cloud420strife

Im really depressed because everyone around me seems like a total nutjob lol. This school Im at is like a fucking cult. Everyone has this distorted sense of reality and its impossible to connect to anyone around me. Its hands down the most lonely shit I ever experienced in my life. I never been somewhere that is so close minded and disconnected from the rest of the world. I just wish I could be working where im at now and make decent money and thats probably why Im depressed. The people who work at this school are too arrogant to work with. I know when I move within a few months I will find work but I do not want to hear the words college or grad school ever again. I cant see why anyone would want to go through with this or how this isnt illegal.

Been in Tallahassee (Tally) for 4 years now, went to FSU for 2. This is my thought about the place. For starters the FSU area is pretty run down. Theres parts of Pensacola and Tennessee St. that are miserable to be on. I remember riding my bike for a bit and I ended up with flat tires since theres so much glass on the sidewalks that never gets cleaned up from broken beer bottles. The Strip area blows for grad students except for maybe Poor Pauls since I heard its ok for older people but the Strip sucks its just filled with durdly standoffish undergrads. Traffic is also pretty awful near FSU except during the summer when half the campus is goneNorth Monroe and Kilearn are the nice parts of Tally but both are kind of far from FSU. I lived by North Monroe when I first moved there and it was pretty nice and quiet and the neighborhood was good quality. Its pricy for a 1/1 but if you have roommates its not awful. Job market here is abysmal here lol. Not only is there not many jobs outside of the government and FSU, but the pay is way below market rate. Also very hard to get any of these jobs since it feels very based on already knowing someone who works here. This is probably why there is lots of poor people in Tally, even though the town has lots of education. Also this town has alot of crime per capita in that theres lots of pockets of it. Since I been here I had some people steal change out of my car and stole money from me (not a terrible amount) but still very annoying. Food is good/cheap and some parts of the town are pretty. Everything is so far away though and the suburbs of Tally kind of blow since they don't offer much. Town has a reasonable amount of stuff to do but there is just so much having to drive to everywhere. Football is really the big to do here. I dont really like the college games compared to the pros since it feels like the focus is more on the partying than the football game, but thats just my opinion. FSU is still better than UF and UM at football so at least theres that to enjoy. Parks are nice to visit and so is downtown. Hard to really get to any metropolitian areas from here since Jacksonville is 3 hours, Orlando is 4 and Atlanta is 5. I only mention this since flying anywhere is expensive since Tally's airport doesnt have too many direct flights. Overall I think Tally is probably fun if your an undergrad since the university caters more to that demographic but its pretty sucky as a grad student since the school doesn't really do very much for grad students. Unless the school is giving you a ton of money or you have some other business on the side, its very hard to live here since good paying work is extremely hard to find. Plus you really need a very supporting grad program since its pretty hard mentally to be living in a town like this post undergrad. Between the crappy job market, crime/very crappy police department, a somewhat unsupporting university, lack of opportunities for advancement outside of the school, I really had a hard time living here. Some may like it but it was without a doubt not for me. Being 24, trying to make a living while both intellectually trying to advance/exchange ideas and gain new skills, I did not feel that this town had much for me to offer. YMMV

I dont like alcohol as much as I did as an undergrad. For starters I dont have anyone to drink with and I dont like bars too much since they feel like a big waste of money compared to going to the store and buying alcohol there. The undergrad parties at my school blow so hard. Most of them don't have alcohol there (they conveniently run out when I show up lol) and its just a bunch of lame people glued to their cell phones who barely interact with people. The greek scene here seems like where all the bad ass parties are at but sadly greek life here is like a country club for teenagers in that lots of money and kissing ass is required to get in and outsiders arent welcome unless you have a vagina (which I dont). I like smoking and taking xanax more when by myself since they both help me focus/ relax better on my work and are easy for me to access. I also dont like alcohol due to the weight gain and the hang overs. I wouldnt mind going out and getting drunk if I knew people that were fun to hang with, but drinking alone is just not fun.

