in need of some school-related confidence advice

[wanderer]

hey everyone, i have some school related issues that i could use some guidance with..

 

ever since i was a little kid i was always making things and drawing and always wanted to grow up and be an architect. everyone who knows me knows i'm a hopeless building nut. but right now i just finished my first year of studying architecture at the university (don't wanna say what school) and now i'm beginning to have doubts. the fact of the matter is that my grades this year were awful... i usually get good (not great) grades in school but this first year of arch i came dangerously close to academic probation, even though i worked my butt off!! one teacher told me i would be better off in another field. it seems like everyone else in my class understands everything so well and is learning so much, and i'm just a lame duck falling behind the group... i usually find this kind of stuff stimulating and challenging and fun, but this past year was just drudgery and pain. the worst part is facing that i might not have what it takes to do what ive always wanted to do.

 

by now i've been kind of left stranded. my introduction into the design world has so far been a complete disaster. my friends all have interships and jobs in their fields and are learning and gaining so much experience, while i'm sitting at home all day trying to convince myself to go back to school next year. i'm just scared to go back there and risk being told i shouldn't be there again.

 

i have to pick myself up and dust myself off. what do you guys do when you need to rebuild your confidence?

[stopit]

i usually find this kind of stuff stimulating and challenging and fun, but this past year was just drudgery and pain.

 

Setting aside the difficulty, do you think after having a year's exposure to the field, you are truly interested in pursuing further study of it? Is it just the workload that you don't like or the actual material itself? Because your learning should be exciting. It is just not that fun because of the difficulty level?

 

In what way are you finding the courses difficult? Is it the material or the assignments? If it's the material, then you are probably going to have even more trouble as you get into more complicated courses your sophomore year that build on what you learned this year. There's obviously something not right if you are putting that much effort and still falling behind. It could be that you didn't have adequate preparation in high school in math or some other subject which made this past year so difficult for you? Or perhaps you just need to work on your studying/writing/reading/etc. skills? I don't know... What have your advisors suggested that you do?

[Siriana]

First year is always a big stress on uni.

A lot of people give up after first year.

 

The way things are done is so different than in high school (at least in my country).

You have more assignments than you used to have and also you need to self motivate yourself and to learn and read a lot alone.

You need self discipline.

You need to learn how to put a huge amount of knowledge in your head for just one exam and back in high school this exam would be a whole year class, a whole book.

Also you need to force yourself to work on a daily basis not only in the last 5 minutes (well I never managed to be perfect in that area).

 

Second of all you need to know that being brilliant on uni doesn't guarantee you'll be brilliant in life.

Some people just learn the facts without understanding them and the others are average students who understand the stuff they learn so it's easier on them in the long run.

 

Also if you want to be an architect than you need to go to that school. People usually choose uni based on what they find interesting studying.

But they forget something important - you're not supposed to study what sounds interesting, but your choice needs to be based on what you wanna do for a living.

So if the study is hard or boring but your ultimate goal is to become an architect than you need to be persistent keeping your goal in mind and do anything that needs to be done to achieve the goal.

Now you're learning the basics that give you proper foundation to be creative one day.

Without that you can't be creative.

So it's very important to learn all the boring stuff and to persist if you want to become Frank O. Gehry one day

 

I say borrow some books that give you tips how to study and about time management.

So this summer you'll learn what you need to do to improve next year.

 

I am only suggesting that this might be your problem because I had such a problem too on uni.

I went to a high school that doesn't give you enough work habits so I never learned how to learn properly.

And also I had no foundation in math.

 

If you find yourself really not interested in architecture consider switching to something similar (design perhaps?)