Try to get me to stay in school....

[FieryJustice]

Alright, I told myself I would never ever post anything like this, as I have always been able to make good decisions in my life, but right now in college, I am not motivated at all and I dont want to end up with a bunch of Cs on my record. I guess I should give you a little bit of background on my schooling...
All through high school, I never needed to study to make As and Bs, so I didnt. Well, once I got to college, I quickly found out i would have to put in a little (note: more than I was willing) time to get an engineering degree. So, I decided to switch to something "easy" such as psychology. Well, I am to the point now where I cant even read a college book, as it is so unintresting to me...and this semester i can already tell I am going to have to put in some reading time and i honestly dont know if i can motivate myself to do that. Fwiw, I just became a junior this semester and my gpa is 3.7ish. I would hate to get 4 Cs this semester and mess that up.
So why not just quit? Well, I have a full scholarship and would lose that if i drop out, although money isnt really an issue to me. Thats another problem. I dont really see the point of going to college just to get a degree so I can make 50k/year working a 9-5 job while right now, I can work 20 hours a week whenever I want to and make at least 4 times that. My biggest worry is that somehow internet poker will become illegal and I will be screwed into putting in a lot of hours at a casino. If that happens, and I see I cant win at live play, I would go back to school. I am only 20 right now, so I cant practice my live play too much, which is perhaps a reason I am worried about it.
Well, I have no clue what to do. I guess I am going to talk to my parents about it. They will probably kill me. I just dont want to spend any more time doing something I hate than I have to and I also dont want to mess up my transcript with a bunch of bad grades just in case I need to return to college in the future.

[bennies]

Get organized! Take easy/interesting classes. Underload if you can. Find two hours a day to go to the library and study. Every day!!! (Everything gets interesting once you get into it...)

That's my two cents. (PM Yugo for pick-me-up-postings when this doesn't help...)

Going to the library or a comp cluster or a green somewhere away from distractions can work really really well.

[ChoicestHops]

If you aren't focused on school right now then don't go. It's a waste if you are only going to half-ass it just to make your parents happy. I tried one semester and ended up withdrawing at the end so I wouldn't get a bad gpa. My mind wasn't in the right place to begin with but I was being told by friends and family to stay in school.. even though it wasn't my concern at the time. After I withdrew that semester, I took the next off and worked. Doing that for 6 months I had a revelation. I actually wanted to go to school. I was motivated, and I went back this semester because I actually wanted to.

Take a break, but make sure you have a plan. I know you grind a shitload, but I have no idea how much you make. Don't waste your profits on shiny cars and expensive [censored] that doesn't matter. If this doesn't work out, make sure you have a plan where you can go back to school with no problem, and get a good degree like in engineering instead of sacrificing for a psychology degree.

[skipperbob]

LIFE IS HARD....Suck it Up....Get a Degree.

The quality of my life depended, in large part, on the outcome of just 2, or maybe 3, major decisions. They were complicated decisions but they boiled down to fairly-clear "A" or "B" choices....All of what transpired after those decisions was the result of the outcome.

GET A DEGREE...I don't care how you do it...GET A DEGREE

You will never go back to school....If you quit now you will always accept the "easier" path. You will always accept "less"......Choosing psychology over engineering was the "easier" path....playing poker instead of working is the "easier" path....seeking advice on 2+2 is "easier" than talking to your parents....ignoring me will be "easier" than considering what I have to say....zoning-out in front of your computer is "easier" than meeting people and working on relationships.

