Post-secondary or grade school.
Adhd didn’t exist back then.
Gym class. Why that exists in class format absolutely stumps me.
I thought so too, until i got to know someone who never had any decent physical education. It’s scary to see the lack of coordination and balance some adults can have.
Was it because of the lack of coordination or was that because of the lack of physical education? I know people like me who had that but never got anything out of it.
At the start of my freshman year, they hadn’t finished building the “new” gym, which was to be used for the gym classes, so the cheerleaders could practice in the old, big gym.
So the cheerleaders practice on one side of the old gym, and a bunch of horny teen idiots on the other. Dear God the shit they would say, unapologetic and just the worst; “i can see your pu$$y! Bitch just did the splits and left a hickey on the floor!”
Beyond “Hur dur”, this was straight up verbal assault. A few days after the worst of these comments, we were told to go to a portable classroom where we learned health crap out of a book, then i went up four flights of stairs to the actual health class.
No idea where the hell i was going with that, other than it seemed to be a way to tire us out, until the comments landed us in class, then it seemed just a way to keep us occupied until the gym teacher could follow her true, Lesbian Passion ®, girls volleyball coach.
That would happen to me just by waiting for the bus.
I flunked out of nursing school despite the content itself being fairly easy because I didn’t know how to deal with mean girl shit yet. I passed the second time by just doing whatever they told me to until I graduated. In particular, I remembered some advice from years earlier from an older roommate who had just gotten back from their coast guard training. They said their goal had been to go as long as possible before the instructor even knew their name. Honestly that’s been a pretty great strategy for me when I’ve needed to escape abuses of power ever since; keep your head down, do whatever they tell you to, don’t draw attention to yourself, then book it the first chance you get.
In nursing school right now. Pleased to say I’m having the opposite experience - I’m the guy that’s always asking questions, running study groups, and debating the prof after tests to try to get questions thrown out and boost everyone’s grade. So… pretty much everyone in the program, student and staff, knew my name and face from day 1… and I’ve had an awesome relationship so far with all of them.
It’s been difficult, but very gratifying and at times even fun.
Your instructors were shit.
No, they were nice like that to the male students. I was female presenting at the time so it was just a fucking tank of piranhas. The sexism for the men doesn’t really seem to start until you’re working ortho, psych, or ER and everybody starts looking at you like you’re a damn hoyer that transforms into a battle mech optimus prime style.
Two people in my immediate family tried nursing school. One basically finished it, then didn’t want to take the cert exam. The other one has dropped out twice. I’ve heard the stories of how brutal it can be.
Switching from 5th grade at a little red schoolhouse, where the only homework assignments were reading and projects/presentations to 6th grade at a college prep middle/highschool with homework assignments every day.
How dumb it all is. Seriously. The highly regimented structure of curricula and examination is a shitty way to learn. It’s optimised for making teaching and grading easier. And also teaching young people to be obedient facile production line workers.
But intellectually and academically, it always seemed obviously bad and boring to me. And I’ve since gotten to understand a number of academic topics relatively well to know how true this is. Proper understanding, intellectually, and skill in application, are things that are far more organic and purpose driven than the shitty curricula that pencil pushing educators spit out as though the human mind were an excel spread sheet.
Sitting still and not being bored senseless. I was a hyperactive kid with adhd, having to sit anywhere for more than 10 minutes was the bane of my existence.
I don’t think my adhd ever came out as restlessness.
I always tried really hard to keep track of what was going on but the dumbest thing would cause me to zone out . When I was done zoning out I was so lost that I would just give up and continue daydreaming.
I don’t know if my energy levels had anything to do with adhd or if it was just a unrelated companion, but I’ve always been that way. Sugar was banned in my house I think because my mother thought I’d implode if I got my mitts on any. I couldn’t even sit long enough to watch a whole movie from start to finish until I was in my 30’s.
Math. I sucked at math since 3rd grade and that shit was a struggle all the way through college. I’m lucky i can even count, I swear to God. Had to pass THREE remedial math courses just to be allowed to take the course that counted for actual credit towards my degree. Lately I’ve been contemplating going back to college for a second degree, but I realized I’d have to take shit like pre-calculus for the degrees I’m looking at and I just don’t think I could do it. My brain is such a letdown.
Right there with you. Suffered with fractions in 4th grade, did okay from there until trig in high school (sophomore year?), then failed hard in calc 1 over the course of 5 undergrad tries. Finally got it, but damn, my brain could not handle the theoretical stuff. Maybe methods have changed in 20+ years, but that shit sits with you.
The damn 6 miles daily walk. From grade 4 until 12. Not in the USA, BTW. A shithole 3rd world country.
Depression.
Going without motivation.
