28 june 2024
Talked to my mom about my regrets. She insisted I did the right thing by pursuing something I loved. I keep looking for advice online and seeing things that are aimed either at high schoolers or uni grads with time machines... It brought me some cold comfort that even the people at BGR hadn't heard of the "choose your major by calculating ROI" method.
My parents tried their best. They moved to another continent, put me in the best schools they could, and in the most competitive subprograms therein, and I genuinely loved physics. I remember feeling conflicted about my future during my degree but by then I felt it was too late to transfer. I know my mom dropped out with only one credit remaining until she could graduate. We were all terrified of that happening to me too.
I guess that's the rationalization paragraph. Anyway. There's no reason to start over. I guess the best I could do now is keep my head down, work, do side jobs, pay off OSAP, and save money for more education if I still feel I need to do that. This time in engineering, though. On the one hand, I hate the idea of spending so much money to learn similar concepts. On the other hand, Canada is very strict about engineering licenses, and I don't want to emigrate again. Maybe I'll change my mind about that in the future.
The thing that pisses me off, though, is I'll have to spend more time in the fucking closet. I'm sick of it. The closet makes me a worse person to be around. I'm a fucking shell trying to avoid reminders. And I can't leave because I rely on my family, and they on me. I don't want to feel this way anymore. I thought I'd get to break away sooner. Things are looking worse and worse.
I have to just. Grit my teeth and make it to 30. Start playing a role or something to make it easier.
Feeling distraught because I remembered a conversation I had when I started HRT last year, about how hopeful I felt for the future because I thought this fucking degree was versatile. Literally last fucking year and I was still fooling myself. God. I know the skills themselves are transferrable. I just wish I knew what to fucking do. A friend said I'm "the coolest cs-adjacent person [she knows]" and that hit me because like. Why did I intimidate myself out of simply doing a CS degree?
Anyway. If I pursue another fucking bachelor's, I guess the choice is some kind of physical engineering or CS. On the one hand, the former is gonna be easier, since I already have a pretty solid physics background. On the other hand, the latter would be more new things to learn. I guess I should reframe it. Think of it purely in terms of ROI.
Trying to be optimistic. Thanks to grants + savings, I owe only 11k in student loans. In terms of expensive mistakes, not as bad as it could be. I've paid off the provincial portion already by dumping my whole bank account in there and allocating the funds specifically. So my loan doesn't even accrue interest, since federal student loans don't do that.
Worst case scenario, I do another bachelor's, but when I'm better able to weather that storm. I just have to figure out the closet things in the interim. It's been easier since I could just be somewhat stealth on campus. I already miss that. I need to learn to drive, and I need a job to pay for a car + gas so I can keep doing that sort of thing. Moving out is probably not gonna happen, and I have to make peace with it.