Not sure if I should finish my University degree or drop out
Hi everyone,
I am horribly unsure of what to do with my life right now. To paint a picture: I am 24 years old and have just finished a University bachelor's this summer. I started a master's in September, but am starting to slowly realize that I really do not enjoy University. After high school, I went straight into University, since that was sort of the expected thing to do (I honestly didn't even think twice about whether I really wanted to pursue academics, it just seemed like the normal next step). It took me a few years to find a Bachelor's degree that I liked, so that's why it took me so long to finish it. I am now, however, starting to think that maybe I only finished this specific bachelor's degree because it was easy enough for me not to have to put in actual hard work. I am realizing now, during my master's, that I can't really say the same. I am struggling to motivate myself for even the smallest assignments, and have already had to get multiple extensions within the first few months. Now I do find my masters interesting, and I do enjoy knowing more about certain subjects and being able to be a smart-ass, but I am starting to realize that I don't enjoy the academic way of gaining knowledge at all. I am just so, so, unmotivated, and am starting to learn that many of my peers do not feel the same way. I always just assumed that nobody liked actively learning things, and that most people did not enjoy reading and assignments for uni, but the other students in my master's seem to feel otherwise. I still have only a year left before I will have finished this master's, but I am really dreading the idea of still having another year of this left to go. I don't really envision myself having a job in this field, but having a master's diploma does come across well on my resume. I also feel like I'm a little bit stuck in this sunk cost fallacy; I have already committed 6 years of my life to University, to quit now before finishing my masters feels wasteful. I don't want to disappoint the people around me, and a year is only a year, but the lack of motivation is horrible. I don't know what to do, so I am turning to Reddit since I am scared of telling people that I know in real life about this. I am struggling to figure out if I am being impulsive and just jumping to conclusions since I am lazy (I do have severe ADHD, which makes it even harder to figure this out), or if I am forcing something that clearly isn't a right fit for me and only now realizing?
Any advice would be great, since I have no clue what to do right now...
Posted Nov 5, 2025, 11:37 PM UTC