What happened with my studies?

To be honest, I decided my study field very hasty. When I was at the end of my high school, I was lost and I didn’t know what I will do with my life. Then I thought about computers, because I’ve always loved them and I always wanted to do something with my websites I had back then (the blog is one of them ), and I was very interested in programming in my senior year. But… to apply for any department that has computer science as a program, you need to take an exam with mathematics in it. I hated mathematics, and I still do, so I left that aside. It left an unbearable pain in my heart, because I still love computers and I learned a lot on my own, but I’m not that professional and official as I would have been if I had enrolled for some computer science program. The time was running short, and I thought - ‘oh, what the heck, I will go with my second love – literature… And why not learn some new language in the process?’ Simply, there wasn’t time to prepare mathematic exam, even if I wanted to. I was under constant pressure I just wanted to get over with that. So I applied for the department of languages. Right now I think that it was hasty decision, but not the completely wrong one, or I could pick some better language, or easier. I still like reading, learning about new cultures and languages, but the motivation and courage for my major just wore off with years.

I heard lots of bad rumors about my major, and the professors and staff before I applied, but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was like ‘It’s only angry students mambo-jumbo.’ The enrolling exam and everything seemed just so easy, and it was, I was the second on the final list. And I got scholarship.

I wanted to quit and to leave the place at the end of my first year, because everything I wanted to learn about this language I learned in the first year, but again, I didn’t think everything thoroughly. I just went with the feeling of being outcast because all of my friends would have some higher education and if I had quit and applied for something new I would have gone with people who are younger than me.

The second year started and all the crap with Mike had begun. I started failing exams. I don’t say that it’s only Mike’s fault, but he made me think more about problem with him than about study, and I even was relieved to have to think about something else than to study.

I kinda managed to pass that year and to get a scholarship for the next one, but I left behind a lot of lessons, and I simply couldn’t catch up with my colleagues. And now I feel like a horse which is left behind, tired, humiliated, crushed and without motivation. I feel bad because I don’t feel bad for not studying. I’m simply going with the flow. I passed third year somehow, with taking lots of subjects which don’t have to do anything with my major, so I kinda made myself a ‘linguist’. It is funny how I passed all that exams so easy and I have the motivation to learn them, while my major is so hard. But in the end, everything which isn’t obligatory seems appealing.

Thinking about this problem takes me a lot of time, and usually I feel so busy, even though I am not. I just feel that unbearable weight on my shoulders all the time. I want to go home, just to sit there and to treat my conscience, to do anything else, just not to study. And even though I try to study, I don’t know what to study and now we came to the second problem – the professors.

Some of them can be really cruel and mean. Yeah, yeah, I know, usually everyone is blaming the professors for their laziness. I don’t say I’m not lazy, but I’m not the only one when it comes to this problem. The same thing I went through happened to about 15 of my colleagues who are identically in the same position as I am, and we can’t pass one stupid exam, because it has like three parts (dictation, grammatical test, oral exam) and if you fail one (you get to the minimum of the points) you fail all three. If you don’t pass that one then you have no right to listen to the following one. It’s so harsh and lots of people are quitting and trying to catch up for years (usually two or three). Because of the others, I kinda feel also relieved; it’s like saying that I’m not alone. But we usually complain a lot instead of studying.

I simply can’t explain the level of meanness in some of the professors. They simply act cruel, so you can’t pass exam if he doesn’t feel okay that day or something, I don’t even know. They’re reading the dictation too fast or they give the hard test or something third. And then I realized that you need to devote your whole life to that fucking profession to pass the exam, so that major language becomes your life. Being the many-sided person, it’s so hard for me to only focus on one thing. Being demotivated to learn that language doesn’t help, too.

When I talk to some other students who passed the exam (we used to hang around a lot in first years, because I was one of the best, being motivated and stuff), we don’t have to talk about anything but the major language. It’s like their brains are washed up and they simply do only that. I don’t want to become like that. I don’t even feel the urge to learn the language, because everything I wanted to know – I learned, and I kinda feel that I experienced everything I wanted. I’m done with it.

Also, it’s so sad for me too, because after learning the language for three years straight, I still feel and I know that I know English waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too better than the major language, even though I had only two years of classes in English. And the awkward thing is that I passed all the exams for literature for the second and for the third year, and I can’t pass stupid grammatical test, even though we are learning the literature and reading in the same language. Also, I feel more interested in learning English than this crappy language, but now I’m stuck on the senior year and I will probably need to extend my studies for two more years, or in best case scenario, for year and a half, which is still very long. So, at the end, I’m at the beginning, I’m going with people who are two years younger than me, and I feel demotivated like I hit the almost bottom. But in the end, I’m still hoping that I will get some motivation and try to learn on purpose, no matter how hard it is and no matter how I don’t want to do it. We’ll see.

In this exam period, which will be ending on 24th of January, I passed three exams (one for sure, and for two I’m not yet sure) and I failed three, including the hard one which I’m hauled for two years. 1/6, maybe 3/6, I’ll found out at the end of this week.

All in all – I know what I need to do. I need to study, somehow. But I can’t, and now we are coming back at the beginning. I’m constantly rolling over and over the same thing and I simply can’t find a way forward. I feel that I will be an outcast more than ever, I won’t have higher education and I will be forced to drop the University, because I won’t be able to pay for the studies (after the senior and the extended year, I won’t have the right for the scholarship any more). Sorry for sounding so pathetic, I just feel bad. And this post made me think again about the subject even though I kinda decided that I will study. And that thought holds me no more than a day.

Thanks for reading,

B