u/No-Valuable2529

Hi everyone. I'm a woman starting my bachelors soon and I could really use some guidance. I know its hard to find mentors, especially if you don't have any accolades under your belt. I'm very confused about where to go next in my career and what to do and I'd appreciate the help. I really don't want to just take anyone's time without giving back so I do want to help in any capacity I can. I'd be willing to assist with research and be useful to you. I'm not sure how it will work but I do want our partnership to be mutually beneficial. I'm very ambitious and I have a lot of dreams I want to achieve but my life was derailed unfortunately. I desperately want to get back on track and I'd love to hear from woc in academia or industry, especially a black woman. I know this is a long shot but I'm really interested and dedicated and I'm willing to put in work.

I'm thinking of going down this career path in my mid 20s but from all the biographies I've read, they'd been working towards it since they were kids. By the time they were my age, they'd already done A LOT and had advanced degrees too. I'm just starting now and I feel like I'm so behind the curve. I've seen people my age and younger who aspire to this already working in their fields and doing so much more. I don't even know how to make connections in the aerospace world or how to get started. I'm so far behind from where I want to be and I'm starting to feel like I'll never get there. I'm thinking of just giving up? Are there any people who got started in this path later in life and actually managed to become astronauts? How can I start making connections now before I even start university?

I'm going to start college in a couple months at age 25 and it's my first time away from family. I was very sheltered in a Conservative environment so it's my first time in my life having freedom. I've never had a boyfriend before or any of those coming of age experiences. I really want to put myself out there and making friends and make memories but I'm worried that I'm too old and that the ship has sailed. I'm scared that people will look at me weird for being older. The problem is I feel so immature for my age and I feel 16 sometimes instead of 25. I feel so old and young at the same time. Anyone else had the same experience?

I cut my hair about a week ago and have a pixie cut now. I'm planning on dyeing my virgin black hair blue for the first time but I need to bleach it first. I can't get my dark black hair platinum in one go so I probably have to do it multiple times. Should I wait a day or week between bleaching or can I just do it in one go?

I see a lot of women, not only on this sub but in general, talk about how much they struggle and how difficult things are for them. I relate to all of that but I want it to change. I don't want to spend the rest of my life or my youth being miserable. I'm in my 20s, the supposed prime of my life, and I'm stuck home depressed and doomscrolling. I want to change. I want to stop self loathing and build a better relationship with myself. Have any of yall managed to do that? How do you build confidence and stop hating yourself for your autistic traits? How did you actually start enjoying life and doing the things you want to do? How do you live your life to the fullest?

So I've posted my art multiple times online now and the consensus has been that it's bad. I've been making art for 5-6 years now and unfortunately somewhere along the way I fell off the wagon and lost interest which is why my art is bad now. I am basically still really bad even after years of drawing and painting. But I want to get better and in a fairly short amount of time.

​

Time isn't a constraint for me and I really want and am willing to put in the work. I'm willing to dedicate roughly 5-7 hours a day to practice and even more on weekends. I've already started and this past week I've drawn for about 3 hours a day. I want to work hard and push myself and dedicate myself to a goal and see it through. So if I start now and work really hard at experimenting and fundamentals and refining my technique, how much can I realistically improve?

​

(For those curious I can link some of my art below in the comments)

I discovered a passion for fashion about 5 years ago and since then I've read a lot of theory and fashion books and watched so many content creators. I know a lot about fashion and now I think I want to apply to fashion school. The problem is that I don't have any design or sewing experience. Time is not a constraint for me and I'm willing to fully dedicate myself to it. I am willing to learn to sew and I already have decent drawing skills. If I start now, will I be able to build a decent portfolio and apply to fashion schools next year? I know what I need to work on and what my weaknesses are too and I'm ready to put in the work. Do I need to learn sewing from now and can I get in if my sewing skills aren't that good?

I've been doing yoga on and off for years now and I've always struggled with being consistent. This year I set a challenge for myself to do yoga everyday and I failed completely. When I think back to how I was when I did yoga consistently, I was super mentally healthy (or at least much healthier than now), flexible and I was in so much better shape. I could see and feel my body changing physically and I could do things my body never could before. Now I want to get back into it again but I can't help feeling regret whenever I try to. I only think how much farther I'd be if I stuck to it consistently. I quit it and all of my other hobbies and all I do is doomscroll. When I was consistent with my practice, I used to do breathwork and meditation everyday as well and I limited my screentime significantly. I'm very much worse off now that I don't do it anymore and whenever I start again these feelings of guilt and shame rise up again. How do I get past this and start doing yoga again, especially when I loved it so much and it was so good for me?

