Quit college for cycling?

It's simply the time of year - the new year blues, if you like.

More people change jobs/drop out of courses/make big plans this time of year than any other. Give it a few weeks and it'll pass.

...and recruiters just bin CVs without degrees.. well.. you get the idea.

I tend to launch ALL CV's with degrees because they're generally from people who feel they're owed a job because they have some letters after their names. I employ solely on previous experience.

I tend to launch ALL CV's with degrees because they're generally from people who feel they're owed a job because they have some letters after their names. I employ solely on previous experience.

The only degree I ever worry about is my degree of inebriation...

giz a job.

Finish the course an get the qualification, they tend to open doors for you and dropping out will just keep ending you back where you started. If you get the qual and some experience in a couple of years you could do agency work for £100 a day, work for a month then go to the Alps for a month or work abroad and if its a lovely day and you want to go for ride, skip a day of college, its not the end of the world.

Hmmmm....
Dilemma, I do an electrical installation course in college full time, and have a part time job which ideally needs me to work the hours that i am actually in college, electrical installation is nothing that interests me and i really couldnt care less if i pass or not, i passed a machining course last year anyway. in fact, the only thing i care about nowadays is cycling, and im not doing enough of it.
Now if i quit college, i could easily work 3-4 days a week, and earn anywhere from £30 a week to £160, (I work in a mushroom farm and the hours vary greatly) but right now, i only work fridays which is usually half a day, and i end up earning only around £15-20 a week, if i worked 2 of the 3 days i am in college, that would be perfect, not only will i have more days to do the only thing that interests me in life (except tits) but i will have more money to fund it, rather than having to ride on a budget all the time (which sucks).
Im only asking because most the people on here are older than me, and have more experience in life after college...

Cheers for the heads up guys, I have decided attend college today, its only a half day anyway so I can ride afterwards :)
All your opinions have brainwashed me, but there is some great advice here, its kind of inspired me to prove to myself I can pass, but thats why I love cycling so much, I get to challenge myself, and always push a step further, Im still trying to decide whether I can accel enough in cycling in the time I would usually be in college to make college not worth it, but until I decide, the best thing I can do is do my best in college.

And to the people who are confused at 'cycling on a budget', I am currently riding a bike with a worn headset, a wobbly bottom bracket, toe straps when I really want clipless, and I also have a front track wheel as it was the cheapest I could find, but I dont want to complain because the list could be much longer, but if it was, I wouldnt owe my mum £100 ;)

I think you're doing the right thing sticking with it and it's what I'd do (and did, for which I am delighted now.)

If you do decide to take a year out and work on a mushroom farm, have a serious think about how little cash you have, how much it really costs to live (I'm assuming you still live at home) and whether or not you want to live on that for the rest of your life.

You'll probably also have to live next door to people that play music and argue at 3 am which will make getting up and going to your boring, tiresome, badly paid job even more difficult. If you really don't want to be doing what you do now to the point where it's seriously affecting your wellbeing, take a step back, take some time off, do some cycling, regroup and think about what you'd like to do and how you should go about it. Choose a course you like or get an apprecticeship in something that will hold your interest and can lead into a career or a good job at the least.

I'm not materialistic and I actually spend very little apart from what I spend on cycling and music but it's nice knowing that I don't have to wory about money, that if I want to I can take a year or two off and that I don't have to cycle around with a worn headset and a wobbly bottom bracket and I get to choose where I live and who I live next to.

When I was studying, I was exceptionally poor and whilst it was manageable, it wasn't enjoyable and I'd hate to have to repeat that level of poverty (I had one lightbulb which I took from room to room at one point) but I was lucky enough to do something I enjoyed (and still do.)

Even if you excell at cycling, the chances are that it won't pay very well and it won't last long so you'll still need something as a back-up plan. Even if you want to stay in the sport, you'll need various sports science, nutrition etc qualifications.

Finish the course an get the qualification, they tend to open doors for you and dropping out will just keep ending you back where you started. If you get the qual and some experience in a couple of years you could do agency work for £100 a day, work for a month then go to the Alps for a month or work abroad and if its a lovely day and you want to go for ride, skip a day of college, its not the end of the world.

This sounds like a great plan to me.

tl;dr: Stick with College.

Some points for you to consider:

1. You do a lot less hours in college than you do in a job (generally speaking) so you will have more free time to cycle than if you ditch college for a full time job.

