Post-secondary or grade school.
the fucking grift of it all.
tpaying a $60 license fee to pearson just to be able to submit fucking required homework.
Gym class. Why that exists in class format absolutely stumps me.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Not being able to take a “mental health” day off, in both high school and college. In high school my parents wouldn’t let me (though I don’t fault them for that), and in college it was hard to keep up if I even missed one lecture. As an adult with a job , if I need a day to decompress, I can decide to take off tomorrow and nobody can tell me no. In school it was hard to keep on going with the tank on empty.
The damn 6 miles daily walk. From grade 4 until 12. Not in the USA, BTW. A shithole 3rd world country.
Undiagnosed ADHD until I was almost 30.
Something similar, I’ve had sleep issues since I was young, wasn’t until I was 40 that I was diagnosed with insomnia disorder. Middle school is when it really took over, and I didn’t make it any further than grade 10. I got my GED at 25 and was admited to University as a mature student. These days I’m on a disability pension.
Personally, I really liked school. Even high school. It would have been easier if I’d had more mental health resources, but I learned a ton and had a lot of freedom in terms of electives. I was taking college-level history courses as a senior in high school and absolutely ate it up.
The only nuisance was that I am a good singer and my parents forced me to skip a writing course and advanced biology my senior year because someone the chamber choir had selected instead of me decided to quit, and I wasn’t assertive enough at the time to tell my parents no when the choir director called my mom and convinced her to make me do it, so my last semester I performed with the chamber choir and absolutely fucking hated every second of it. (Though I did put my foot down on weekend travel competitions, so at least I didn’t have to give up weekends for that shit.)
My only other regret is of the time-travel variety. A former schoolmate was high up in the RNC when Trump was elected, and I wish I could go back in time and intervene somehow.
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 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.
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.
