Should I drop out?

Well Hero OHL here's what I think. I've seen some super advice from a cat older than me and from a kid in his 30s. Me, I'm 58. You're not gonna like too much of what I say but you NEED TO HEAR IT.

My thinking is pretty random partly due to smoking hooter off and on since 1970 so bear with me. I am not too articulate either and on top of all that I'm a redneck hillbilly. So here goes nothin'.

I'd say one of the best things you've learned in school was how to construct sentences that sound good and make sense. No run on sentences. I saw just one misspelled word. "Do a ton of homework with the precision of an expertise" just doesn't sound right to me and I'll bet it doesn't to Varapario either. You capitalize the first word in a new sentence. You're spot on with your use of commas and periods and stuff. (I can't remember what they call that.)

But Hero if you just flat drop out of school without a plan you are one dumbass mofo.

You said you're a sophomore. So you're what 15 years old?? You've GOT NO BUSINESS making decisions of this magnitude at such a tender age. So your peers are arrogant to others and your teachers are lazy retards waiting out their pensions to hit or tenure whichever comes first. Do you really want to end up like these unhappy, unfulfilled A-holes? I don't think you do otherwise you wouldn't be here seeking answers.

A wise man said to me once it was easier to find a better job when you were still working a regular job. You already have a job. You are in school. Like it or not you need to suck it up and gut it out. It's only 3 more years. Son if you can't 'cut it' in school now what makes you think you're gonna be anything more than a loser for the rest of your life???

Now are you in a large city in Alabama with buku choices or some backwater in the bayou with the snakes and gators? Cuz if you're back in the swamps you're going to have to work that much harder. But you need to have a plan. What do you excel in or love to do? Write it down. What are you good at but can take it or leave it? Write that down. Do you play guitar or drums or harmonica? Write that down. Have you ever been on a tractor with a bucket or blade and done some work with it? Were you having fun? Write it down. Do you have a Grampa or uncles you can talk to? Talk to them like you're talking to us. Old people know stuff.

And even if you don't care about having any money the rest of the planet runs on money. Having money makes life a lot easier. Did you know you could shell out 1200 to 1500 bucks (or more) to get into a halfway decent (not roach or illegal infested rat hole) apartment or house? Then it's like 400-1000 bucks a month rent. Are you planning on having electricity, hot running water, phone, web, heat, cable TV? That's all extra. You're gonna need wheels. Insurance. Gas. Upkeep and maintenance.

Are you picking up what I'm throwing down? If you're still reading my words I think you are. That's a good start. You love to learn you say. Start reading books on subjects that interest you. Engineering, paramedic textbooks, gunsmithing, blacksmithing, farrier, wheelwright, pottery, lost wax casting, metallurgy, welding, the building trades just to name a few. The hottest occupational fields right now are health/medical and the green movement in construction and alternative energy like solar, wind and hydro. (I am looking into cross training AGAIN into the caregiving field. I'm getting too old to work outside in the winter.) Find something you're passionate about and figure out how you can make a living at it. Cuz they say if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life.

Kinky Ramona had some VERY GOOD advice considering she's only 24. I'd bet she's talking from experience.

Whatever you decide follow your heart. Hells bells kiddo from the way you write you might consider a writing career. In the mean time get a job and save 90% of it. Cuz like KR said your folks ain't gonna let you mooch off them forever.

Something a few of us did in the 70s was get a good sized road bike, some camping gear and the day after graduation we were hitting the open road kinda like Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. Course tho some of us were doing that to avoid The Draft....and you needn't worry about that.

Like I said, follow your heart but make a plan and then stick to it. Cuz if you think life is tough now wait until you get into the world with no clue and no skills and son you'll be in a world of hurt.

The Duke once said "life is tough and if you're stupid it's a whole lot tougher".
Stupid is as stupid does.
Forrest Gump.

Peace lil brother

7.65

 

What this comes down to is what you want out of your future.

There are path's in life that are good, that do not require even a high school diploma... but that depends on how you define good and what skills you have or can develop.

If you plan on any type of actual career path, then you do need to finish high school and then go onto either college or university. It doesn't matter what career path you choose either, because you will be competing for jobs with people who have those qualifications.

That doesn't mean you have to do it conventionally though. You could 'drop out' of school and enroll online or through the mail at many accredited schools.

If however, you are planning on a life that is outside the conventional, then it is more then possible that you won't need to have any form of paperwork... That does not mean you won't need skills though.

Do you have the ability and drive to learn skills on your own, outside of the framework of the education system? If so, then maybe you can find a path that suits you.

However, I will point out that if you have the ability to learn skills on your own, outside of the framework of the education system, you could stay in school where you have better access to learning tools and instant advice (even if it is hard to come by) and add in your own learning program to fill the time that you don't need on the normal workload.

As I started this though... it all depends on what you want out of your future.

