Hi, I (18F) just started college at a large public university in Tennessee. I am paying around $13k in tuition a year. I am currently a philosophy major because I have always thought I wanted to go to law school. Now that I am older I realize how expensive law school is. School is expensive, period. Law isn't even my passion. I feel like I have no passion. I don't want to work. I don't want to go to college. It is baffling to me that I am paying for something I don't want to do. I'm paying just to hope I can barely make a living one day. I enjoy writing I guess and thought about switching to be a journalism major, but journalists don't make shit. I'm burning out. I was an honors and AP kid all my life and by the time I got to high school I began to burn out. I do not know how much longer I can do this. The thought of going to college for years and years only to work a job I hate to barely make a living, and then continue to work until my death devastates me.
The cost of living crisis in the United States is insane right now. Both of my parents are LPC-MHSPs who combined make $100k a year and are struggling to support our family of five. My dad works eight hours a day at work, only to work for six more hours doordashing after that. He doordashes for eight hours on Saturdays on Sundays and we are living comfortably but its insane that someone with a masters degree in psychology who is a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider has to resort to doordashing to live comfortably. It hurts me to see my dad working this hard to support us and terrifies me to think that this could be my future. I do not want to have to work my ass off after paying so much for college only to not be able to live comfortably.
I have such little hope for my future. I do not know what to do. I always dreamed of being rich when I was younger but I now know that it is simply impossible to live a upper-middle class or higher class life without participating in corporate greed and taking advantage of workers. Right now I go to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8am-5pm and I go to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am-4pm. I am truly miserable. I struggle with OCD, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and anxiety. I really struggle to live the way society expects us to and feel as if society is not set up in a way that will allow me to succeed. I just don't know what to do with my life because I don't think anything could make me happy.