Why I Dropped Out of University
Published on
Reading Time
10 mins
Intro
One of the most devastating decisions, and at the same time one of the best, was leaving my university. People say great minds usually have such beginnings. I am not sure if I am one of them, but I am trying my best. My family didn't like the choice I made at the time, but it turned out to be the best decision of my life.
I put real world experience first and forgot about university as if it didn't exist. Now, in this short article in the Thoughts section, I'm gonna tell you how it all happened.
Here We Go
I chose management as the main thing I was gonna learn more about at university. For anonymity purposes, the university's name will not be shared because I value privacy. So here I am, at this university. The building is new, everything is good, but somehow I feel empty. Something is wrong, I said to myself.
What do you think was the first thing I did during the first two weeks of my studies? I went out and asked people who had graduated from this university what they thought about those long four years of their lives within those walls. Ninety-nine percent of them said they wished they had dropped out and focused on gaining real experience by becoming trainees at a company instead of wasting four meaningless years. So I said, hold up, wait a minute, something ain't right here.
Redirection
What I said turned out to become a headache for the future. And I was right. Another thing was that professors would usually call me to do their paperwork because they simply didn't know Russian or English.
So what is all of this about if I am the one who knows these things and does the work for them? What is the purpose of me staying here then? On top of all that, we had a dormitory straight out of an apocalypse movie, with cockroaches as our immediate neighbors, sharing our water and food. That's a harsh reality, but I'm telling you the truth. There was another dormitory with a brand new building, but women were given priority to stay there. So we, men, stayed with the cockroaches.
Endgame
I asked myself, "What is my endgame? What do I want from myself?" The answer was simple: get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. And I did.
When the dean heard about it, he personally called me and said, "Eraj, where are you going?" I replied, "Somewhere far away." I just wanted to chase what my heart was telling me. He said, "You have two choices. Either completely remove your profile from the system, which means that if you ever decide to come back, you will have to start everything from scratch, or you can keep your data just in case you want to return." I said, "Delete me in such a way that even my dust is absent from this place. Make my dust disappear completely." He got my point, and I became a free man.
Result
I was hungry, without money, without a girl, without anything except my will. I had God, who would not give me anything until I changed something in my life. So God was harsh on me in those days. He is still harsh, and I believe He has a purpose for that. A man with a pair of sunglasses and a broken laptop, in the middle of Persian-Tajik Dushanbe, searching for the meaning of his life.
Rejected by hundreds, mocked by thousands, I will never forget those people. Dust, a scorching sun, and an empty stomach were part of my personality in those days. But not because I was at university. It was because I decided to chase something different. I said to myself, "At least you would get your university stipend, which was roughly 30 bucks." But then I said, do I really look like someone who would settle for 30 bucks? An escort, a "nightly butterfly", a plain Jane, a woman who sleeps with everyone, would never agree to sleep with someone for 30 bucks. That's what I said to myself. It was hard to realize, but I made it.
Conclusion
And here I am, a totally different person with a totally different mindset. What I did was right for me because I am who I am as a result of the decisions I made. For others, it might seem wrong. But life is not equal for all of us. I was not born into a rich family. I did not have a father beside me. So don't judge.
Some people are born with material blessings. Others fight for them like dogs and monkeys. We are not equal. Who said we are? At the very end, the hungry man wins. Always. I am hungry for a better life, and I will chase it until my very last breath. Amen.