 

Hey Bubba, You've been swamped with good info here and it stays available on screen as long as you want it . Here's my final thought...find a real-life mentor. Find a live human being who you can trust and talk to in person. It's a time honored way to grow, a pup kid find an old dog man who cares about sharing his wisdom. It's a two way road because you gain knowledge and the old dog retains purpose. Buena Suerte young amaigo. I think you'll have a fun life. El Rio Yarapa/Steve

 

I graduated highschool last year, and I totally hear where you're coming from. There's too much drama in high school, too much "Bullying" and too much fighting. Your high school diploma is important - push all the highschool bullshit aside and just get it over with you won't regret it.

 

Yarapario:

I've always wanted to have an older "Mentor" some of the things I see people saying on this forums just amazes me, and I just stare in awe. There's really some people on here who i'm sure society thinks of as "Hippy scum" but in my eyes they're geniuses. I would love to sit and have a conversation with a lot of people on here, seems to be a lot of great people.

Reminds me of a book I read about Don Juan, amazing book.

 

Yep. Only thing I learned of value in high school was there's always going to be a drippy dick thinking he's better than you and you're always have a penis trying to run your life. Sad to be them and most usually it turns out their sex life is awful or their marriage is in ruins. They use their pseudoauthority to let out their emotions. Which is why they are the failures they are.

I look at some of the guys I went to school with, the guys that were so successful in school, here they are mister super cool stud boy having girls hanging off of them and getting their picture in the school paper, then when they graduate they suffer withdrawal syndrome. Not enough attention drives them nuts and they went off the deep end. Got mixed up in crime and drugs, now a couple of them are in prison for the next 10-20 years, one killed himself, two others were killed by someone else, yet only one of the "nerds" I grew up with died, and it was from a car wreck. Go figure.

I didn't learn much of anything in high school, other than what kind of bigots and human trash we had for teachers. Some were good but some were shit.

 

Logan 5 this comment of mine is in regards to your Signature about The 4 R's.

I was recycling LONG BEFORE it was mandated by local governments or was brought to the general public's attention by hippies in general or treehuggers in particular.

I remember when I was just a kid maybe 10 or 11. My Dad had a friend in the Merchant Marine from when he went to sea in WWII. His friend had recently returned from a stint aboard a ship. His buddy had a sea bag full of GI Surplus clothing, mostly fatigues+2 or 3 wool army shirts. Since it was 'Army stuff' I was on it like flies on warm shit. I got one of the army green wool shirts and 2 or 3 fatigue shirts. I still have one wool shirt from back then. It's damn near as old as I am (58) (if not older) and hangs in a closet at home. But I am trying to make a point here.

Back when I worked maintenance we got a poop load of old water setups that were brought into our facility rather than be found in a ditch somewhere as litter. At first we just threw them in our dumpster. All of the brass parts were rusted up, or were freeze breaks and unrepairable. One day I had a wild ass idea so I put my idea to work. I started stripping them down to basic parts. Each complete setup yielded up to 5 pounds EACH of CLEAN BRASS. The clean brass went into buckets that when full weighed from 50 to 65-70 pounds each. As I filled a bucket I took the buckets home and kept them in a back room. One Saturday when I had accumulated 8 or 10 buckets of brass along with a couple buckets of clean copper (stripped of the insulation with a razor knife) I loaded all this into my sled. I drove to my local metal scrap yard and learned first hand what clean brass and copper was worth. When I walked over to my ride with my FREE paycheck for the first time in my life I was giggling all the way to the bank. I made over $350 BUCKAROONIES!!! My recycling effort PAID MY EXPENSES to a dynamite barter faire just a couple weeks later.

Recycling ain't just earth friendly...it's wallet friendly!!! !!!

 

My very serious opinion....

Dropping out is stupid. It's pure laziness.

Employers are getting now where they won't even hire someone with a GED without college credits. If you hate HS then you're bound to dislike and quit college.

You can't join the military. You can't get a decent job unless flipping burgers is decent to you.

Your excuses? Welcome to life!.....There's always someone wanting to talk shit. Look over it and persevere.

Back 20-30 years ago, dropping out was acceptable. Today, with our economy and lack of jobs already? Your asking to be a homeless, future-less bum.

 

Go to California, man, put some flowers in your hair, head out to San Francisco and show up in Haight Ashbury and there are lots of pads man where you can just hang out... Everyone's doing it, and it is a real trip that will change your life! Be sure and check out Blue Cheer and the Dead---like, go to an Acid Koolaid Test. And if you need to eat---man the Diggers will feed you! And like, if you need bread...

...Oh-----no, wait a minute... No... those times are gone now.

One of the leaders of that time, Jerry Rubin, after times changed, and he dealt with his own pursuit of personal freedom, realized that you have to have money to truly become free---at least enough to where you have a sense of economic freedom. Of course his new philosophy was partly instrumental in carrying us baby boomers into the greed and hedonism of the 1980's. But it made a lot of sense---its just that we baby boomers tend to take things to excess.

My trick in school was to try to pick things out of what was being taught that fit into my own plans for the future. If teachers aren't teaching, at least there is textbooks, homework, or whatever, and I picked and chose from any and all classes, what I might use. Stuff that seemed insignificant, I would realize, 'wait a minute--I might someday need this for...' A filmmaker can choose from all kinds of lessons that he might one day use professionally---even bits of knowledge that others would never even care about.