I graduated college the first time with straight C’s and major that didn’t have much headroom. It was a struggle and I was a terrible student. Always late, always bargaining with professors for extra time, always “faking it”. I couldn’t find work fitting a degree, went on to do landscaping work, field surveying work, security, all minimum wage.
Then I got into firefighting, then wildland firefighting, then saw how computer science and geospatial data played in, and the motivation clicked.
I saved my money from a pair of very very busy fire seasons (lots of OT and hazard pay), Went back to school for CS and GIS with straight A’s, found the whole experience easy and enjoyable. (Not that I wasn’t challenged and had late nights). If you’ve dug ditches for money and don’t want to do that any more, the asks and challenges of college are comparatively trivial. Even in upper division classes the teachers are crystal clear about the expectations, the schedule, the tests, all of it. If you approach classwork like a job, it all falls into place in ways it never did when I had competing interests and really just wanted to fuck off, drink beer, and go skiing.
Everyone else wants to go do whatever during office hours ? Nah Im there. Every time. Etc etc
Motivation made all the difference, even when content was hard for me (linear algebra after 5 years of no academic math? Fuuuck that was some late nights for my dumb ass. )
If you don’t know what you most enjoy after H.S., finding your motivation is a really great idea for many kids. if you give it a quarter and still aren’t inspired, outside work could help with that. College is expensive; but it’s worth it and -much- easier once you know why you’re there! You’re story is a perfect example, thanks for sharing.
I’d add this (from my experience): if you start out doing well, but your grades start slipping in the second year? Take a quarter (or a year) off to figure out why that’s happening. Maybe that major isn’t for you after all. Maybe things in your personal life need getting past so that you can can get your focus back. The college will still be there when you’re ready … unless what you need is … another college !!
Yep. No point worrying about redoing life. It happened, everything is ok.
I wish I had going the fire crew right after highschool, did that for several years, then started taking a few classes at a time between seasons.
Then dive into a full degree
I loved math and was good at it until we got to integrals. I could do algebra, geometry, trigonometry, probability, and derivates…and loved all of them. But my brain went splat against integrals.
I barely passed Calculus levels 3 and 4. Honestly, I should have failed them. The professor wasn’t very good, he knew this, and he took pity on me. But it was ultimately my own fault.
It was kind of humiliating. I’d always done really well at math, and even tutored other students. Then I just hit a fucking wall with integrals. At that point, I fully understood how other students who struggled with math had felt all along. I had been empathetic to them. But now I suddenly knew what it was like.
I sometimes wonder if a virus or some other unknown medical situation broke that part of my brain. It kind of felt like it. Or maybe it was just beyond my natural abilities, period.
I never understood integrals either! I don’t know if we covered it in a math class in high school but I got to college and took physics and encountered it. I was like “What in the fuck is this shit?!” I take that back. I think I did encounter it briefly in high school physics but the teacher was like, “don’t worry if you don’t get it right now, you’ll figure it out.” My fucking ass! That was college physics from like week 2!!!
I tried to figure it out from the text book and that didn’t work. I went and bought a math book to try to figure it out, that obviously didn’t work. This was before YouTube and the internet getting big on any kind of instruction so it was just like," well fuck me I guess I’ll fail."
What I should have done was gone to the teacher for help. They always said their hours when they were open but I never thought they would have time for me. I know better now. They would have been happy to help me but ignorance and probably low self esteem and all.
Still don’t understand that integral shit. I eventually went back to school but become an English major instead of that shit.
I hate it, because I like reading and watching videos about physics…but when they throw formulas up there I can’t read them. I can read music. I can read code. But I can’t read advanced math.
All the fucking assholes
Well right now it’s that my prof speaks excruciatingly slow and makes sure to read the entirety of each slide of the PowerPoint.
This class is already boring. He doesn’t need to make it worse.
I’m usually just trying to stay awake.I didn’t struggle academically in grade school at all, with the exception of mathematics. And by that, I just mean that I had to put in a moderate amount of effort to learn it.
But when I started college/university in a new city, I was alone, wholly unprepared, and paralyzed by severe (and untreated) anxiety, depression, and ADHD. I didn’t know how to make friends by myself. The thought of having to interact with my dorm mates would send me into a panic.
Not to mention, I was not only having a crisis of sexuality, but I also convinced myself that I was an ugly, gross loser whom no one would ever want to be with sexually or romantically. (Jesus.)
I took a break for a semester because I was very suicidal. I started therapy again/taking Zoloft—the latter of which saved my life—and went back for another semester. But I knew, even before going back, that it just wasn’t for me. It really didn’t help that I already knew college in the US is a scam.
So yeah, I ended up dropping out. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, now.
the fucking grift of it all.
tpaying a $60 license fee to pearson just to be able to submit fucking required homework.