LIFE IS HARD....GROW UP....GET A DEGREE

Regards, SkipperBob

[lutefisk]

Nice avatar. I'm guessing we started on fairly similar paths, but I wasn't making piles of money while I was in school. Engineering was the worst mental beating I've ever taken, and if I had to do it over again, I don't think I would. That said, I'm glad I did it. I think the first thing you need to accept is that engineering is farking hard. There are a brilliant few that can storm through it, but, even despite appearances, almost everyone has a LOT of trouble with it. The second thing is connected to the first, when you're studying something hard, C's aren't really all that bad. Yeah, it's hard to swallow that pride. Yeah, it's hard to go from being a scholarship quality student to someone who will never get academic honors again. The education and degree are the ends, not the grades. If you can make good money online, I'm guessing you don't need to define your success by academics any more. Take your time. You know about grinding now. Grind it out at school. Take 3 or even 2 classes at a time. Take it slow. Take the miserable ones over. You've got the income to allow you to do that. I don't imagine a psych degree would ever be satisfying to you, but I guess it would be reasonable if it is. In general, as long as you don't overload yourself, you can probably get it done little by little. I would be inclined to recommend something more career oriented though, especially if you intend to use it as a safety net for the poker. There have been many great posts about not getting personally involved in hands here. Great posts about not involving self worth with your game, because you play poorly when you're worried about those things. Take that to heart with the school too. Let go of the pride. You've got nothing to prove. You've acheived some success already. You're looking to further secure your position. You're looking to make the correct decision with the information you have. The correct decisions make you a winner in the long run, even if you really burn on them from time to time in the here and now.

Maybe that just sounds like BS, but that's what I think. I'm still pretty new to poker, and after a year of consistant wins, my game has fallen apart and I've been trying to recover that for the last month or two. I'm studying, reading, and trying to hang in there and improve. Best of luck with your decision. You're welcome to PM me if you'd like.


"Only after the 10th punch will you see the fist, and only after the 20th will you block it." --Proverb from the game of Go

[Wevie]

Its been 15 years since I was in college. One thing that I can tell you is that your undergraduate GPA just isn't that important. Just getting the degree - that's what matters. If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to get back into engineering school and grind it out.

You have three choices right now:

1.) Finish college one way or another. Get a CAREER going with benefits (much more important than salary).

2.) Play poker until you run out of money or end up with an illness/accident that lands you in the hospital. Within a few days you will be bankrupt without insurance.

3.) Join the armed forces in order to get training and experience in a field that allows you to get a career going. Gee, that sounds great right now, doesn't it?

GET BACK TO CLASS.

[45suited]

Everything skipperbob said is right on. Everyone says that they'll go back to school... once the rigors of the real world set in, few people actually do this.

You've got a full ride scholarship. It would be criminal to not take advantage of this. Let me tell you a little story...

I'm 33 years old. I scored in the 99th percentile on my SAT. Could've gotten into almost any school in the country (except for Cal Tech). Anyway, I was living out in Washington at the time, went to school out there. Long story short, my Sophomore year (wayyy back in '91), my parents moved back to the midwest because my father was dying of cancer. I moved with them, to be close to my father. Decided that I'd spend the year working and establishing residency so that I wouldn't have to pay out of state tuition. My father (being an intelligent person who knew how these things worked) told me to stay in school and finish my degree while I was in the school mindset. But of course, I knew better. I'd save money for the year and then jump back into school.

Funny thing is, though, things come up. You find a job that pays pretty well, you kind of get used to not having to study...

Well, my little plan resulted in me f-ing off for a couple more years. By the time I realized that, [censored], I really would like that degree, I had to juggle school with working full time and paying all my own bills. So anyway, it was a total hassle (going to school at night part time), but I finally got my degree when I was 27 years old. My little plan had cost me 5 years, and I had ended up working way harder than I would have if I would have just not left school and sucked it up for the last two years when I had the chance.

You will never got a better opportunity than right now to get your degree (which you absolutely WILL want and need, by the way). Add to that that you have a full ride scholarship and it becomes even more imperative that you finish now. You will never regret it once you get a little older.

[Phill S]

What do you want from life?

What job would interest you most? The greatest piece of advice my dad ever gave to me was "find soemthing you really love and work out how to make a living from it".

Right now, that means poker to you. But what about long term?

Getting a degree is a great thing, but only if you're getting one for a reason. Getting a degree to make someone else happy and taking an easy degree to overcome your lack of motivation arent reasons and they arent answers.

-----

To give you an idea of what i mean, when i was 18 i quite education (remember this is in the UK so college/university is slightly different from what i know of the US system).

