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Please don't become a career student, the country is filled with folks who have multiple grad degrees and very little in the way of gainful experience. You'll be beholden to daddy's money forever with a plan like that.
Take this path instead:
(this path works much better in cities). Get a job and move into a group house. The group house (likely to be filled with 20 somethings) will approximate college campus life to a large extent. You'll be getting valuable experience and perspective, saving money, and having an active social life.
I'm Chinese and my college experience sounds hauntingly similar to yours, specifically in the following aspects:
- Parental coercion
- Low grades (I had a 2.8 in college compared to a 3.7 back in high school)
- Lack of a social life
In addition, I was pressured into attending graduate school after finishing college against my will. I got into a major fight with my parents due to my staunch stubborness of "hell no, I'm not going!" but they eventually guilted me into going by going into graphic detail how much my mom had spent her days (something to the tune of 80 hours a week) researching graduate schools and planning it all out. However, I eventually failed out of grad school and surprisingly, my parents didn't cut off support even though 99.99% of American parents probably would do so at this point. I even flat out refused their monetary support but they forced me again (after yet another fight) to take it and go back to school. At this point, since I was pretty much backed into a corner and had to accept their monetary support instead of striking out on my own, I chose study Finance instead of Engineering for my 2nd Masters (I had flunked out with a MS when I first went to grad school.)
I won't sugar coat it to you.. there's little doubt you've those wasted 4 years of you life unless you want to chalk this up as a learning experience, which is what I recommend.
Like other posters mentioned, your most immediate and dire goal now is Financial Independence.
No, you don't need enough to retire and stop working but you do need enough savings and a steady job in order to not answer to your parents. (Colloquially, this is known as F*** U money, google for it.) If you have this, you can continue to support yourself whether or not your parents like/hate it or want to send you back to Korea. And please, don't think that just because your parents will cut you off financially, that means the end of your world and you must return to Korea. Plenty of American kids don't receive ANY financial support from their parents when they turn 18.. yes, life's supposed to be hard like that. If you figure out how to support yourself, you don't need to give a s**t what your parents want you to do with your life.. you're an Adult.
If you need more advice on how to get your finances in order, read the following blog:
If you like to read, I recommend the following books for inspiration:
Antifragility by Nassim Taleb (Highly Recommended): Everything about your upbringing, especially your parents' distasteful fetish for Higher Education, is debunked as "beneficial".
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss: If you want to relive your college years, save up a few thousand dollars and buy a round trip ticket to somewhere like Amsterdam.. seriously. Go with an agenda of having fun and nothing else.
Don't waste more time and money on a 2nd Bachelors or grad school just to relive your college experience..
Am I being cynical to think that the contents of the original post were made up?
If it's all true, then you probably should go into psychology like you had originally wanted...your introspection, the ability to express yourself and your communication skills can take you very far in that field.
Am I being cynical to think that the contents of the original post were made up?
If it's all true, then you probably should go into psychology like you had originally wanted...your introspection, the ability to express yourself and your communication skills can take you very far in that field.
I believe it completely because I had a very similar background and college experience as the OP (graduated from college in 2005)
I'm Chinese and my college experience sounds hauntingly similar to yours, specifically in the following aspects:
- Parental coercion
- Low grades (I had a 2.8 in college compared to a 3.7 back in high school)
- Lack of a social life
In addition, I was pressured into attending graduate school after finishing college against my will. I got into a major fight with my parents due to my staunch stubborness of "hell no, I'm not going!" but they eventually guilted me into going by going into graphic detail how much my mom had spent her days (something to the tune of 80 hours a week) researching graduate schools and planning it all out. However, I eventually failed out of grad school and surprisingly, my parents didn't cut off support even though 99.99% of American parents probably would do so at this point. I even flat out refused their monetary support but they forced me again (after yet another fight) to take it and go back to school. At this point, since I was pretty much backed into a corner and had to accept their monetary support instead of striking out on my own, I chose study Finance instead of Engineering for my 2nd Masters (I had flunked out with a MS when I first went to grad school.)
I won't sugar coat it to you.. there's little doubt you've those wasted 4 years of you life unless you want to chalk this up as a learning experience, which is what I recommend.
Like other posters mentioned, your most immediate and dire goal now is Financial Independence.
No, you don't need enough to retire and stop working but you do need enough savings and a steady job in order to not answer to your parents. (Colloquially, this is known as F*** U money, google for it.) If you have this, you can continue to support yourself whether or not your parents like/hate it or want to send you back to Korea. And please, don't think that just because your parents will cut you off financially, that means the end of your world and you must return to Korea. Plenty of American kids don't receive ANY financial support from their parents when they turn 18.. yes, life's supposed to be hard like that. If you figure out how to support yourself, you don't need to give a s**t what your parents want you to do with your life.. you're an Adult.
If you need more advice on how to get your finances in order, read the following blog:
If you like to read, I recommend the following books for inspiration:
Antifragility by Nassim Taleb (Highly Recommended): Everything about your upbringing, especially your parents' distasteful fetish for Higher Education, is debunked as "beneficial".
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss: If you want to relive your college years, save up a few thousand dollars and buy a round trip ticket to somewhere like Amsterdam.. seriously. Go with an agenda of having fun and nothing else.
Don't waste more time and money on a 2nd Bachelors or grad school just to relive your college experience..
If you want to relive your college years, save up a few thousand dollars and buy a round trip ticket to somewhere like Amsterdam.. seriously. Go with an agenda of having fun and nothing else.
Don't even need to go that far. I was going to recommend Miami during spring break or New Orleans or even Vegas.
Any of those places can be just as crazy as anything experienced during college.
I'm Chinese and my college experience sounds hauntingly similar to yours, specifically in the following aspects:
- Parental coercion
- Low grades (I had a 2.8 in college compared to a 3.7 back in high school)
- Lack of a social life
didn't you study mechanical engineering at UC berkley ? 2.8 isn't terrible for engineering. It's not like the average gpa for engineering is terribly high (tops 3.2).
also note that in general 3.0+ gpa is good enough for most engineering/IT jobs in america. The standards aren't incredibly high.
Dude just wants to bleeping party. I thought he was just 'rudderless'.
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