#animle

I went to Indiana University for fashion design for my freshman year of college, mostly because my parents wouldn't let me go to an art college for the same thing. I had to take a shit ton of prerequisites (math, world history, etc.) all of which I failed due to the fact that I didn't want to be there. But let me break it down further-

I was suffering from untreated brain problems at the time. I was too depressed to get out of bed and go to class most days.

My parents took out a student loan in my name, but I literally had nothing to do with the process besides filling in the paperwork. I didn't even know how much it was for. Due to this, I had no concept of value for my courses.

I thought the classes that I was taking were dumb and unnecessary to the progression of my path.

I didn't really want to be at IU anyway, I wanted to be at an art school.

Needless to say, my first foray into college was less than fruitful. So were my second and third forays into college. At the end of three years of trying to force myself to go to school for things I didn't particularly want to go for (I transferred to K-State to go into a degree program to fly airplanes, then I transferred to Bethel College for an English degree), all I had done was cost my parents a lot of money and royally fuck up my GPA.

So I decided to take some time off. That was the best decision I have ever made. I worked, I lived, I traveled for me. Not for a grade, but for money and paying bills and living. I discovered interests I'd never had before, and learned social skills that were previously foreign to me. It was awesome to be independent and free. I also got some major psychological help.

I went to France that summer with some money I had saved, and I suddenly remembered/realized that the only clear goal I've ever had in my life was to not live in the United States. I looked into stuff about immigration, and realized I needed a degree to make myself a desirable visa candidate, and enrolled in community college as soon as I got back into the country. I used the last of my savings to pay for two semesters of classes.

I was shocked to discover that, now that I had a direction, I enjoyed school... in fact I was good at it. I graduated with my associate's with honors and transferred to KU with a couple academic scholarships. I had discovered my love of linguistics through one of my coworkers and reading everything I could about it, and I jumped right in to linguistics classes while finishing up some of my gen eds.

I knew going into the degree that linguistics is kind of useless unless you get a master's in it. Even then, you really only go into writing or teaching, unless you know another language- then you can make hella bux as an interpreter. But I didn't care, because I was good at school and I did want to get a master's, and even a PhD. But honestly, I wouldn't recommend doing anything in anthropology for your undergrad degree unless you want to keep going with it to higher degrees- there's just no money in it, and not a lot of opportunities (other than it looking interesting on your resume).

My advice, without really knowing a lot about you or your situation, would be to go the fuck to art school and live it up, or take a year (or several years!) off and figure out who you are without school hanging over your head. If you go to a non-art school for art, be prepared to take a lot of shit gen ed classes before you even get to take one art class. It's very frustrating.

Take as much control over your education and funding as you can, it helps you to understand the value of what you're doing and that you're supposed to be getting something out of the experience.

In closing, linguistics is indeed super fucking rad and fun as hell.