My MA is making me miserable - should I drop out?

Hi all!

I decided to go straight from my undergraduate degree in Philosophy to a Master's course in Publishing. I was really excited about the course which looked great from the online prospectus, but now I'm here and about a month in, I'm already miserable and constantly thinking about leaving.

I'm just so tired of studying and the course so far seems to be filled with a lot of 'fluff', like they don't have enough material or aren't teaching us the right material. They kept saying how practical the course is but so far it all seems like theory, which isn't what I was looking for. It's poorly-organised, too; because of a massive room-booking fail, we've now missed two sessions on how to use InDesign, which were going to be hugely valuable.

But at this point, I'm liable for 25% of the fees (about £2255), and I feel like that's a lot of money to throw away. On the other hand, I don't think I can survive till the end of this course! I'm meant to be working on a couple of assignments right now but have pretty much been procrastinating all day, too daunted by them to face them. They're so businessy but I don't feel we've been given the business skills to do them well, and I'm scared I'll do badly, especially as my heart simply isn't in this course.

(Not to mention I'm having a really rough time at home right now, and keep dreaming of the day I'm earning a proper salary and can afford to rent my own place! I suffered from quite severe depression and anxiety during my undergraduate course due to family and health issues, and am worried that I'm starting to slip back into that again.)

Thanks for reading - any thoughts? :frown:

Reply 1

alleycat393

There are a couple of issues here from the sounds of it. I'm sorry this is hard.

First off, I think you need to get some help. Talk to your course tutor and advice and counselling and see if they can help you. If you're generally not happy then it will affect your work.

Why are you doing this course? Where have grads ended up and do they offer work experience? Are you being taught things you weren't expected to be or are you not being taught things you expected to be? Have you talked to your tutor about the assignments and why you're struggling with them?

Reply 2

Gfhh

This is the exact same situation I'm in, I'm only in one day a week and I struggle to motivate myself to even look at any assignments... I totally understand where you're coming from! Considering dropping out myself but feel like I will let myself and family down in a way. Just not enjoying it how I thought I would really.

Reply 3

Reality Check

Original post by IAmAStegosaurus

There's a lot in your thread which you're obviously unhappy with course-wise, plus the anxiety-depression bit. I'll just make one observation - isn't it a one year course? If you've paid and are liable for at least £560 in fees and have already done about a month isn't it just better to suck it up, get on with passing the course and obtaining the qualification and put it down to experience - i.e. had you known what you now know you probably wouldn't have done it.

Things like Masters are hard, and often they don't live up to expectations. But that's not a reason just to jack it in at the first opportunity - life is like this. Nothing worthwhile is easy or obtained cheaply.

Just my opinion.

Reply 4

monkyvirus

I personally feel like as long as you don't have a better option you need to work with what you got*. They may be assuming that most of the class have the business knowledge that you think you're lacking (you'll be surprised at how little uni's acknowledge that they've accepted people onto a course who lack key background knowledge). You need to go to the lecturers and say "I feel like I don't know enough about X to do this assignment, could you recommend any resources that could get me up to speed?". Also ask them about the InDesign sessions I would assume they will reschedule them rather than just say "well we screwed up the booking so no InDesign for you".

I would also recommend counselling so get in contact with student services. They will be able to help you with your studying.

Reply 5

Singh89

I myself am in a very similar situation. My undergraduate degree was in Chemistry where i achieved a 1st class honours. I worked in industry for about 4 years where my intelligence drop rapidly as i was not applying any chemistry knowledge and it was a laborious role. I have currently enrolled on a conversion master in computer science which i initially thought i had an interest in but my 5 weeks have to told the complete opposite and I struggling with intensity and nature of the work.

My MA is making me miserable - should I drop out?

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