I ended up working shitty admin jobs, even doing a spell in a call centre, all in the hope of getting 'experience' and meanwhile trying to find some sort of career job where i could end up in management.

This didnt happen.

At the age of 20 i was sick of the shitty grunt work, i was sick of going to job interviews where i was more 'qualified' to do the work, but the fuckwit who went to uni and got the degree got the job.

If you cant beat the system, you have to become a part of that system.

Now, one year on im in education in a different part of the country, studying for a Business and Management degree. Ive finished my first year and, assuming i fly through my 1 resit next week, i start my second year at the end of september.

I dont think my degree will help me much in my future career (whatever that may become) however its the degree on my CV that will allow me to get a foot in the door.

Those two years out can often be looked upon as a waste of my time. However i see it as the two years i needed to grow from the boy i was to the man i am. If i had gone to uni i would have ended up doing some shitty soft course in 'surf studies' or some other such bull that lots of people take. Its the two years out of education that allowed me to see what education is there for and to help me move on with my life.

-----

So, in conlusion, whats right for you?

Do you take a break, hoping to go back to uni/college later in life (no shame in that)?

Do you continue with a Psych degree that its clear means nothing to you but will keep your parents happy?

Will you do the engineering degree that is hard, requires lots of work, and will keep your parents even happier?

Will you find a degree that interests you and work towards that?

Will you remain a poker pro?

Will you mix in a few of the above?

Its all up to you.

Phill

You are right that getting a degree to make $50k a year is a waste. Believe it or not (and I know at 20 years old it is hard to believe), the process of getting a degree can make you a better person that will stay with you the rest of your life.

Dude, you have ONE CHANCE AT THIS THING CALLED LIFE. Some mistakes can end up costing you for the next 60 years, and not only in your positive net cash flow (although you don't see it now, it CAN really hurt you here as well). Although it doesn't seem possible, it will hurt your own self-image for the rest of your life. Do you really want to think of yourself as someone who couldn't even motivate himself to finish college? Look at the statistics for lifetime earnings for college grads vs. college dropouts. Look at the percentage of the population that graduates college these days - it is pretty high, do you want to be in the percentage that couldn't cut the mustard?

Banking your entire future on poker is a horrible decision. There are too many variables, as you correctly point out, to count on it long term. What happens if you simply get burned out with it?

What I suggest is to grind your way through this semester. The suggestion to get your arse to the library a few hours a day is a very good one. Don't bring a laptop. Don't get on the net there. Sit your ass down at a table and grind it out. Four or five days a week of this at your intelligence level should be enough to get the job done. Psychology is a very interesting subject, I'm quite certain if you give your profs some credit and actually listen, and dig into the text even moderately, you'll find enough there to motivate you - and not only that, you can use much of it in your poker life.

Beyond that, I strongly suggest you take a step back and think about what interests you. Don't major in something for money. Don't major in something because it is easy. Major in something because it interests you. I faced motivation problems my entire undergrad and law school career. Undergrad, I finally found philosophy and literature after several majors, and I was hooked. I eventually ended up with an English Lit degree. Reading the great philosophers and authors changed my life forever, and although I had my share of bad profs, a few of my classes were worth the entire price of my education, and all the hours dedicated to it.

Law school was a whole new challenge. Only the truly bizarre student (with all due respect if there are any around here) find the study of law interesting. It is horribly drab and devoid of much thought. So, the old key I had found to motivation was gone. Still, I grinded it out my first year and ended up in great shape for a great job. Landed it after my second year of school and seriously coasted my third year. Took the great job, hated it but again grinded for a couple years (after the grind of the bar exam once again studying something devoid of any independent thought whatsoever), then left to form my own firm practicing in an area of law that interests me on my own schedule. In short, the grind paid off in a big way.

I hope this is of some help. Talk to as many people about your problem as you can. Not just your parents, but also friends and maybe a school counselor or two. More than anything, I think you HAVE to grind out some good grades this semester and then reevaluate at that point.