Been in grad school now for almost 2 years (going to graduate either summer or fall) and I must say that this probably has been one of the low points of my life. I came off a life threatening illness back in 2014. Enrolled in school the following year at a major research university for a masters program since I couldnt do what I do for undergrad ever again since my old job was too stressful and after the damage of my illness I had to change fields. I must say that I've never been so dissatisfied with the choice to go to the school that I went to. For starters the teachers are just straight up arrogant morons. Most of them with the exception of 1 or 2 of them don't really understand the working blue collar world and have this ridiculous attitude towards anyone with a different opinion than theirs. You cant disagree with any of these people, even when they are clearly wrong about something. I always felt they were off about things since before I got sick I worked for a while in the working world and knew that some things they said just don't make sense. Alot of the grad students seemed as clueless as the teachers, maybe not all of them but I would say 3/4s were not thinking much about what they were learning. They were mostly buying into what the teachers were telling them. There was also a pretty bad communication barrier since half the students werent from America, which made it extremely hard to really get to know anyone since the foreign students had a hard time trying to communicate / issues with English. While trying to put together my portfoilo for jobs I've come to realize that 90% of what I learned is completely useless. None of the jobs I've been applying for really give a crap that I slaved away on pointless papers, projects or learned abstract theories that have zero world value. I'm having to do alot of work on my own learning certain skills and doing my own research before applying to jobs since school did not prepare me very well at all. For the money I spent, it just was not really worth it. The program itself didnt really come with any huge benefits either like as in I had to pay for it myself and that there was no way of finding tuition waiving jobs on campus. Not to mention the attitudes of the department, just a bunch of stuck up nerds that don't care about anyone sides themselves. I felt like it was just a second class business in that they take your money and give you such a crappy deal along with god awful customer support in the process. But the thing that really pissed me off the most was the campus I went to's attitude about things. The university seems to mostly care about football, a corrupt greek system, and how much money they can sucker out of students. I seeked help in multiple departments for business ideas I had or ways to make the campus better or even just someone to have a conversation with about what was on my mind, but I was just basically shown the middle finger and given no help. The admins of this school seem like some of the most miserable and disconnected human beings I've ever came across. Most of them dont know how to have a personality or show any sort of humanity. It echos very similar to what you would see in corporate america in that it's a very cold stress driven culture with no real goals in mind. Even the psychiatric counselling was awful. I was put in anti depressants and told "you can quit them at any time". Turns out I had withdrawl so bad that I cursed out the pharmacy when they wouldnt give me a refill since that was how bad the drugs made me feel. Luckily when I called the pharmacy a few hours later the drugs were ready and to this day I'm stuck on them since until I leave school, there arent any good enough doctors in my area who can get me off the drug. Finally the students...I try to not blame them as hard since they are young and still learning the world, but some of them I just don't even understand how they made it to this school. This school requires at B+ average to come right out of high school, so while they arent at the top of their class, it seems like on paper they should be remotely intelligent. But one thing I learned is that grades dont always mean anything. It just means they can follow instructions, but have no abilities to think outside of the box or have any real skills. The school seems to be a very follow the herd mentality. Everyone just follows around another groups of people doing mindless shit like binge drinking, clubs with extreme viewpoints/focused too much on one thing, spamming facebook with political nonsense that makes no sense, having random fundraisers for things that they cant even comprehend, like I could go on, but it seems like most people in college just have no awareness of what they are doing with their lives. They all seem to go with the motions to just make everyone else happy. Nobody seems to have a pair of balls to do whatever the hell they feel like doing. The only upside of my experience is that I will get a great job once I graduate, one that can pay my bills and isnt too stressful. Thing is that I missed out from working for 2 years since I been stuck in this town to where the economy revolves around the school. I been keeping busy with my own business ventures and finding some mediocre jobs to try out, but none of it has really brought in any serious money. I might have some good job prospects coming in within the next few weeks, but nothing is certain. I dunno if its just grad school, the school I went to or that college in general is not what it really seems, but I never been so unhappy in my life. Im happy to get the hell out of here within a few months and be done with college forever. Im pretty disappointed since both grad school and this school that I always wanted to go to since being a freshman in undergrad wasnt what I though. Not really looking to be judged or given advice, but was just seeing if anyone else out there dealt with anything similar.

Ya getting a phd in most situations is a waste of time. Better off with getting some certifications or taking a short masters program if you need new job skills. Alot of the working world doesnt care about most degrees. Even most masters are a waste of time. Some companies are starting to not even care about having a bachelors. You can get a ton of real skills within 4-5 years worth of time verses a phd to where you learn very little. Most of a phd is just studying the crap out of 1 topic non stop. The amount of money, time, sanity you have to give up for it, just not worth it unless your diehard about being a professor or wanna be like a psychologist or something that needs a phd.