would still be going to school in a sense of being a Tech school. I'd still have close to 3 years because the local JC screwed me up by having me take non transferable units...but thats in the past.

 

Tyson

[rudypoochris]

Finish the same degree at a different school away from home.

[SHO-Z]

There are several levels of Engineering Degrees. Mine is Mechanical Engineering Technology and since I passed my Professional Engineering Exam no one cares. I didn’t have to take Calc 3 or differential equations. I work in the petro chemical industry and have not used Calculus since I got out of college.

 

You are not your brothers, you are you! Your parents need to understand that. My brother has a MBA and until a few years ago couldn’t change a spark plug to save his life. He fixed the clutch cable on his 356 Porsche and thought he had won the lottery. I was fixing his cars while in grade school. Just had a natural feel for mechanical things.

 

I am a parent and have always tried to only give advice to my adult son when he asks for it. It is hard for some parents to understand that there kids are adults.

[qwik240z]

As someone that dropped out of college and went back 10 years later, I will throw my 2 cents in here.

 

Finish the Degree. It is so much harder to go back to school after you have been out there in the working world for a while. These days you need a 4 year degree to be competitive. It seems to be the same as what a High School Diploma used to be.

 

My advice to your is to get you degree and while doing it, try to get a part time job at a car shop so you can gain some more car experience and some money of your own. Once you have the degree you may decide to stay in the car business and you will have the formal business skills to set up your own business.

 

Mechanics make good money these days. If this is really what you want to do, you may still want to do it after a few more years of school.

 

The degree will always open doors for you in the future. If you don't get it, you will be sorry about it at some point in the future.

 

Best of luck in school!

[Pop N Wood]

My advice to your is to get you degree and while doing it, try to get a part time job at a car shop so you can gain some more car experience and some money of your own. Once you have the degree you may decide to stay in the car business and you will have the formal business skills to set up your own business.

 

 

Was thinking the same thing. Get a job working as a mechanic while still in school. You could even drop down to a part time class load for a semester of two if need be. You're parents will probably be supportive of this idea if they think the alternative is dropping out altogether. School is not only a place to learn a skill, it also gives you time to figure out what you want to do with your life.

 

Also change your attitude a bit. Instead of the "woe is me" you ought to be thinking how fortunate you are to have all these options. You're life right now is a blank check. You have managed to avoid the dumb mistakes that seal most young men’s futures. You can be anything you want. This choice shouldn’t worry you; it should excite you.

 

One other option, I know a lot of people who were facing such a cross roads who ended up in the military. Gives you a few years to do something different, can give you a good technical background and most importantly gives you a few years to figure out what you really want. I got my engineering degrees after I did a 6-year enlistment so it can be done.

[dsommer]

Join the military!!!

 

Consider the Air Force (ACTIVE DUTY!!!) "it'S a great way of life" Sign up for a 4 year hitch, they'll pay for your food, housing, medical. Give you a paycheck and teach you a skill or trade. I'd stay away from Law enforcement though. While in the AF you can attend school when avaliable. Sign up for the GI bill $100/month for your first year and upon completion of 4 years you'll have plenty of money for school. Once your 4 years are up either opt to stay in if you like it or go back to school (you mentioned Wyotech) or finish up your business degree. If you join now by the time you're done with the military you'll be right at 25 years old. Plenty of time to start a career.

 

 

Questions:

Are your folks paying for your books and tuition? Or are they just supporting you with room and board? (board what the f' is board? Doesn't sound too tasty to me but you hear about it none the less, gotta look that one up, sorry OT). I can understand that having a producer and lawyer in the family has got to be tough on you and so much is expected out of your schooling.

 

Just how many nights a week are you hanging out in the bars with those "tools" when your grades are suffering? B's and C's are decent grades to me.

 

So there you have it, to get out from under the wing of your parents GET OUT. Go see a recruiter today don't commit just go check it out. Will you go to Iraq? Good posibility but I haven't heard of anybody in the AF dying recently. (I did 4 years active Army 1987-1991 (Gulf War Vet), 8 years Army National Guard, 5 years Air Guard and finally quit, yes I had enough after 17 years)

 

I do have my 4 year degree and a great job working for get this Castrol Oil, so go figure it's like having my cake and eating it too. Get to stay close to a passion (cars) working for a helluva brand name company (Castrol) and get a paycheck, nothing wrong with that. Seriously consider the military NOBODY even your parents will brow beat you for this decision.

 

David

[mark]

You have had good advice from the above posters. I won't be so nice. This is how it is. If you don't have a 4 year degree, you need to know how to do something. You don't know how to do anything to support yourself. If you want to be really miserable, get a dead end job without a degree. School will seem great compared to that.

 

I was in your situation may years ago. I came very close to dropping out and working in a Textile mill. We all know how well textiles are doing.

 

Suck it up, quit whining and be a man. Finish school, get a 4 year degree in anything. It will open other opportinuties for you. Life is just jumping thru hoops. Jump thru this one and move on. 2 years is nothing. You should be able to do 2 years on your head.

