I'm thinking of deferring second year

lpoolfan101

I'm a first year primary teaching student. I started the school year in another college doing arts, and got a very late, 5th round offer to do primary teaching, so I switched college, thinking i would spend a year less in college this way. I started the year in September. Now, I failed teaching practice and have to do it again during June, taking nearly a third out of the summer for me. I really need a break. This year has been physically and mentally exhausting, as I spent a lot of the year on trains (on top of buses to and from my hometown at weekends), or if I wasn't on the commute I was sleeping on couches.

Also, since I switched college, I'm just bored. In my college, all the lads are just GAA-heads, and that's not me. The people on my course just bore me, and there's no societies for me find friends with more specific interests. I have a severe lack of interest in the words coming out of people's mouths, which leads me to tune out a lot. I appear dumb to people sometimes because of this, and I f***ing hate it. I'm also over a year younger than nearly everyone in my course. I sort of regret switching college. Primary teaching itself is alright, but the course content and the people are boring. I wouldn't say I'm passionate about teaching kids, I just have a knack for working with children and I wanted the paid holidays. I've got depressed at several points this year.

I want to do something that makes me feel alive for a career, like music. I would actually rather work non-academic jobs and save and start businesses, but all my mother (a single mother) will see is a boy who fill f*** up like she did with her life. I feel like she just wants to slap a degree on me to prove a point to my grandparents.

Anyway, back to deferring, I want to do this for a break after my teaching practice, get a job for a year, and pursue my other interests and also complete my Gáisce award. I would also like to make some more friends in my hometown, which is something I kinda didn't do because I went to a school outside of my town for the LC, and wasn't involved in much sport after 5th year. My mother keeps saying that I will get a really good SUSI grant next year, because she had very few hours, and that I should return next September. She says I would have more money for going out, but I don't even like the crowd I'd go out with that much. She said that me working in a gap year would mess it up, which I know it will, but surely, from working full time for 14 months, I would have enough for accommodation and fees the 2018-2019 year. If not, I would take a loan out for whatever I'd need for the accommodation and fees, but I highly doubt I would need a loan. This is also the same mother who offered to take a loan out so I could stay on campus, which I didn't want to. Hell, I'd say I'd still get some form of a SUSI grant even if i did work. All my family thinks that if I defer, I will drop out and mess my life up. I feel as if I'm an Asian kid being pressured to be a doctor. The only way I'd drop out tbh, is if a music career somehow took off during my gap year. Even if I did drop out, I could never sit on my ass, but returning to college is my intent. One more benefit of deferring, is that I will join a new crowd of people who are my own age when I return to college. Still a good chance they could be boring because it's a primary teaching course I'm in, but there's still that chance.

What should I do guys? I'm worn out and pretty certain that deferring a year will benefit me and revitalise me for 2nd year in college. I have a plan of things I want to do during my year out. I would like to rest my mind seeing as I skipped TY.

alroley

Please don't continue with teaching if your main reason is the holidays. You appear to hate it, and you failed teaching practice. Children deserve better.