Went into college before I was ready

same boat bro, i got brainwashed by marxists and stopped caring about having a career, then i graduated and remembered why careers are useful...now my only hope is starting a business...thank god for capitalism

>end of sophomore year at midtier LAC
>3.0 GPA
>good relationship with a couple professors (strained by late essays and spotty attendance)
>no research/intern type experience
Can I turn it around?

>since I had no life experience, I let my grades slip
Worst excuse I've ever heard tbphwy. Most people go straight from school to university, and it doesn't mean they do badly.

>careers are useful
You were sunk before you even entered the water

>tfw got my BA with a 2.3 GPA and didn't even really want to go to grad school or law school anyway but now that I'm in the real world I regret not doing better

School is worth almost nil for a writer these days. It's all simon-says, dick riding prevailing literary theory and parroting professors, which never produces anything lasting or worthwhile. Look at all the ivy grad/highly educated authors who are literal garbage tier pseuds for evidence... Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Safran Foer, etc.

Here is what you do...
>graduate with whatever degree you want
>get a job that gives you a fair amount of free time or access to interesting experiences. If you can't get a job be a traveling hobo or sleep in your parents basement.
>Don't spend your time inside in the privacy of your room. Spend most of your time out in the world.
>Read a ton of books, at least one per week, preferably two. Just get a library card, you don't even have to spend money.
>pick a few books to read and reread over and over again. This will affect your prose style so pick someone you want to imitate. Good choices would be the KJV Bible, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby/Tender is the Night, or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
>Work through the great authors, if they aren't dead yet, don't even bother, very little advancement has been made in literature since Joyce, so you wouldn't be missing much anyway.
>write at least 2,000-3,000 words per day.
>Try out some writing groups in your city where you can get feedback on your stories and constructive criticism.

I guarantee in 5 years or less you would have something worth publishing. Most writers are lazy and wait for the "muse." They are wrong. It's a muscle, the more you exercise it the better it becomes at doing heavy lifting.

Stop, you are literally me

To be fair, I dont think OP's trying to excuse himself. Hes just admitting his own failures. I'm the same way; I was indolent and hard-headed in my first two years and I failed because of it.

You can go to an upper tier pac-10 or acc school, user. Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UNC, UVA, Duke, Wake, BC... and still be aok. Just do well in your MA program wherever you go, test well, and you'll get into a good school. My sister got your level grades at a shit school, went to Hunter College for MA, Columbia for Ph.D. It can be done.

>Is my literary career over before it could even begin?
>he actually believes that academia creates great writers

>>went into college before I was ready
>>I should have joined the military right after high school or something
Agreed. I feel so lost because I forced myself to follow a path I never wanted to take.

Good guy user is right.

>>pick a few books to read and reread over and over again. This will affect your prose style so pick someone you want to imitate. Good choices would be the KJV Bible, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby/Tender is the Night, or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
>>Work through the great authors, if they aren't dead yet, don't even bother, very little advancement has been made in literature since Joyce, so you wouldn't be missing much anyway.
This shit discredits the rest of your post

>he wants to be a professor at a uni
Dude, don't bother. Modern universities are job training schools. If you really want to learn, you'll be able to do it by yourself.

Holy FUCK down to the digits... just know you're not alone m8
we are toughing this harsh world together

Name ONE (1) thing that you can learn at college that can't be learned by yourself

And don't say "networking", you're all friendless virgins

I'm going to dig ditches until I kill myself and I don't know if I would have preferred to do anything else

>literary career
keep chasing the approval of others

You could literally go pack a bag RIGHT NOW and go on a On The Road esque adventure hitchhiking across the USA. The only thing holding you back is you.

Just admit it, you were never gonna make it

>thinking people pick up hitchhikers in the 21st century
>thinking people want to read a shitty postmodern on the road

nice meme

>was fucking up my undergrad degree completely
>dropped, switched, got an honors degree in a better major
>feels good to live in a country with free education
smug_frog.jpg

All I read are excuses, user

You mentioned the military... Officer training school. Go Air Force, your chances of actually making something of yourself and obtaining useful skills are exponentially higher that way. From a fellow user though, the military sucks. But it's a damn good stepladder, and the officer side is way better than the enlisted side if you've got the mind for it. Maybe even go to the academy if they'll let you, it's fairly prestigious I think. But that's pretty shit unless you're just gung ho military.