 

If I sound like your father, It's because he is right.

[jimbob_racing]

I'll chime in because I hated college. It took me 5 1/2 years (failed out at one point) to earn a four year degree in communications because I couldn't stand all the bullcrap theory and nonrelated classes that I was forced to take. My first year in college I worked day and night at the campus radio station (which didn't help my already poor grades) getting hands on experience with all aspects of broadcasting and I also took on an upaid internship for no school credit to get my foot in the door of a real radio station. During my last four and a half years I moved up to constantly working at local commercial stations doing part time announcing, commercial writing and production, running syndicated music and sporting events-whatever they wanted to pay me to do.

 

I wanted to drop out of school several times because I could easily get a full time job in radio but my parents kept convincing me to stick it out and get my degree. Eventually I graduated exactly at the schools minimum GPA but immediately had a full time job at a commercial station and took my evening time slot from nearly last in the Arbitrons to first place in one 6 month period. I never looked back and kept advancing in the industry until I eventually bought my own (small town) radio station. I sold it several years back for a nice profit and now I work in a retail/internet business that a good friend owns.

 

My parents were also upset with my grades in college but I kept telling them that they didn't matter-it was the hands on skills that I had developed. It was only when I started getting lucrative jobs in radio that they finally began to understand what I had been trying to tell them all along. FWIW, all the "top" students (bookworms, no real hands on experience) that I went to school with have never even worked in the industry. It was nice to go to a reunion show up more than a few people who looked down on me while in school.

 

My point? College taught me almost NOTHING related to what I wanted to do but my degree has opened a lot of doors along the way, especially with large corporations that get lots of applicants. A degree says that you have started and completed something and potential employers want to see that you have some kind of drive and determination. Attending college but not getting a degree is going to hurt you more than anything. Suck it up and finish the degree. A general business degree will open doors for you EVERYWHERE. I've hired a lot of people over the years and a degree listed on a resume always looks better to me than none. With that said I HAVE hired many nondegreed candidates over ones with one simply because of the actual skills and experience they brought to the table.

 

I feel you're first mistake is drinking in bars with tools. Cut out the beer and time wasting and put that money into a savings account because you're going to need a lot of stuff when you move out of your parents house. I feel like you're not telling us the whole story regarding your siblings and how your parents paid for their schooling but are not cooperative with yours. Stop being a rebel, show some maturity and start making an effort to get along with your family. Friends and coworkers come and go but the only people that you can REALLY count on is your family. They're stuck with you for life so make the best of it. You can either choose them to be great allies or powerful enemies-your choice.

 

Sorry to be preachy but I've been in your shoes myself and I've turned out pretty good by following this advice.

[JMortensen]

Hard to top the advice you've already gotten. Let me attack from a slightly different angle. I got out of high school and immediately started working on cars. The reason you like working on your car is BECAUSE IT'S NOT YOUR JOB! Ever hear the saying "the cobbler's children have no shoes"? It's true. Once it's your job, it looses it's luster real quick, let me tell you. You get to loathe LOF's on cars that are 200 degrees when it's 100º outside. And don't kid yourself about making decent money. First you have to "pay your dues" pretty much anywhere you go. Which means you're the shop bitch. Then there are the costs of doing that work in the first place. More than 1/2 my paycheck was dissappearing on the tool truck for the first several years. That will eventually level off, but it NEVER goes away.

 

My boss at the last shop I worked for was 50 and his body was falling apart. He had serious back problems, gout, housewife's knee (fluid in the knee, really gross) and literally probably had another 30 years to go in that already broken body. I looked at him and said no friggin way, and got out of the biz for good. To those here that are mechanics, I suggest you be good to your body and use all the engine hoists and tranny jacks and all that stuff. You may think it's manly now to stab that transmission by hand, but you'll think otherwise when you're 65 and all your joints are shot.

 

It took my wife 8 years to get her BS because we put her through night school while working full time for the first 5. Once she finished that and decided what her degree was going to be and really got motivated, I dropped out of school and worked full time to get her through school. She graduated cum laude from Cal Poly SLO, then went onto grad school here in Seattle. She now has the job she dreamed of years back. She is a Registered Dietitian at Children's Hospital.

 

Unlike most I don't think a college degree guarantees you a good job or a promising future. What it does do is get your foot in the door, and it pretty much guarantees that you don't have to do manual labor anymore unless you want to. IMO college degree is a certification that you are capable of putting up with a large amount of bullshit. The point to your prospective employer is that you've gained the ability to reason for one, and that you have a certain degree of fortitude that many others don't have. I think there is a statistic that says that 80% of college graduates don't work in the field of their degree, so don't get hung up on what your major is. Just having a degree at all makes a big difference.

 

Matman has a pretty good college experience story too. He has a BS in Materials Engineering, lost his job in the dot bomb thing, went back to carpentry and swinging a hammer, and now does cost analysis for a construction company. So your career path isn't necessarily a straight line and you aren't married to your degree.

