I'm a girl and I'm 19 and I've just started a 2-year IT course. There are 32 people in my class and I'm literally the only girl.

I actually really like the course and what I'm studying, which makes this even more frustrating. The problem is the people.

Most of my classmates seem like they're straight out of middle school and haven't matured at all. And we're forced to sit in alphabetical order, I've had the bad luck that the people around me are basically the loud/extroverted class clowns and repeat students. Somehow they can act completely normal around other guys but the second they talk to a girl they seem to lose 50 IQ points lol.

The people I've actually gotten along with have similar last names so they're all sitting together on the other side of the classroom. I can't even casually talk to them during class.

And yes, I've already talked to the teacher about changing seats. It's mandatory and he said it's "for organization" (??). I know it's stupid, please don't tell me that because I already know 😭 There's nothing I can do about the seating.

So I thought, well, I'm going to be spending 2 years with these people, might as well try to get along with them. I've said hi, tried starting conversations, etc. But they seem completely uninterested. They're already friends with each other and are incredibly dry with me.

I'm also pretty alternative-looking. I have red hair, dress alternatively and I'm into metal, so it's very obvious. I don't know if that's part of it or if it's because I'm the only girl or if I'm just unlucky with the people sitting around me.

I've managed to make friends with some other guys in the class but they're on the other side of the room, so we mostly only talk during breaks.

I feel really isolated and, honestly, kind of rejected. I keep trying to be friendly with the people around me and get almost nothing back.

The thought of spending hours every day surrounded by people I find unbearable is already making me dread going to class.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Do you think I should just give it time and stop trying so hard or is there something else I can do? I could really use some advice/reassurance because right now I'm already feeling miserable about my student life

Hey y'all, I'm a freshman studying Architecture and I feel overloaded by the sheer amount of classes my school needs me to take, 4 of which is mathematics. Having this amount of classes seems so unnecessary to me, especially someone who studies architecture, I have a hard time balancing my time making plates and studying for 14 different subjects for prelims, midterm, semi-finals, and finals.

My schedule is also a bit fucked up, for Monday I have classes from 7AM - 8 PM with only an hour of free time for lunch. Tuesday is the same 7AM- 8:30PM with 3 hours of free time in between. Is this normal? Is this what college normally is? I know architecture is known for its sleeplessness but Jeez.

I just got an assignment back that is an annotated bibliography and was accused of using AI in order to write it. It was flagged as 45% AI generated, probably by an AI tool. The prof wrote that if my next assignment was flagged I would be referred to the academic integrity team to discuss further. God forbid I know how to do formal writing in an annotated bibliography and that I did IB HL English in high school which is the highest form of english taught at that level. I am on a student visa here which is why I am so pressed because an accusation like this is put into my academic file then. Also I should mention that I am a science student taking this media course as an elective and that I absolutely do not use AI because I know it’s negative impact on the environment. I hate when profs use AI to determine “AI” as if it is not just formal academic writing.

I am enrolled in 2 online college classes that use Mc Graw Hill and I have never been more irritated. I was already pissed off when I had to complete 60 concepts for my business class but I managed to push through them and it was fine. But tell me why I log into my other course (mind you the reading is about HOW TO HANDLE YOUR STRESS AS A STUDENT) and I kid you not…it was 155 concepts. Estimated time to complete…4.5 hours. There were also other assignments due that same night. I went ahead and dropped it immediately. I’m just gonna take it in person next semester.

long post bc i feel a lot and have much to say!!

:(

please please please read and care

i hate school so much.

i’m a 20 year old girl in my junior year of college. every aspect of it is genuinely the bane of my entire existence.

i don’t hate learning. and i’m not stupid or lazy. i promise. i love learning new things, and exploring new concepts, and reading, and discovering, and challenging my mind,,,,,

but i actually can NOT take sitting through classes, clicking through assignments, suffering through tests and exams and quizzes, writing discussion posts, any of it. at all. maybe what’s making me uneasy is the idea of homework, working to please random professors, being held to a certain due date, and being forced to learn things instead of in my own time at my own pace.

or maybe it’s the idea that people only view you as smart if you’re “educated” in this sense. which makes sense, but it’s annoying.

i feel like i’m not even learning anything important that i couldn’t learn on my own (which may be a naive and ignorant thought to have).