>Google what type of professors make the most money
>land on finance
>currently getting my phd in finance

my only advice is that you have to be obsessed with what you're studying. It has to be your magnificent obsession. Talk to every single person about your work, spend your free time reading about it more, talk to drunk girls at the bar about your studies (they'll actually love it if you're passionate fyi) but yeah. You sound like you don't really care about what you 'want' to do with your life. You want it to be easy but it ain't mate.

I pick up hitchhikers all the time.

let me know when you make it out of your mom's basement

do a second bachelors from some foriegn mid tier uni and then grad school in ivy

You don't need any university education for a literary career. Only stupid people think that.

the thing is...there are people with "good degrees" who never amount to anything. if you're a loser, getting a degree from a top tier school isn't going to matter, you'll just end up being a department chair at a community college in the middle of no where or being a perma adjunct at some mega campus with 50,000 students

>perma adjunct at some mega campus with 50,000 students
And people would literally kill for that job, that's how desperate some people are to work in academia.

>college
>required for literature
user that's retarded

Literally make $180k a year to read off of a lesson plan you found online at a mega campus

>$180k
>adjunct
Try $18k

best advice

>being this wrong

now i'm starting to doubt you've attended higher ed at all

I didn't I'm a retard bro
No u

>first of all, I can't think of any great american authors who went to an average school
Faulkner (the greatest American author) was a D student at a below average public state school.

yeah but faulkner got affirmative action for being a southern whiteboy at a time when all the great culture was coming from new england it still is

>The only thing holding you back is you.
That and a biological need for food.

What are your plans? I don't even think I have the right temperament for grad school but it should at least be an option

How no one your age in your circumstances has any hope of becoming an adult in the old sense

>implying there's anything wrong with New England holding control over the country
New England is real America and it's culture should be considered true white American culture. Only WASPs should have any power for the betterment of this country.

Have you ever been to the Berkshires? The real NE is dissolute, disgusting. The cities are nice but that's only because they're cosmopolitan

>Is my literary career over before it could even begin?
buddy your "literary career" was over when you stared posting on Veeky Forums

>And the only way to be a credible professor is by going to an Ivy.

That's empirically wrong. Prove your worth through writing something that people in your field care about. That's the real method, regardless of where you studied.

This is the correct answer, OP. Except for the imitation bit. I would take that as a caution rather than a prescription. That is: read only good shit, stay away from genre toxins as they will take years to shit out. Veeky Forums is actually pretty good at posting quality recommendations in the shelf threads.

Stop being lazy.

The same could be said for any non-wealthy rural or suburban area of the world.

>and now have no chance at getting into grad school
does it really matter?
I sucked in my undergrad but still got accepted into grad school.
Just do a master in whatever university accepts you, do well enough and apply for a PhD where you would to study.

> I can't think of any great american authors who went to an average school

I can think of a few who didn't go to school at all, but that's besides the point.
Sometimes people set their expectations way too high. This make it seem there is no point in writing unless you become one of the great american authors, and your masterpieces become matter of study in the future.
I believe that as long as you like your job and get enough money to get along you're doing fine. Don't bother in become "one of the great writers," rather worry about living a good life - remember that praise is worth nothing when they are told over your tomb.

Jack London

Calm down, Lovecraft

Same thing.
>GPA 3.3; Major GPA 3.5
>Didn't realize I wanted to go to grad school.
>Only have one potential reference.
I'll either join the military or go to a mid-level uni for my Master's, perhaps both.

>Hate school
>Need a degree for any chance of a decent career

Would most likely fail hard even if I went, guess I have to fix my problem of not giving a shit about life at all first though.

Exactly my point

Still not too late to join the military, OP. How about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?

>tfw it is too late for me to join the Navy
Why did I go straight to college?

What exactly do you mean by "decent career?"

A career I can earn good money at.

The culture means I have to have one unless I self study IT enough.

Studying for the LSAT right now. Bump.