hatinglife

Thanks for your thoughtful answers. Right now I'm strongly leaning toward taking next semester off (leave of absence), so that I can think more about what I want to do. It's still pretty difficult to force myself to do the work, though, so I've still got the idea of dropping courses in the back of my head.

You know how everywhere you look, they tell you not to go to grad school because you don't know what else to do? Well, that's me. I got my bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering this previous May (2009), and wasn't really sure if I wanted to keep studying in my degree field, or move on to a programming career (I've worked at a small startup for several years now, and have always loved programming), so I decided to go to grad school in my degree field (Mechanical Engineering). It was really easy for me to get in at my undergrad institution, because it isn't very competitive, and I had a few professors who knew and liked me. I got into my master's program easily in spite of a terrible GRE score and essentially no research experience. I'm in my 1st semester of this program, and I know that I don't want to be in grad school right now, because I'm miserable and don't know where I'm going. It's hard to do the work required for classes and my research, because I'm so unmotivated. My question is, should I drop out now (like, tomorrow), or should I wait out the semester? I could see myself eventually deciding that I do want to pursue more education a few years down the road (maybe in this field, maybe not), and I would hate for this mistake to prevent me from doing so, but I need to get some perspective and figure out where I want to go. I wish I had done this instead of entering graduate school, but I can't unring that bell. If I quit now, I will have two classes with "W"s on my transcripts. If I quit after the end of the semester, I will have whatever grades I manage to earn. I have the ability to pass both of my classes (meaning B or higher) at least, if I can somehow muster the motivation to do the work.