My first gig out of grad school was as a sabbatical leave professor for a year. I had one young man (18) in my class who was doing really badly, seemingly on purpose. One day I asked him, “are you trying to fail?” And he said yes. Apparently he wanted to be a carpenter, and more specifically, a woodworker. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. After some discussion I reminded him that he was an adult and that if he didn’t want to be a doctor he didn’t have to. His idea was that if he flunked out, his father wouldn’t be so upset.
Sigh