Am I a loser because I didn't go to university?

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I keep telling myself I'll get my degree one day. That may never happen. It's really hard for me to do it while working full time. I don't have as much energy as some people seem to. Maybe I'll get it. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just get a certification from community college. Maybe not that either.

I think I'm a loser because I don't have a degree like a normal person. It's like I'm not a real adult. I didn't go through the coming of age ritual that everyone else goes through. I know it's hard but that's the point. It's supposed to be hard and I wasn't strong enough to do it.

I talked to a real nice guy who just graduated with a bachelor of science said it's totally different from school because it teaches you how to gather information yourself and analyze it yourself. I heard this and I thought it sounds really hard. Than I chastised myself for not being up to the challenge.

Maybe I would have found it really interesting. I guess I won't get to experience that. They say that university teaches you how to think. I guess I don't know how to think then. Not properly. They say that university proves you can persist and self-motivate for 4 years. I guess I can't do that either. Everyone knows it.

If I graduate at 40 or something I'll feel nearly as bad. Normal people graduate when they're about 22. If I graduate at 35 or 41 than at that age I'll be at the level of a 22 year old.

I didn't go because I thought I couldn't handle it. Maybe I was intelligent enough but I felt like I couldn't handle the workload and the level of organisation required. Not back when I was 18. Yet other 18 year olds deal with this. Am I so much less than them?

Perhaps I could say that my value is not in my achievements but that seems like an excuse to stop trying. Like an incentive to accept mediocrity.

I'm not qualified enough for promotion at work. I'll probably never get promoted. I'll probably never get more than my current $55,000 per year. I'll probably never get to do more interesting work. I enjoy coding but it will probably never be my job.

The terrible thing is, now they're hiring through internships given to third year uni students. Meaning if I didn't get hired when I did, I never would have.

Lots of other people I meet have a degree. Or several. Lots of other people I meet used their degree to get a real professional job. Not the amateurish job I have.

It just makes me feel like crap. I can't enjoy doing stuff because I remember what a loser am I am and how I'm not up to the level of an adult. I can't even enjoy music anymore without thinking I'm a loser. I feel like my uninformed, uneducated opinion doesn't matter. I feel like I can never forgive myself.

Depends who you ask. You think tradies went to University? No sir, typically they go to TAFE and then follow up with an apprenticeship.

Plenty of people will respect you, a man with a job, far more than they'll respect me, a guy who goes to University but doesn't work. My sister's boyfriend dropped out of Uni (she herself is an Honours student), and has several friends who did the same.

I don't have a degree, whereas my friends do. That's okay - my life's gone a different path. I'm definitely a real adult, I promise. I can think perfectly well, too... Lots of people don't go to university. There are other ways to educate yourself.

Of those friends, two went back to university as mature students. It was a different experience for them but no less valid and they certainly aren't at the level of 22-year-olds. They have a lot of valuable life experience.

You aren't a loser. You might or might not go to university and get a degree. You're a valid adult either way.

God no. People who go to uni and spend all that money on a degree that can't get them a job are the losers.
I nearly went to uni before I realised a degree in games design is about as useful as wiping your arse with. Most places want experience these days anyway. For me I just made my own business all together because I hate working with other people.

Just build an awesome portfolio presenting what you can actually do. You don't need to learn from an official thing, you have the Internet to learn how to do things. Build up your contacts, learn from them. Work on projects with other people. If you really want to get a degree and it's bothering you that much you still CAN, you might have to jumble your work hours around but it's possible.
My friend went back to uni as a mature student to do a 3 year programming course to get a government security job. Loads of people go back to uni as mature students, it's not taboo or anything, no one really gives a crap apart from yourself.

I think you're over thinking and worrying about it which isn't a great thing to do. Maybe talk with a careers advisor or something, it might be refreshing.

I didn't even have one day of college/university until I was nearing 37 years of age.

I've never thought of myself as a loser. Rather, I was perturbed by the assumptions people made about people who lack a college/university education.

Did you want to go for YOU? Or because you were pressured into it?

I really wanted to "go back to school."

I wasn't pressured in any way, to be honest.

I find that I benefited from getting my degree, though not in a monetary sense at all.

We all get life experience as we get older but university should have been a part of that experience from the outset.

How much more life experience I would gain if it was built atop the uni experience. It would have made a good foundation for the experiences to follow. If I become a mature age student it feels rather like putting cart before the horse. Like I could have a normal life from age 40 onwards (a shorter normal life).

I might end up having the same mature age experience as your friend but I will never have the normal uni experience. I missed out on that.True but I probably would have ended up in the same job anyway. I probably still would have gone to the same job interview in 2014 and I probably still would have gotten hired because I'd be no less qualified for the degree. After all, some of the others who got hired had IT degrees.

The difference is that they can get promoted. I can't. They have the qualifications for higher positions.I now have experience in IT. I guess they didn't need experience because they hired me without any experience.

The company's usual policy for dealing with lack of experience is to offer paid internships. Once they've completed the internship they're considered experienced and have a good chance of getting a permanent position.

