Hi Reddit,
I’m a French student and I’m asking to myself a lot of questions about my studies. I never really knew what to do in my life but I was a good student in all topics so that issues didn’t impact me so much until my adult life.
In high school, I chose the scientific section because it was considered as the best section and allow me to choose all the possible studies. But I hesitated a moment with the economics and social one, because I also had good marks in history, economics and literature.
At the beginning, physics used to bored me sometimes but, during the last year of high school, I loved this matter because of Newtonian dynamics, study of celestial objects and relativity. I was so captivated that I got great marks. I also like to watch vulgarisation videos and Wikipedia articles so it helped me to enjoy physics. I also always loved mathematics : that matter is probably my favourite one (and it’s probably still the case even if I learned to hate it recently).
Thus, because of these reasons and the fact that science studies offer a large choice of jobs, I decided to do a preparatory classes (also called CPGE). For those who don’t know it, it’s a formation of 2 or 3 years where you study a lot of different matters (more focused on math and physics for scientific CPGE) in order to pass competitive exams which can allow you to get schools like Polytechnique, Centrale, etc... It’s consider as a very difficult formation (and I think it’s the case) where you need to work more than 60h/week and have a lot of bad marks. The exigence is really high, we don’t really take the time to learn (the purpose is to make the more, not make it good) and physics topics wasn’t the most interesting (to my mind). Besides we learn a lot of things which aren’t useful in professional life and many people (not only foreigners) don’t understand that type of studies. So, as you can understand, I didn’t really enjoy these 2 years : I even thought to take anything in order to not do a 3rd year.
After my (not really successful) competitive exams, I manage to have a good computer science school. But I don’t really think it’s fit for me. I don’t imagine myself doing code every day. Besides, even if French like to think that scientific preparatory classes are generalist formations, you have after these years to specialise yourself and you loose that general culture offered by a lot of other formations.
So, as you can see, I have an issue : should I stop my current studies ?
In order to help me, you should know that I’m 19 (I have a year of advance) and that I’ll finish my studies at 22 (if I continue them). I also want to say that I don’t enjoy so much school or studies. I criticise a lot teachers and their lack of teaching methods and I wasn’t passionate by what I was doing recently, in addition to the fact that I wasn’t good. So I can’t conclude that I don’t like studies : it’s possible that if I’ve good marks or I study interesting topics I would change my mind, but you should consider it.
So, what could the alternative be ?
I thought about politics or economics. Since I’m a child I’m passionate by politics. At first sight, I found it uninteresting but my parents made me discover it and I loved it. I loved the variety of topics, the debate and confrontation but also the impact it could have on everyone’s life (even mine or yours). In CPGE, I never stop to inform myself : there was US and France’s elections and it was a way to escape to science. I have my own political ideas but I’m also captivated by others’ view and by debating with them. Plus, like science, I read a lot of Wikipedia pages and articles about politics. About economics, as a political passionate, I’m really interesting in it and, even if I don’t master this type of maths, I know that mathematics can be linked to economic.
I always wanted to start a political career (not a long one but I want to try) and it’s clear that last French election motivated a lot young people like me. One of these young politicians have a lot of common with me and had a young passion for economics and geopolitics so it seemed natural for this person to chose law studies. Thus I asked myself some questions. I certainly was used to scientific matters but French people don’t learn law in high school so the argument of habits is no longer good. Besides, in a lot of countries, law is equal to politics (US for example).
I don’t really know what formation could be interesting but I remembered trying to prepare IEP or « Science Po » exam but I didn’t pass it. It was stupid but it was because of a lack of motivation, a lack of time to study, because maths wasn’t a topic of the school (probably stupid too) and because someone who did it said to me I should do engineering. I regret it a lot. I think I didn’t take enough time to really ask myself the following questions : what do I love to study ? What would I love to study ? What would I want to do professionally ? Instead I just listened to my teachers, my parents, my marks and the fact that engineering is a generalist way.
But today is the time to take a decision. I was really afraid. Even if I can be courageous, I’m someone who like to be proud and I could be afraid to failure. And even if I was used to failure in CPGE, it still impacts me. However I want to be happy and to do something I like. But, on the other side, I work to earn money and I don’t know if it’s a good choice to stop. I don’t think it’s good to stop my studies 2 or 3 years before their end, after 2 years of financial, moral and other investments. My parents encourage me to do what I like but I don’t feel comfortable of asking them this without knowing if it’s going to work or to fit me. Besides I don’t know if I can sacrifice these years of work or a good salary for something I’ll possibly not enjoy. Besides I don’t know if I’m ready to restart my studies. Everybody is telling me that I’m young but it’s probably better to start at 22 than later. It’s certain that I should not sacrifice my happiness for money but it’s possible that I’ll enjoy a job later after these studies, and that I’ll not enjoy a job after some interesting studies.
So, I know it’s complicated but what should I do ? What do you think ? Did you live a similar experience ? Or do you know someone who had it ?
Maybe I should thinking about doing politics as an outside activity but the school I’m doing seems to have a tough planning and I already sacrificed a lot within the last 2 years.
To conclude, I thank all the people who will answer to that topic (which is pretty big). I thank you so much for your help or support. I also apologise for possible mistakes. Wish you the best guys !
Submitted September 04, 2018 at 04:52PM by JyVe78 https://ift.tt/2wLeMSF
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