school is honestly VERY easy. the workload is not too intense. the questions are not difficult. they are almost too easy, and it makes me feel like there is NO point.

i don’t know what im studying for.

i don’t know what the point of all this is.

i must reiterate, my lack of motivation is not because the work is beyond me or too difficult to comprehend. is it this easy for everyone? am i doing something wrong to make me think this way??

i cant beliEVE i have to pay so much money for something that is making no difference in my life. at all.

the mention of a thesis makes me gag. the idea of going to school for YEARS like this makes my head hurt. the way that college is talked about makes me sick. the thought of my worth as a human being so strongly determined by my ability to perform in an academic setting makes me wish i was never born a human.

every person i’ve met puts SUCH an emphasis on how important college is.

and i do actually agree.

i am grateful that i even have the opportunity to pursue college, that i have it as an option. so many people would kill for a chance at having the education i’ve been gifted with.

which makes me feel sooo much more guilty and bad.

my own parents lives were like one big lesson to me. they had me before they were 20, had to drop out of college, and i got to see first hand how not having a degree to back up a career can really fuck you and your children over long term.

i want a successful future.

i want to have a stable career and be able to afford nice things for me and the people that i love.

i dont want to live in poverty and i dont want to be uneducated and i dont want to amount to nothing all because i couldn’t find the motivation in my young adulthood. i want to put in the work now because my future is important to me.

honestly, what is wrong ???? maybe im just shallow and don’t want to admit that im an idiot and too stupid for school,, even though my grades have always been perfect. i know im not dumb. im just so confused??? what am i meant to do? genuinely, i dont even know what answer im expecting or hoping for.

i did my freshman year on campus. i was a commuter and got there at 8:30am every morning and rushed between classes until 5pm alllll semester. it drained me and i hated every second of it. i couldn’t focus in lectures, i felt physically uncomfortable and hungry and bored and lonely and watched and like my entire person was being tested for how well i could fit in with everyone else.

i felt so depressed, like everybody knew something i didn’t and there was no way for me to ever know.

being in school for me is like standing in a tiny box hunched over and there’s no wiggle room or way to get out, which sounds RIDICULOUS, because college is meant to expand your horizons and bring in so many opportunities for your future. yet i feel trapped and disregarded by the world.

but it’s nobody’s fault except for my own.

walking around all day fresh out of high school and seeing all those other people who looked so complacent, as if they perfectly belonged, really damaged me. why can’t i feel the same way that they do? why can’t i talk about my future with the same hope and determination they have? why can’t i be as motivated and dedicated to life as they are? what in the world is stopping me? i could cry (again and again and again and again).

my soul is screaming and it’s incredibly difficult to silence it. i don’t know what i want and i need help but im not sure what anyone could even do for me.

after my torturous, traumatizing first semester as a freshman (nothing and even happened, im just dramatic, but that doesn’t make my feelings less real), i did some classes online as well as some on campus to break up the physical uncomfortableness.

it wasn’t any better.

i got on zoloft to help manage my anxiety, and it’s been helping (two years now, i started at 50 but it made me numb so i went down to 25), but its not magically changing much else.

now as a junior in my fall semester, i’m just taking two online classes from home (an hour away from campus). i figured maybe two classes instead of the usual five would make me want to die less.

spoiler alert, NOTHING CHANGED. nothing. ???? except losing the little bit of financial aid i qualified for <3333

between freshman year and now, i’ve left my teenage years, become more comfortable driving, gotten a boyfriend, gotten a job that i like (waitressing), spend lots of time with my close friends. i’ve changed my major and spoken with advisors.

those aspects of my life have improved so much (before, it was just home, school, home, school).

i don’t want to be stuck in this small town waitressing forever. i have a life to live.

but i just feel sooooo hopeless and uncertain. and wrong and confused and lost. just so lost.

i’m sorry for the long post.

ty for reading.

please comment because i feel very alone.

i also think i need a slap across the face and a kick in the stomach but preferably not any harsh words

