College vs The Real World: Advice Wanted

Perhaps the internet may or may not be the place to come to for life changing advice from strangers, but why the heck not right? Mike's recent thread about starting anew (and Inspire's response to it) got me thinking that I might post this. Here it goes.

So at the moment Im in college, my tuition being nearly paid in full by grants etc., and my mother has been kind enough to allow me to stay at her place as Im going to school (family relations getting a little stressed, but not too extremely awful.) So overall, my life is pretty easy right now as I'm only working in the summer.

The issue is that I'm not going to school with any specific goal in mind. Ive had ideas here and there about what I want to do (linguistics, engineering...) and don't have much motivation for any of it. I'm sort of going because it seems like that's what I'm supposed to do. I feel like maybe I need time, or some more "Real World" experience to be able to be more decisive. While I'm working (assuming I'll be able to sign my contract) I'll be working all day every day for a couple of months and thus have all the time in the world to think about things, and perhaps durign that time I will come to a decision. Knowing me probably not. -.-

My options as I see them now are: Continue going as I am for a couple more years and see what happens, drop out or take a year or two of leave to work and decide, or perhaps switch over to a vocational/trade school (and hopefully avoid a lot of that crazy student loan debt ) to learn a trade for a decent wage (Electric Tech, Forestry Tech.) My problem with living alone is generally finding a good place to live...and a roomate. I dont know many people...might be tough.

As I said, maybe not the best place to ask about this, but I was wondering about your thoughts on this, what you would do or think she be done or what you would do personally. Sorry for making you read all of this and thanks in advance for any thoughts.

You need to do what you feel the best solution is for you. Personally if I was you I'd want to finish my schooling.

Is there a careers officer at your college who might be able to give you some ideas? If not, you could check out some websites for info on various career options.
As sci-fi says, continuing with your present course might be the best option. You would have something to show for it as the end of the course. But obviously it has to be your choice as to what you do. You know yourself better than anyone else knows you.

I went to school, got a degree in something that seemed like fun, and I changed my major after the first year. Had some life experience, volunteered, travelled and realized that I really wanted to do, I was not qualified for. So now I'm back in school, getting "qualified".

I think there's a lot of pressure to go right into school immediately after high school - you don't need to succumb to that pressure if you know you're not truly ready. If you want, and as you were thinking, you can take a year or two off to think about it. After all, it's your life and school is a huge investment: financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically. Some ideas you can do in your year off, or even this summer: You can also research topics online, look at school course outlines and pop into your local library or barnes and nobles to read the books, just to get a feel for what you are interested in. If you decide go into school, feel free to explore a variety of subjects, and you *can* change your major or field of interest.
As for motivation, have you tried sitting down and writing about career and goal planning? your community centre may have workshops on this. If not, you might think about googling to learn how to do this.

I'm also a big fan of people taking time out to go travel and get themselves lost. It's fun, challenging, and you learn so much about yourself!

As for housing - colleges have housing services who can help you find accommodations and roommates. I stayed in residence for my first year, but then found some people I could live with the next year.

Whatever you do, it will be right thing for you at that time.

I changed majors over the past 10 years, and then figured out what I really wanted to do. I know I'm not the only college student who did this.

This is a tough one. All I can say is do what feels right. You're likely to do better that way as you'll want it more.