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.