2. If it's a 2 year or longer course and you hate it, consider swapping to something you don't hate. If you're just bored, stick with it. If it's a year long course then HTFU, you're already 33% of the way there!

3. It's a good solid trade to be in, and as many have already said, it gives you the opportunity to earn decent money in the future. As someone else has also pointed out, you could well end up self employed which might give you the flexibility to do more cycling than you would get in a permanent job.

4. Please bear in mind that having a qualification, any qualification at all, will help you to get your first job. When I see a CV from someone who hasn't had a related job before applying for the one I'm filling, I look to see if they have committed to anything beforehand. The very fact that you finished college might be the difference between getting an interview and being binned.

5. Perhaps consider a change of part time job? Do you have a LBS near you that you could try to get a job at? Your income might go down in comparison to the mushroom farm but you'll be surrounded by bikes when you're at work and it's possible you'll get a discount!

6. Don't expect to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at the age of 17. I'm 38 and still don't have a scooby what I want to do when I grow up. At this point, I doubt I ever will grow up! :)

Good luck with your decision.

The year out thing. Once you've finished your course do it. Start planning it now, especially in those moments where you have a 'wobble' over college. To give you an idea of how much fun it can be this is a very rough breakdown of my year out when I was 18 (about 500 years ago):

Having saved like a bastard went to Australia for 6 months with a mate, bought a motorbike and hooned around Sydney. Got a job in a lab by lying through my teeth, met loads of cool Ozzies and went to loads of mental parties and had some amazing adventures. Got a job in a Kebab shop and didn't go hungry, saved some money to travel around Oz. Hitch-hiked and got buses from Sydney to Melbourne to Adelaide to Alice Springs to Darwin to Townsville then back down the east coast through Brisbane to Sydney. It was amazing and met loads of great people, even managed to have sex with a real lady. So spent 3 months of the 6 in Australia just travelling.

Then came back to the UK and still had 6 months of the year out left so went hitch-hiking across Europe. Through France Belgium and Germany all the way down to Frankfurt to meet with a German girl (with enormous breasts) I'd met while travelling through Australia. I stayed with her in Frankfurt for about a month in return for painting a fucking huge mural on her balcony.

The whole year out experience was crazy, scary, happy, brilliant. And was all done on a shoestring with very little in the way of funds and not a great deal of planning. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I tend to launch ALL CV's with degrees because they're generally from people who feel they're owed a job because they have some letters after their names. I employ solely on previous experience.

Are you employing people with degrees in the actual field of work though?

Oh yeah, to the OP, if I can hold down full-time job (and I mean lots of fscking hours) and train for 24hr TTs.. I don't see how you can not be getting enough riding in. Maybe you need to sleep less and think more about getting rides in around work/college.

Finish the course, get a qualification (regardless of what it is), take time afterwards to do what you want.

Stick at it.

Heres why - you dont know what the future holds, and a vocational qualification is one of the most valuable qualifications you can have.

I would give different advice if you were at uni doing a course you didnt like, but you will have a qualification for a skill that will enable you to work when you need to if other shit hits the fan.

I employ electrical installers on my site for over £100 per day - a lot of them our guys who do something else for part of the year, e.g ski instructors, but do the work to pick up cash in the off season.

Also if, as is probably likely, you decide to go travelling, you have a skill that will enable you to get work, so you can rock up anywhere and know you can always get a job if cash is tight.

You might never need to use it, but when your in a position 5 years from now needing cash with no qualifications, youw will be damn glad you have that qualification

Finish the course, get a qualification (regardless of what it is), take time afterwards to do what you want.

^ This.

I took time out of my studies to push my snowboarding, after getting to a level that meant i wanted to enter some events. My heart drove this, and it made things very difficult to come back and get back into learning.

even managed to have sex with a real lady. .

A real lady... my hero.

Can i just ask what type of riding? Honestly, if you're not already well known now, then you're probably not going to be in 1.5years.

Road racing, and more specifically sprinting.
I dont care about being well known, cycling is a passion not a business, that doesnt mean i wouldnt like to make money out of it however.

You'll need to race Scoble to prove your worth..

Road racing, and more specifically sprinting.
I dont care about being well known, cycling is a passion not a business, that doesnt mean i wouldnt like to make money out of it however.

I'm passionate about writing, but if I depended on it to put food on the table then I'd be eating rejection letters.

