Emma Fitzpatrick fumbles over the stigmas surrounding leaving college at nineteen, pressure from peers and family, and gives some potentially unorthodox advice on navigating your own life.
*Disclaimer: TW of death
There have been a lot of times in my life where I knew deep down I didn't want an academic career as much as I said I did. When I was growing up, I lived in a relatively small town (on an Irish scale of small) right next to the sea. From my primary school windows I could always see my house, the horizontal layers of the beach, and the sea itself. I could see the meandering fields and big houses drafted into the horizon, and I would always burn out my energy trying to see some of the blurry bright waters in the bay. In agony, I was in school. That persisting view and situation stuck with me all the way throughout primary and the first few years of secondary school, until I moved schools into the city. But even then I had the train station down the hill, I had tiny little bungalows across the road with little families inside, and a bustling city that made me feel like I was more and more limited every day to bouncing my leg under the table and scratching the sides of my pens or my hangnails. I lived with more than the feeling of displacement though; I planned my life around the fate I had to achieve in sixth year and it became a pivotal point of my health itself. I worked throughout all of those days to purely criticise everything I did, launder the little mental health that I had left, and pushed myself to a point that no one could be proud of. But with a little bit of a broken soul I made it into college, a little forty seven acre cobblestoned section of Dublin that I had been dreaming of. Slowly though, I started to realise, and eventually allowed myself to accept, that I was maybe just following along with the rest of the world. It’s always better to wake up. Right in the middle of my exams and essays, because I am utterly fantastic at timing my moments, I signed and submitted the forms to go “off-books” for the remaining semester, with no promises of returning and no grand opportunities planned out for this period of my life. I was making decisions by the day at that point in time, letting my life unravel gently, and by choice. Just a few days later, my grandfather passed away and it was, in a strange way, a catalyst for the next few months of my life.
I was standing in my kitchen at home for the first time in a couple of months, in front of my mum making my younger sister eggs. I had no appetite since the news the day before, and the train home never helps anyone, let’s be real with ourselves. My mum was talking and talking, about a multitude of things that flew past my head that was dipping against my chest. But then she told me a little anecdote, one that is in fact relevant to his topic. She started to tell me how she had been speaking to some of my grandad’s many friends, and how they said he always talked about me. How proud he was of me. There have been a collection of moments since then, where I have stared into the mirror and wondered why he was proud, and would he still be if he knew I wasn’t in college anymore, having no true plan for the rest of my life or any idea of what I was supposed to do. But it was my, as I said, catalyst. My grandad knew me as a little person who loved him, who was never afraid of his dogs, and who was determined. He never would’ve seen me as a failure the way I did at that point or in those moments. I stood over him in his coffin and whispered to him I was proud of him too, and promised myself whatever I would do with my life, I would continue to show him everything he was proud of in me.
Fast forward to now, term has started and I picked up my course hoodie via my friend who is actually still in the course. Good for her. It can feel daunting or maybe a bit awkward when you watch everyone go back to what you chose to walk away from. It won’t come as a shock that a high volume of questions come to find you when people hear you’ve dropped out. It can come from a place of genuine interest or pessimistic seriousness, like a seagull when you’re on your lunch break. Regardless of the intentions behind them, questions and not exactly well hidden judgement cause me a lot of stress and anxiety whenever I have to face them. They can be from family, from friends, from a friend of a friend you run into, who asks how you met and it then consumes the rest of the interaction for absolutely no reason. It can be a regular in work asking why you’re always there (but asking them the same question is “rude” and “uncalled for”). A lot of comments derive from the idea or phrase that dropping out is “really relatable”, but in my experience I think that can be thrown around and sometimes diminishes people’s choices or achievements. There have been a number of times where when I explain to someone that I left college, they tell me how they wish they could but they “want to have a good career”, or that they probably should because they failed an exam or two. When I dropped out, it was a choice I had to stand up and make, follow through on and at no point did I stop working as hard as I had been at any other point of my life. Assumptions and stigmas follow the action of leaving school or college, and it can make you feel like you have failed or think you made the wrong choice. The truth is, I didn’t leave college because I was failing or because I hated my course, but even if both of those things applied it is nobody’s business to ask or give an opinion on. You are allowed to leave. You are allowed to come back. You are also, absolutely, allowed to tell anyone who tries to undermine your decision to go and get egged outside of Halls. They deserve it and you know it.
When I started working to get into college, I dug myself into an inane hole in the ground and I’m finally coming out of that. Sometimes you get so far down that the dirt starts filling up the hole you’re in, and that’s when you have to use it to climb back up and see the grass again. From the combination of events in my life, I do think this is one I can be proud of, and it’s a great part of my life. The idea of having your entire life plan ready to go at nineteen is pure pressure, and unnecessary for you to have to stick to. You could do five PHD’s or never go back. It’s a choice you’re free to make. If your choice is your choice, it’ll be the right one, and if you have to worry about what the people around you think, remember it is never up to them, ever. You’re in control, and more importantly, you’re allowed to be in control of your life. Whatever you’re facing or choosing between, I have limited, but some advice to offer all the same. Get a grip.