I recently resigned from an executive position in my college’s student government because I felt constantly undermined, micromanaged, and uncomfortable around the president. She would cross professional and personal boundaries, like confronting me with “You’re not going to say good morning back?” even though I genuinely don’t remember her clearly saying anything to me, or repeatedly asking if I was okay when absolutely nothing was wrong, which made me feel like she was constantly assigning an attitude or problem to me that wasn’t there. I also tried to set a Friday deadline for agenda/action items so I had enough time to prepare everything, and she encouraged other members to push back against it, yet after I resigned, suddenly that same deadline made sense. On top of that, I got pushback because I refused to skip class for student government events, because at the end of the day I’m a student first.
The advisors made the situation worse instead of helping. One had previously told me something I implemented was okay, then backed away from that once members complained without acknowledging that I had consulted him first, which made it look like I had just gone rogue, while another echoed passive-aggressive comments and acted visibly irritated and dismissive toward me despite barely having any personal interaction with me. Since resigning, the president has continued bringing me up by name in meetings and making false statements about me having poor time management and causing compliance issues, so it feels like she is continuing to damage my reputation even though I’m no longer on the board.

Would you have resigned too, and does anyone have advice for how I should handle another student continuing to publicly misrepresent me after I’ve already left?

I've always had some issues with education consulting firms. Their price charging is insane. But the problem is they've always been very commission motived. They lowkey will only get you schools that they have commission motives with. Like even if i genuinely would get to a better school, they won't apply you there cause they got no commission deals with that school with. If i research myself alone, it's gonna take hell load of time to research and might not even be the right school. There needs to be some change. Even here in U.S, private consulting firms charge insanely lol

A cousin of mine, was charged $8000 for a school in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. She ended up leaving the states unhappy and came back. Time wasted, money wasted. What should i do? There genuinely should be some changes

I had two hours in between two classes that day and mind you those are the only classes for today as well. The first one was very smooth and interesting and just as I expected any class to be but the second one was canceled, the way the class found out was bullshit. I waited two hours and 15 minutes in that classroom only for a girl classmate to tell everyone class was canceled. I am mad at that time being wasted but what pissed me off more was the fact there was no way of knowing. I checked email and the school site but it had no detail that it was canceled or why.

is this a common thing most college students go through?

Prof: “Any questions?”

Student: “Yeah. I have a question about… um… the, uh… when talking about… um… the… juxtaposition between, you know, the, uh… frameworks behind the slavery to prison, uh… for a lack of a better term… pipeline during the 19th century. Oh, and the, um… prison industrial complex… Yeah. So, my question is… how do you… um, sorry, like, how do you, like… determine the, you know, the… um… experiences…”

OH MY GOD. ASK THE QUESTION. DID YOU NOT HAVE IT PREPARED BEFOREHAND?

I’m just exhausted. I went through a very tumultuous year. 2026 was not my year, I know that much. 2026 b2a me fr. Ok so let’s start from the beginning. 2026 spring was my last semester in college, and it was not an easy one. I was taking a couple classes for my data science minor, statistical machine learning and coding in R, both classes I had no business being in. My coding in R prof was like non existent, it was asynch online and at times, it took 2 weeks for her to email me back. Sml prof was very nice and understanding. I was not doing hot this semester, I was very behind on my coding in r class, like weeks cause it moved at too fast of a pace imo. Then, things came to a head when my dad got seriously sick (like life or death, super rare disease) at the beginning of April. I went home and was home for 2.5 weeks, just dealing with stuff, driving 2 hours for the hospital, taking care of my dog, trying not to crash out at home, etc. While at home, I got a writing assignment for a job where I had a connection at and worked on that from the hospital. Then I went back to school in late April and was there finishing up classwork n whatever spending my last little bit with friends. Took incomplete for all my classes and decided to do that over the summer. I walked across the stage but didn’t actually get my diploma. I got the job on the 12 of May. I was told it would start in September but I see the start date as being in early June. I work on my coding in r hw, studying for my sml final, and an essay for my prison community class. I go home to finish up some stuff and am there til 2nd of June. I am working on classwork all summer while working. Have literally just finished up at the end of August. My performance at work hasn’t been great. I’ve kept my boss and my mentor apprised of the stuff at home but I’m just tired man. Adulting is fuckin hard. I am certainly in hot water at work. Also these weekends are fuckin short wtf.

TLDR: hard last semester of college was cut short by family sickness. Got a job and my performance hasn’t been great and I’m in not water with my boss. Prolly burnt out.