You must think about income and supporting yourself first, and with luck that will help finance your passion, perhaps even allow that passion to eventually support you full time.

If your parents are willing to support you indefinitely then try go pro, if not, stick with learning a trade and riding hard during every free hour of your time. If you are that passionate you can easily find four or five hours a day to train.

Road racing, and more specifically sprinting.
I dont care about being well known, cycling is a passion not a business, that doesnt mean i wouldnt like to make money out of it however.

what cat. racer are you? Are you currently racing?

I'm not looking to piss on your chips but if you're not currently racing you've left it very, very late to pursue a road racing career - there will have been kids in clubs and development squads since their very early teens

get qualified, earn money, enjoy your racing

don't anticipate that you will make any money, at all, from road racing

Stick at it.

Heres why - you dont know what the future holds, and a vocational qualification is one of the most valuable qualifications you can have.

I would give different advice if you were at uni doing a course you didnt like, but you will have a qualification for a skill that will enable you to work when you need to if other shit hits the fan.

I employ electrical installers on my site for over £100 per day - a lot of them our guys who do something else for part of the year, e.g ski instructors, but do the work to pick up cash in the off season.

Also if, as is probably likely, you decide to go travelling, you have a skill that will enable you to get work, so you can rock up anywhere and know you can always get a job if cash is tight.

You might never need to use it, but when your in a position 5 years from now needing cash with no qualifications, youw will be damn glad you have that qualification

+1.

When I was young (really, that long ago) I had a temporay summer job in Tescos, rather than out on the buildings earning real money. I think it is now referred to as the Great Depression.

One of the real hard working full timers once said, in her Saaf London accent

"I envy you with your exams. Nomatter what happens with your boss, there is nuffink they can do to take them away."

Sure enough, a week later, monster row with moron store manager about stacking beans, and she was out on her ear, and struggled to get a job with the negative referencing.

Stick with it, complete course, then decide what to do, once the qualification is safely in your back pocket.

A real lady... my hero.

She was beautiful, her name was Gary.

My wife is a teacher, teaching hairdressing to vocational students.
One of the girls she was teaching, a 16 year old, really wasn't trying and my wife had to pull her up to tell her she was on course to fail.

The lass says, 'It doesn't matter, Miss. I'm not going to be a hairdresser when I leave school.'
My wife asks what she's going to be instead.
'I'm going to be a backing dancer for Britney Spears, and go on tour with her.'
Keeping a straight face, the missus says, 'Very nice, and where do you practice your dancing?'
She says, 'In my bedroom. I'd be too embarrassed to dance in public right now.'

My wife told her a few home truths as nicely as possible, let her sit for a bit with a cup of tea, then got her started washing hair.

Yeah, obviously Britney will be shit in a couple of years.. amiright amiright?

^^ Life's harsh, I was going to be a backing dancer for Britney but she fell in love with me and then of course Beyonce got the right hump because she saw me first and they had to fight over me in a giant paddling pool of absinthe jelly.

"absinthe jelly"

Want.

what cat. racer are you? Are you currently racing?

I'm not looking to piss on your chips but if you're not currently racing you've left it very, very late to pursue a road racing career - there will have been kids in clubs and development squads since their very early teens

get qualified, earn money, enjoy your racing

don't anticipate that you will make any money, at all, from road racing

A good deal of this is true, but if the OP is really serious about racing there is no reason why he can't train hard and do the degree at the same time. The kids with potential that I know of in London do that and it doesn't stop them competing at a national and international level.

What the OP really needs is a clear plan of how to get involved in racing:

1. Are you in a club?
   
2. Do you have a training plan or schedule?
   
3. Do you have access to coaching?
   
4. Have you entered or do you plan to enter races?
   
   

Look at resources online and see if you can find blogs by promising juniors to understand what they put into cycling and how they balance it with other aspects of their lives. Then you will have a realistic framework for your ambition.

Whilst you may have left it late compared to most of your contemporaries, you are young enough to find out if you have a genuine talent if you apply yourself seriously.

Yeah, obviously Britney will be shit in a couple of years.. amiright amiright?

No.
My wife told her that she'd have to join the queue behind a rather robustly developed young Australian boy who had already booked that dream as his own.

She's training for 24h TT's now, apparently.

I'm gonna shave my head and try to hook up with her at Mersey Roads..

Don't you know that you're toxic..