So I've been involved in law of assumption community for the past six years now and to be honest, none of my biggest manifestations ever came through. Not money, not college, not financial independence, nothing. I wasted a lot of time and nothing came through and I stopped believing for a while. But I want to give it another shot because there's a part of me that still can't help believing after hearing everyone's successes. I just wish it would happen for me. However, in this situation, the circumstances are completely stacked against me. It would truly require a miracle for me to be able to get this manifestation. How would I go about doing this when manifestation has failed me all the time in the past and nothing has ever worked? I want to believe I truly do and I do robotic affirmations and trying to change my mindset and being positive but nothing ever works. Nothing has ever worked for me. How would I manifest something so big even after having proof of failure in the past? Anyone that has been through this please help me. What changed for you and how did you get what you wanted?

I started doing art for the first time in 2020 during the pandemic. I always wanted to learn drawing and painting and I figured it was the perfect time. I wanted to start drawing so that I could eventually draw clothing and become a designer. In the beginning I was super consistent and then fell into depression and art block quite a few times over the years. There were months and years I went eithout drawing or painting. Art school was my dream but I gave up and just sunk into depression. Now I'm 23 and I'm feeling so much pressure to get back on track. I've recently started taking art more seriously and I've discovered my love and passion for it again. Last week I drew for 4 hours everyday and I'm exploring new things in my art. The thing I'm confronting is I'm not good AT ALL and I'm basically a beginner after 6 years. I can't help feeling that if I didn't procrastinate so much and consume art instead of creating, I could be much further. I keep wishing i was doing this 2 or even 3 years ago and how much farther I would be if I did. Now art school is basically impossible for me even if I improve enough and create a portfolio before application season. I'm basic trying to force 6 years of development into 3 years and it's not working. Even though I'm enjoying drawing and painting again, I know I could and would be much much farther along if I stuck to it years ago. Even though I've made a commitment and I've been creating everyday again I feel like I failed myself and I regret it so much all the time. I love art so much and I want to get really good at it but I'm nowhere near where I wanted or expected to be right now. It's making me want to give up all over again and I feel too old to be this bad.

So I'm a non traditional in my 20s and I'm thinking of applying to purdue next fall. Is it worth it to attend as an older student? Would I stand out and look weird? Would research opportunities be available to me and could I join clubs? What's your social life like? And what's the environment on campus in general for non traditional students? And if I live in dorms would that be weird?

So I'm black (F23) and I grew up and went to schools in a predominantly non black community with South Asians and Arabs. As a child, I remember being very extroverted and as a kid I always went around trying to make friends. I repeatedly experienced being shunned and made fun of. As a child, I didn't realise that a lot of my experienced were due to my race so I just internalized it and slowly lost confidence. Eventually, after repeated experiences, I found myself becoming really quiet and making myself small in social situations. I became a hard core people pleaser.

I went to a school with one ethnic group and they all shared a language. It wasn't uncommon for me to be sitting alone while everyone else spoke their language around me. I was called fat and also bullied for my looks. Over the years my social skills grew worse and now at my age I feel like I have the social skills of an 11 year old. I struggle so much with interaction and I can't even go to the store on my own sometimes. Even walking down the street can be difficult for me because I imagine people looking and laughing at me from being darker skinned.

I don't know how to heal from this and its really affecting my life. Deep down I know I'm extroverted and I crave community and connection but it's so hard for me. I imagine myself talking to people and I get full body shakes and heart palpitations. I've even tried talking to people online but years of isolation has made me so weird and not used to socialising that I even have anxiety online. It has made me so sensitive to rejection and I pretty much can't handle it at all.

Does anyone else have this experience? Please share your thoughts. I pretty much never see anyone talking about this even though it can be a side effect of racial trauma. How do you navigate a situation where you know people are going to look down on you and just put yourself out there anyway? It makes me feel so much shame because other people also experience racism but they don't let it affect them this much.