Struggling with learning?
in Psychology ·
granitetiger69 said:I guess I finally see I'm not alone.
Back in elementary school, things were pretty straightforward. High school was kind of the same—I just did what I had to do, though I could usually wing it since improvisation comes naturally to me. I’d take whatever little bits I remembered from class and just fill in the gaps with logic and general knowledge. It worked out fine; I passed my grades with straight A's without ever really sitting down to study much.
But when I actually did put in the work, I remember feeling so good about it. Like, genuinely happy and fulfilled once I finished.
Now I'm in my second year of college. Last year I finished with a B average because I didn't push myself, but this year... this year everything is different. I have exams coming up that I actually have to study for if I want to pass on the first try. And it's the stuff I hate most—morphology (grammar; I'm majoring in German).
I don't know how to move forward. I can't concentrate, and I just have zero motivation. I can spend hours glued to my computer, unless I head out for coffee or something. Then I come home and the very first thing I do is turn the PC back on and just scroll through MSN or forums for hours.
I honestly don't know how to dig myself out of this rut. How am I supposed to learn these two hardest subjects? Especially when I'm trying to learn things I don't even understand. I never really grasped basic grammar definitions back in the day... so trying to tackle German grammar now feels impossible.
I love the literature, though. But the grammar and phonetics... they drive me crazy. 😲
How do you find the will to do something you hate? Something you feel like you won't master anyway? Something you know you'll probably just have to cram, only to end up having to teach it to kids one day? 😕
On top of that, because of my GPA last year, I don't have to pay tuition, so my parents are still pushing me. This year is just tough, and I'm doing nothing.
I have reasons to be motivated—not paying for school, not wanting to let down my parents who work so hard... but still. I'm just stuck.
What should I do?
I feel like pretty much everyone in college hits this wall at some point. You enroll in something you think you love, and then you get hit with a mountain of useless junk that either has zero connection to your major or just doesn't interest you at all. Honestly, I usually deal with it by trying to trick myself into liking it. I try to hunt for one tiny positive thing in everything I study, and once I do that, the studying kind of starts to happen. You might not feel like doing it initially, but once you sit down and actually dig into the material... things get a little better. You just have to force it, I guess.
My friends and I from the same year are dealing with a different issue—it feels like we've all hit total burnout. We all know why we're here and we all want to graduate... but man, nobody can seem to find the energy (shout out to the outliers, though, because I have no idea where they get their strength). This whole modern credit system has just drained us. It makes me wonder... for those of you who went through the old school curriculum—did you guys go through this too when you hit your senior year? Or was it earlier?