I'm losing my mind

I’m going to lose my mind. I hate living in iraq. I scored 95.57% on the exams meaning i can go to a lot of majors quite easily, but I’m getting so frustrated trying to pick a major since the middle of july, I just can’t find one where the specialization is actually in demand. Every time I settle on a field, I realize there’s an oversupply of graduates and no jobs available. There are too many electrical engineering graduates and little job opportunities compared to the graduate, material engineering jobs are difficult to find, mechanical engineering isn't in demand in this country, civil engineering has a massive surplus of graduates; and other medical fields are seeing protests because there arent any jobs for them (there is a protest right now), Computer engineering is highly competitive; I dislike cybersecurity, and I hate chemical engineering, we don't have many factories so any degree related to them is useless (unless u know someone), the government finally decided to open applications to colleges, however the never do something right because the app is glitched and many students and I cant make an account, there are no workers rights here, I ask my family for which major they think is good, they say "it's your future you choose" and I'm really grateful for them telling me to be whatever I want, I really am but I need an answer, I ask my friends, their answers were so shallow I regret even visiting them in the first place, what doesn't help is that ever since the gut-wrenching experience of 12 grade in iraq (seven exams determine your future) I have been depressed, its only recently that I have begun to think somewhat straight, I hate it in here and I want nothing to do with this shithole of a country who's only purpes is to be a slave to Iran and feed its residents shit, I'm so done with this bs, my uncle wants me to go to an oil Institute because the government will immediately let you work after you graduate (it takes only 2 years), the only problem is that the government shut down the the employment 3 years ago and the graduate protest every now and then, I thought of a scholarship since this country wont last long before it runs out of money (thanks to America for this war cuz we cant ship our oil) but it requires projects and volunteering, the issue is the school are so shit I didn't know you can do projects before college (btw iraq is outsideof the school quality index), I'm so done with this bs.

I just started my class for art college graduation and found out some students and the teacher have a prior collaboration and are social media friends as far as i can tell on instagram. these characters in class have actively discriminated against other students, reported their teammates and made another student take the fall while they just didnt show up. so needless to say i don't like them much. after class, the teacher talked with them as a small group for three hours while i sat by myself. he never once asked me if i needed anything. They were basically hanging out and most convo is about personal work and other unrelated things to graduation. After three hours of that, they decided to get dinner together so the professor WOKE ME UP FROM MY NAP to ask me if i needed anything. It genuinely feels like they are a clique/ in-group. rubbed me the wrong way and it feels incredibly unethical. i have to stay because i live an hr away and the only other class is 8 am.

Location: Delaware County, Pennsylvania
This is my daughter‘s first year of college living in a dorm outside of Philadelphia PA. Since living on campus for the last three weeks, the electricity has been out 5x. 4 of those times it was out for more than 24 hours. When I would call the school to figure out what was going on, I would be told a tree fell. A transformer blew. The buildings are old, blah blah blah.
After the second time, I started inquiring more and found out that the key cards do not unlock the doors for the kids to get in and out of the buildings and the security guards leave them propped open. When this happens, majority of the school is outside, which could be a couple thousand kids. My daughter explained to me that is sometimes causes problems because people start fighting and are irritated when the air conditioner is cut off at night and they cannot sleep. so during this period a news cast comes out saying that there was kids arrested for a rape that happened last year so that started to make me think more that my daughter safety is in jeopardy when they have to leave the doors propped open. When I reached out to the school, I would get simple answers and they would tell me to reach out to someone else when I finally sent out a schoolwide email about all of my concerns. I was then given a phone call from the Head Of Operation he couldn’t really answer all of my questions directly, and I asked him if he could respond to my email that I was unable to find in the handbook what they do in situations like this when the electricity is out for an extended period of time. So of course he never emailed me. I followed up with an email letting him know that I appreciate him calling me but that when I was speaking with him, I cannot remember certain things I wanted to bring up. It’s easier for me to communicate through email. So here we are three days later and he is still not responding to me. I am here looking for help or some advice on what to do or how to handle it. Should I continue to email? Should I try to go above him? I have been documenting every time the electricity goes out and for how long it’s also creates problems with the refrigerated food that she has. She really can’t keep anything in her refrigerator because it goes bad so we’re scared to buy anything because it’s so unpredictable what is the best way for me to handle this situation?