I studied film at my community college for three years and had a lot of potential. My classmates always liked my work, my professors mentored me because they expected highly of me, I was volunteering at filmmaking camps for high schoolers to help teach them the craft. I wasn't a Kubrick or anything like that, but I had an unpretentious and tongue in cheek style that my peers found unique. I applied to some of the best film schools in the country when my time their was up; I ended up deciding when transferring to study history instead, because my Plan B was to be a history teacher and figured I didn't need a film degree anyway. Those two years at university was definitely the biggest regret of my life. I worked at the on campus studio where I got to make my own show and stuff, but it all felt unsatisfying because I was studying something that I didn't even intend to be my life goal full time. Plus the school I went to was bougie and isolating because I couldn't find a social group to hang out with. I had plenty of friends in community college and high school, but being a middle class kid in goodwill clothes walking around a rich kid school got really isolating. A lot of the students there were rich foreigners and celebrity kids so it was a lot of BMWs, influencer clothes, and top of the line gadgets, meanwhile I'm there, a mopy goth transgirl, with a 15 year old car, a loud ass laptop I bought second hand, and messy hair. It wasn't fun and I dropped out right as the pandemic was looming, and spent a Brian Wilson-esque year laying in bed doing nothing. My passion left, I hated myself, my depression was spiraling out of control.
I really wish I would've gone to a different school and studied what I wanted. I applied to NYU, UCLA, Chapman, all the big guys and could've gone and met other passionate students and made even more art. But no, for some reason I decided to study for a teaching credential at a school I felt out of place at. Biggest mistake of my entire life, easily.
I had almost the same experience, but it wasn't that bad for me, i did apply for public college and i easily passed the admition test, but my parents wanted to me to join a good college, so they sent me to a private college (the best one in my whole country), and when i did arrived, i felt like a stranger, look, i spent most of my life living in a ranch near a small town, even if i got internet from an early age, i wasn't "city folk" at all, and the first time i arrived to the city i felt weird, people in my college looked bourgeois as fuck, with expensive phones, clothes, mercedez bens, etc, spoiled kids from rich parents or european foreigners (my family isn't rich at all, but isn't poor either, just middle class enough to pay for that college), and i arrived at that place with a sombrero and some boots, a thrift shop field jacket (with a small pin of hatsune miku) and a chinese phone, i didn't have a car so i walk from my apartment to the university (because the bus route doesn't stop near my apartment), you know how much did i stand out in that place? I can describe my experience with an adage my country has "Como puta en un convento" (it is translated to "Like a whore in a convent") i felt so out of place, so i was kinda scared to interact with people, it didn't helped that at the time i lost a really close friend, so it was, a really rough experience, it was more than the aesthetics, was the feeling of being in an place in which you felt like an alien, is just weird, and not a good time overall.
But that was when i was 17, now i'm 19 and almost in my last year of college, and you know, with time i learned to not compare with others, you are your own world, they are their own world, and that's more than ok, you don't need to try to fit yourself with people, just be yourself and everything will go fine and dandy, who knows, what if those spoiled kids likes your unique style, you can make the best kind of friends by just being yourself, besides, you are still young, you can still complete your dreams, my mother always says that is not worthy to live with regrets of the past, everyone makes mistakes, but blaming yourself for the ignorance is carrying the wrong cross, idk how is your situation nowadays, but you can always focus on your art, keep practicing, doesn't matter if it is in college or not, you have plenty of time ahead (more time than life as we say here), so don't let yourself down and good luck.