I hated high school too, but loved college, and even tried to extend those years. I knew that once college ended, then I had to actually work. But I worked in an area that I loved and made my whole life an adventure.

The job market today is nothing like the job market that we had as kids. And with this current recession and a future filled with a huge government deficit and cheap 3rd world labor in a marketplace that is increasingly turning global---education will become even more significant than before. Construction was a labor intensive sector that was a great place to support yourself, even in a rural mountain town, or a big city. But today it is in what looks like to be a big slump for some time to come, and if school is not challenging you, a labor intensive job, even something interesting like construction, might bore you too---one day it will bore you to death.

Since High School didn't challenge me much, I used hobbies to get around that. One of the philosophies I felt strongly about even in High School, is that you alone are responsible for everything that happens to you. In the end, regardless of what life dishes out to you, you alone, with your decisions, will determine where you go with it. There are some significant times when I did things that I was told couldn't be done. I was the first foreigner to work as a stock broker in a Japanese brokerage firm, when everyone said it was impossible, and that Japanese companies only hire through Japanese universities, and blah blah blah... I then became an analyst for Shearson Lehman in Tokyo while Ivy Leaguers trying to get expat positions in Japan derogatorily referred to idiot English teachers who think they can work in the stock market (I wasn't an English teacher, but I knew what they really meant, and I wasn't Ivy League). I travelled all over Asia, married a tv actress, and have always been the captain of my destiny.

Its all in your hands.

 

Well honestly if you drop out you will struggle the rest of your life financially, unless you get your GED.. But if you just tuff it out to the end your DONE, and it will be horrible and graduation will be a drag, but then you can wash your hands of it, and start living your life the way you want.

 

I 'm 58 and have a son who graduated 6 years ago.

He hated school, particularly the drama. He closed his eyes to the crap around him and just rode it out. Yeah, couple of fights along the way, (he was lucky, he's a big kid, swam competitively and could dish out whatever was thrown at him) but generally he kept out of the scene.

Whatever you do, get your diploma. It may not seem important today, but it will effect your life long earning power.

Just my two cents-Education isn't always the end game-it's the folks you meet and opportunities that arise during the education process that often dictate your direction/path

Good luck with your decision man

 

I just graduated high school a couple of weeks ago. And let me tell you, there is a certain satisfaction to be gained after you've slaved through the four years.

If you stay, you should take comfort in knowing the fact that you, though I don't know you at all, seem to be much more mature and intellectually developed then the typical sophomore (grade 10?) as you have cited some oh-so familiar teenage antics. :gossip: You know, you could teach your peers a thing or two if you spoke up; set a higher standard for things maybe. You are also aware of the ramifications that may arise should you chose to drop out.

By grades 11 and 12, but more so grade 12, I noticed that things seemed to settle down. The immaturity and the drama was still there to some effect, and some people still had quite a malicious bite, but the grade 12 student body as a whole seemed to be more focused on cracking the books and getting their shit together; dare I say they had matured. At the very least, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel startled the shit out of them.

Oh and the senior year classes were far more interesting and rigorous; I took in-depth classes like: Writer's Craft, Philosophy, Sociology, Ancient History, World Politics, World Religions etc.

Do what you think is right for you, but you should know that at some point in your life you are probably going to have to deal with even more difficult people, and by this time the consequences of "dropping out" so to speak, will be too great. High School's a bitch, but in many ways it's like training ground; in sticking through it I for one have built up some confidence and character, and resilience to moronic people.

Carefully weigh your options, consider the implications of your decision(s), and always follow your conscience.

Good Luck.

 

No drop out! Teachers are doing their jobs that is preparing you for life... which means WORK! Go getting used to it if you don't want to be a beggar.

 

You always do what is right for you, according to your own inner wisdom. The more you hold this vibration the more this energy will be integrated on a cellular level

 

Always get your GED! U will need it in life! Who cares what everyone thinks!

 

Do what's in your heart. Some of the smartest and most successful people throughout history were college dropouts. Just do what's in your heart.

 

Dude I hate to tell you this, but don't drop out! Even though you hate everyone at school and don't like their attitudes you will regret missing the prom experience and graduating with everyone. Also, we have all been through the same experience it's just part of life (unfortunately). Hang in there and just fucking ignore everyone.

 

And this ^

 

Just to say, I dropped out of school when I was 16 in 1968. I've never regretted it.....I went on to college as a mature student in the late 70s and got a degree and went on to get a decent job. I only did that because I had two kids to support and got no help from their father. After my kids grew up, I dropped out again! I now live happily rural, growing veg, making clothes to sell at festivals and having a good life. I never regretted missing the prom or graduation, I probably wouldn't have gone to them anyways. I don't know how much things have changed nowdays, but it worked for me.

 

I can't believe what sometimes I read. the options we make when we're young will condition our entire adult life. just go as far as you can on studies, is the only wise advise someone can give you. nobody said it was easy! :sunny: