How I Got Into This Mess Part 2

Ok, so last time I told you all about my pre-college woes. Yeah, I know. Some of you are thinking boohoo - poor little guy and you are right. Plenty of people in life have tough breaks, some much worse than what you just read. But that would be to miss my point that the mess I'm in has a situational context that partially explains how I got here. But I digress.

Anyway, after surviving a near miss, potentially fatal, car accident the first day I got the money pit on the road (true story) things went well the first year, sort of. I worked hard and made it to the deans list taking mostly pre-engineering courses. These included calculus, physics, chemistry etc. I lost 15lbs that first year while the average student gains 10lbs so I guess one could say I was a little stressed out. For money I worked when I could as a cashier at a local grocery chain. I had to temporarily give up my work with a construction company as it didn't jive with my classes.

Second year, I crashed. Family life at home was not so hot. Having to work and maintain class load was not so hot. A personal relationship that had recently ended was not so hot. My GPA crashed as course difficulty ramped up. I soon found myself mired in night after sleepless night in dreams about equations and geometric symbols. I was on academic probation by the end of the year - which was perfect timing you see because that was when the UB Engineering Department was officially accepting students for the Electrical Engineering program. Now that was timing.

It was then that it became clear that I would not be able to finish my degree in 4 years. I was told I would have to take additional courses to raise my GPA for consideration and that would likely take another year. Now at the time I wanted to get out of my parents house asap. So stretching this whole thing out seemed crazy and impossible - so once again I made a bad decision. To complete my degree as fast as I could I chose a major that I was able to complete in the targeted time frame - Economics. I chose it because I had already taken some courses and shown some propensity - it was that simple.

I completed the degree at night and on time while working construction during the day. So far so good. However, it was now the summer of 1991 and the economy was in a downturn thanks to George Bush Sr. and the late Ronald Reagan. People weren't exactly banging on my door to hire an economics major. I want on several interviews for jobs with sub par pay - but hey I needed a job so I just wanted to get my foot in the door and out my parents' door.

Interview after interview I was told I was actually overqualified.

Here I am thinking what kind of universe permits this kind of irony!? My response to them each time was that "if I was overqualified I wouldn't have applied". To that I heard the following phrase at least 4 times - "Well you know nothing is ever wasted."

Here I am at 40 and so far they were all WRONG! I have yet to get a job to this day because of that degree.

So now I'm 22, living at home with my swell family situation and working construction with a useless four year degree. I should have moved out of my parents house then - and let the chips fall as they may but I didn't. I didn't feel I could afford it, or was afraid of leaving or something - but I stayed and things didn't get any better. I wallowed in my mediocrity for quite some time.

I tried different jobs - none requiring a degree - until I got fed up and decided it was time to go back to school and try again. That's when I made my biggest mistake of all as I see it. And that is the stuff Part 3 of How I Got Into This Mess is all about.