 

I worked a couple jobs in the mail order industry then started my own business. I still don't have any degree. The older I get the less I want to go back and get the degree. Especially being self-employed it just doesn't make a difference to me anymore. I make decent money now but I did it by taking chances, not by getting a job and working for somebody else. If you're not going to get the degree, you're going to languish in mediocrity unless you have some drive, which it doesn't sound like you have at this point in your life. I have known several self-made millionaires, one of which didn't even have a high school diploma. Takes a certain kind of person to do that. It is still possible to do today, but you have to have that spark, you have to be the kind of person that can sell ice to eskimoes. If you don't, you'll be MUCH better off getting that degree.

[tfreer85]

Well I really got to say thank you to all for the help, seems like overwhelming advice to stick it out and get my 4 year. Military however is not an option I've had a complete knee reconstruction with about 6 ounces of titanium in it, have to carry a doctors note to fly. I don't drink very often at all, vary rarely as I'm only 20 so I can't legally get into bars I was explaining the lack of excitement in this town. In HS I was a rebel yes, I bucked the system with every chance I got, though i graduated in the top 100 of my class of 500 in Honors Programs. I've thought about it some more I slept or layed in bed last night and I think the best solution for me right now is to get out of the house and out of this city. I'm the kid that a lot of people hate because I have never paid for anything of my own, I've never had a job and am 20yrs old (there lies another problem with deciding on my future). jmortenson I think you make a good point with the "the cobbler's children have no shoes" statement I've heard that coming from a group of people as well. I'm looking into other CSU's in the LA area possibly Long Beach State and will try and transfer there after this upcoming 21 unit quarter. I understand the how the whole having a degree helps thats why its such a problem for me and I've come from an upper middle class family (not bragging) so I'm accustomed to a different life style and that factors in as well. Would I be willing to take a cut in living style to pursue a career in automotive? I don't mean to be snobbish but I don't think I would be willind to do so. I also have seen the manual labor issue with my own father he worked and still works occasionally in concrete construction field even though he owns the company. He taught me a lesson about working construction manual labor when I was having trouble in HS. Made me put out just enough effort to graduate.

 

I know grades aren't the most important thing when it comes to getting a degree, it doesn't say your grade point average. My grades aren't do to a lack of intelligence, its do to a lack of effort and lack of interest in the gen ed bullshit. Which of course doesn't help with the parent situation of them thinking I'm responsible. (another reason to get a job to proove to them that I am). It also doesn't help that I'm the youngest and my entire family would suffer empty nest syndrome as we all live in close proximity and are close nit. I don't want to burn a bridge between them and as you guys have already stated they are for life. I'd take my brothers over any friends any day we're just that close.

 

So this is what my current solution is going to be: After finals I'm getting a job full-time pitch in as much money as possilbe to repay my parents for my upcoming quarter if I have time I will work part time during the quarter. Take the Spring quarter off move to the LA area working full time in the industry allow me to fully take on what's happening in the shop. Fill out my applications for some of the CSU's in the area and attend in the Fall quarter. And get my BS or BA in some field preferrably something dealing with automotive directly or indirectly. I could easily be a graphic designs major, tried it one quarter, but didn't know if I wanted to sit in front of a computer all day. I might shift back towards it as a minor as there is a lot of freedom involved with the field and good money. I'd be curious if any one has input on degrees that could keep me close to cars, but not be doing the manual labor all the time. Reality is I'm not going to be the next Chip Foose even if I were to go to Wyotech or the like, so I'm better off sticking with my getting a degree, untangling my panties, and take resposibility for this last quarter and move on. Again thanks you guys have no idea how much this has helped, I just gotta start searching for shops, schools, and places to live in the greater Los Angeles area. Thanks,

 

Tyson (the guy in search)

[rudypoochris]

I would suggest asking your parents nicely if they would fund your education in a different state, and list some reasons why you aren't doing well at CSU. If that doesn't work then your plan sounds okay.

[tfreer85]

Out of state isn't a very good option for them, out of state tuition is ridicolous not to mention I like CA. CSU Northridge is looking to be the best option as the have a specific focus on Automotive Engineering no other CSU does, these are just the labs that they have on campus:

 

Automotive Engineering Laboratory

Computer Controlled Parts Manufacturing Lab (Haas Lab)

Design, Analysis and Simulation Laboratory

Environmental Test Chamber

Formula SAE Laboratory

Formula SAE Racecars

Streamliner

Machine Design Laboratory

Mechatronics Lab

Rocket Engine Test Cell

Robotics and Controls Engineering Laboratory

Thermofluid Systems Laboratory

Wind Tunnel Laboratory

 

Also can get a chance to build this

 

 

More Pics: http://www.ecs.csun.edu/%7Esae/cgi-bin/spboard/board.cgi?id=gallery

 

Organization that builds them: http://www.ecs.csun.edu/sae/

 

More SAE info:

http://students.sae.org/

http://automobile.sae.org/

 

I had completely forgotten about SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), seems like CSU Northridge will be good college for this Major and I'll minor in Radio-Television-Film Communications (it'll pull in the graphic design interest). Thanks again for all the help.

 

Tyson