apologies for the messy ish writing i'm kinda just typing my mind right now
Hey yall, 17 y/o incoming freshman (class of 2030) here and honestly, I've been having crazy anxiety about...well everything.
For context, I just submitted my deposit for my college and after taking care of all of the paperwork stuff it's really starting to dawn on me that yeah, I'm scared as hell. I don't really want to admit that because i'm so used to pretending that shit's okay and for the first time it truly feels like i'm intimidated by what's to come
this past friday, i decided to submit an application to switch my major from CS to MechE. I've been thinkin about this for about a year or so now but honestly after doing my research I really don't have faith in that degree anymore. probably don't need to elaborate more on that, but the tl;dr is that I want to try engineering, despite how hard it is because I do have an interest in machinery and working hands on and what not.
Only problem is, I'm really fucking scared about the work. For what it was, I was a pretty above average kid in high school. Though I couldn't take AP Calc senior year (long story) overall I did well in my 4 years of hs (93 gpa, AP, Honors, lots of ECs, you get it). The issue comes with the fact that, I know that I barely tried. This might sound pretentious, but please hear me out. I know that Mech E is extremely work intensive, especially in math (obviously i did try in highschool, but i was never the type to live and breathe it when i got home i mostly spent my days going on side quests and playing terraria lol) and I know what I'll be undertaking with this.
Here's the good thing though, regardless of what major I ended up doing, I promised myself this. I would put as much work as I need to and I will lock in heavily. I may be scared and arguably not the greatest at math, I will grind my ass off into making sure I succeed. I want to be that type of guy that people look at and go "damn, he has a 3.9 gpa, has a ton of opportunities, goes out, and still has time to pursue his dreams on the side?" if you get what I'm saying. (it also helps that i'm a naturally sociable person)
The issue comes that's despite everything, there's a burning feeling inside of me that's afraid of failing. Afraid of sitting at my desk for 9 hours straight not understanding a damn thing and feeling stupid. Afraid of potentially abandoning my dreams by locking in too hard. Afraid of dissapointing myself and my mom. I could go on, really.
this is my biggest fear, i want to work hard but i also want to you know, enjoy college? go out sometime? do what i actually like from time to time (not even every day)? maybe even get into a relationship? from what everyone is telling me that's starting to seem like too much to ask (regardless i was never the type to want to party every night and fuck around during the day anyway so :/ that's good i guess)
Is that naive of me to say? That I'm willing to put in the work to do engineering but I don't want to partake in that "grind till you go bald" mentality? I want to choose both and there's a feeling inside of me that wants to reject what the world is saying and try anyway. Don't know if that's gonna take me far or end up stretching me too thin
my dream and true passion was always music, i'm a guitarist and i've been making music for like 5 years now. "So why don't you go into a music field?" The answer to that is because I want money. My #1 goal in life is to travel the world, see everything there is to see. I can't do that if i'm broke. The silver lining is that I also like working in tech/engineering, so it's not too bad.
Maybe I'm just being a bitch and I need to grow a pair. I'd love for that to just be the answer, but something in my gut tells me there's validity in what I'm saying and it pains me. I dream of so much and I'm willing to get it at any cost, I just don't want to lose myself in the process, yk?
i don't want to be one of the dudes who gets weeded out during sophomore year. my pride won't let me do that but my pride also won't let me fail so for me the only option is succeeding
don't rlly know how to end this so thanks for reading