you sound about the exact same as me. as a freshman i started trading and had a 500% gain on my first ever stock purchase (a penny...big mistake number 1). i thought i was a prodigy so i dumped all the money i earned waiting tables in high school into my brokerage account, than proceeded to lose it all. any other sizeable amount of money i earned went back into that trading account, and then eventually disappeared into thin air, about 10k in total (which is a huge sum for a college kid). however, i learned about fear, greed, hope, and psychology in the markets. i was fortunate to learn that being disciplined was the key to success, and i still keep an index card next to my computer that i wrote years and years ago with rules i that i shouldnt break during the trading day. the money lost was really the greatest form of tuition...it gave me a huge excitement for trading. it provoked me to get a finance degree, and when i went to interview fulltime, i spewed stories and stories of real world things that i learned by trading in the markets (i'm 100% convinced my trading knowledge got me the job, not anything i learned in college classes). i picked up a trading job at the investment bank i wanted (one of the only still around), despite not being the honors kid or the computer engineer or whatever else they typically look for. i like to think i'm a good trader now because of what i learned when i lost all that hard-earned money...but everything works out if you try hard enough....that money i lost is a drop in the bucket compared to what i make now. just hoping to inspire, as it seems you were me a few years back. pm me if you want to know more.
Collegetrader, I'm 19 years old and a sophomore in college also. Started my education at the beginning of January and started trading with a 4600 account around mid march. I swing trade options and when I started I thought I knew everything, ha..stupid. I was up 1500 in my first day and that was using more than half my account in trades (again, stupid).. The next day I watched that 1500 go to -1700. So far I've lost around 3200 and I'm left with only 1400. But that's just enough.. I've learned so much from my mistakes and I'm getting better.. I'm now just trading papermoney until I gain much more confidence to get back in. We'll see what happens... Joe