They usually do it in their third year and they're expected to continue studying while they do the internship, along with any side projects they feel like undertaking. I'll never know how they get enough energy to do all that. Is it that I have less energy than a normal person or do they have a higher pain tolerance, allowing them to continue past exhaustion? Maybe I'm just too distractible. Even my thoughts distract me.Cool! What does your business do?True I can learn from the internet. I could Google for tutorials on Java and stuff like that but afterwards there's no official proof that I've done it.

Much of the cost of university is from grading your assignments and conducting exams. Maybe it would be cheaper if they just gave you the assignments and never graded them, if they just gave you the material but never ran exams. In theory you could still learn the same amount but there would be no proof that you've learned anything.

That's like learning online. The same information may be available but after completing it there's no parchment that proves to the outside world that I understood it. That's why I can't put an online Java tutorial in my CV.Maybe not but I'd feel isolated from the other students by age gap. In night classes no one talks to each other. I remember it being different when I was younger.

Either way I'd still feel lesser. Like some fawning lower-class geriatric trying to be equal to all the middle-class 18 year olds.

At the moment they wouldn't even let me in because those 18 year olds got better grades than me in school. I'd have to either get a TAFE diploma or sit the STAT test and I'm not sure what the eligibility requirements for the STAT test are. I really feel inferior to the ones who are eligible to go into uni straight after school.

I guess I have to decide between TAFE and university. University costs more and has a lot more theory work (or so I've heard) but TAFE is full of people who can't do algebra or calculus (like me) and university just seems more prestigious (in part because it's harder). TAFE just seems like a consolation prize.

How did you benefit?

So let me get this straight.
You have a steady job earning $55,000 a year,
and you call yourself a loser ?!?
Wow.
I wish I were a loser like you ...

Plenty of people don't go to universities. I think ultimately colleges are just ways to look more appealing as a job candidate, but if you already have a steady one, I don't really see a need for you to have to go to a university. You're not missing out on anything profound; it's just a lot of work that will likely have nothing to do with your actual job.

Maybe you're right that the university experience isn't that great.

What I'm missing out on is the chance for promotion to more interesting work and a higher salary. I'm not qualified for higher positions and obviously they're not going to put me in a job I can't do.But my aunt gets paid twice that much. Soon her veterinarian daughter will get twice that much too.

And a lot of my other relatives get paid more than me. Cousin Simon gets more than me and he's younger than me. All of them have degrees.

If I want to break $100,000 per year in IT I'll have to figure out how to become an IT specialist.

I want to buy a house but my rent is high so I'm having a really hard to saving. If I could increase my income than I could be a home-owner not a rent-paying loser.

If I can get a mortgage I can pay it off and then I won't be hemorrhaging money on accommodation. That I can investment properties like several of my relatives did. I don't like them looking down on me just because they're millionaires and I'm not. I have to be like them so I can feel equal to them.

Maybe I'm not extremely poor but being around wealthy, snobby relatives makes me feel poor, not only because they have a lot of money but also because of the things they did to get the money (things I haven't done (Same for the more qualified people at work.)) I feel in a way having the ability to earn a lot of money is more important than the money itself.

Your life isn't less because you didn't go - it's just different.



University isn't normal, it's one route of many.

I see your point, but there's no point wishing you could change the way things happened.



So did I, but it doesn't bother me. I'm sorry it's upsetting you so much.

Our lives all take different paths.

I am 43 years old and I just graduated with my BLS Degree in Business Leadership this past May. From the time I started college in 1992 (24 yrs ago) I have earned over 190 credit hours, been involved in persuing my dreams in music and culinary arts, seen a lot of the world, acquired two associates degrees and finally my BLS degree. It was something that I wanted to finish, but didn t really need to. I understand that you might feel a bit less than your mates or others in your peer group. I did too. Life is a journey. What I have learned since then, is that ...If you think you're a loser or of you don't. think you're a loser EITHER way You Are Right.

As I look to continue my education and set my sights on post-graduate work with a goal of my Doctoral degree. Just because I finish it in my late forties wont make me a loser....it will make me a PsyD with 20 or so good years to put that knowledge and a lifetime of experiences to good use. At your young age, imagine what you could do with all the days left ahead of you.

If you are alive, breathing, and can formulate thoughts you have potential. Don't let what should be, what could have been, or "I'm a loser" detract from that potential. It is a gift regardless of age, location, disability, or what others might think.

Enjoy life. Kind Regards. Shark

Not if you've already had a good career for the last 20 or so years.

Besides, you're getting your doctoral degree in your late 40s, not your first degree. You already have a degree.

It doesn't sound like you're so unusual because you started when you were 19 years old. I did some community college when I was 20 but only stayed long enough to get one certificate. I should have stayed on. If I spent a few years in community college I might gained admittance to real college. In other words, if I'd spent a few years in TAFE I might have gained admittance to university.

I dropped out due to a combination of laziness and anxiety. Mostly laziness.

The psych meds I was on didn't help. They fogged up my mind and made me feel very tired all day. I felt much better after I stopped taking them (at 26). I should have refused to stop taking them when I first had side effects (at 15). It's not like I was under a court order to take them.

Even if I spent 3 years in TAFE and another 4 years at uni, I still could have gotten through with that before I got my first serious job when I was 27.

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 30 Dec 2016, 2:14 am, edited 1 time in total.