Dear allicia,

Your dilemma really resonates with me because I am a former Architecture student and have since changed course to go into another artistic domain. Like you, I have been pressured by my family to “just finish it” even though I knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I know how stressful studying Architecture is, I think a lot of people don’t realize just how much effort and time it requires to present work from week to week, how you always end up working at nights and barely have time to eat properly or sleep. I’m sure this stress is contributing a lot to your feeling of urgency and anxiety.

I think the positive point in your story is that you do know what you want to do. I think you shouldn’t worry too much about being older than everyone else when you start to study what you want, I was around 5 years older than most people in my art school and I can tell you it didn’t make much difference, no one looked at me funny and I found friends and it all went well. Also, there will be other people who start older like you, maybe even older than you. Not everyone’s life is a straight line just like yours isn’t.

I also found that my Architecture studies did give me some advantages so it wasn’t all in vain, I already had some software experience, I already knew how to present work, I already knew how to work a lot and invest in projects.

I think right now it’s hard for you to see that it is not all black & white and that your situation is difficult but not desperate. But I believe it seems so bad to you because you think the lost time is lost forever and you’ll be “late” somewhere, late to your appointment with your real life, so to speak. I’m trying to suggest that this is not necessarily the case.

I can keep writing to you if you want to, in the meantime I hope you can relax a bit, take a deep breath and tell yourself that this is your life’s path and it’s ok just as it is. Hard to believe I know but it’s true.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Midnight.