Holy shit man, I am so fucking sick of having to waste my time on random meaningless bullshit.
>was 22, in premium-mediocre liberal arts college >dropped out because I was directionless, had undiagnosed ADHD, starting to fail shit >fucked around for a few years, got diagnosed with ADHD and treated >now 27 >consider going back to school at my shitty local college to learn some actual marketable skills (cs) >test the waters with a summer class and destroy it, top of the class >enroll for the fall >still have to take a bunch of retard-level gen ed classes, because most of my old bespoke snowflake credits didn't transfer
Now I'm setting up my fall schedule, and I have everything perfect except for this fucking english class that I could probably pass by farting onto a piece of paper in my sleep. I'm not going to learn anything, it's setting me back like $600, and it's fucking up my whole schedule. It's literally a meaningless requirement that I just have to deal with because some rule-maker out there doesn't give a fuck. I'm 27, this isn't cute anymore. I just want to do the shit that actually matters. Fuck bureaucracy, fuck time, and fuck me for being a piece of shit my whole life.
How are the rest of my 25+ bros? What are you doing with your lives? What bullshit are you dealing with?
You dealing with ADHD too? How old are you? What's your life like?
Angel Moore
>implying you need those courses Just take the relevant ones and then drop out. Let your talent speak for itself
Ethan Butler
As someone who looks like shit on paper, with a weak-ass resume with massive unexplainable employment gaps, I really need to take advantage of the established university -> corporation pipelines. I need the piece of paper if anyone's going to give me a second look.
I already tried the self-starting self-motivating route. That's just not gonna work for someone like me. Not how my brain works.
I'm trying to lay the basic groundwork for relationships with my professors and classmates, in case they end up useful later, but I'm especially going hard on trying to get internships while I'm here. I'm already making appointments with people at my school to learn about internships for next summer.
You sound like you might have some experience with this sort of thing, do you? Any other advice?
In my last semester of getting my engineering degree I finally took the last gen ed class I needed to take ("modern" literature). It was full of teenagers. I was 27. A girl in that class actually approached me to talk once. Kinda weird considering I was probably 9 years older than her.
Brandon Ross
Interesting. 18 is a very weird age. Did you feel like you stood out, being so much older? Still mentally preparing for this myself.
Adrian Rodriguez
>How are the rest of my 25+ bros? What are you doing with your lives? What bullshit are you dealing with?
I'm 30, and looking back over the last ten years of my life, all of the shortcuts I've tried to take have fucked me. I've often thought I was being clever half-assing something I thought was worthless, only for it to fuck me later on. I've also realised that all the things I panicked about (being too old, missing out on opportunities), could easily have been resolved if I'd just stuck to my guns and not got caught up in a cycle of self-pity and regrets.
I honestly recommend that you do the courses, and work to the best of your ability. Make a good impression with the staff. Develop 'useless' skills in referencing, structuring an argument, pretending to be PC, whatever. In the long term, you won't regret it.
James Scott
Thank you for this perspective. It's true that you can always finagle SOME benefit out of bullshit, even though it may not be the intended benefit. I'm trying to keep that in mind.
>all of the shortcuts I've tried to take have fucked me Would you mind sharing an example or two of this? Or just any other relevant wisdom.
Isaiah Adams
Sure. I used to be an army officer:
1. Half-assed a lot of my training, thinking that I knew best what I did and didn't need to know. Problems: 1. Got myself a bad reputation that (I suspect) followed me around. 2. Found it hard to go from lazing about to working hard when the time came. 3. Some of those things I thought I didn't need to know, I actually did. (E.g. marching, which I thought was a waste of time... first job in new unit, lead a parade)
2. I tried to take a shortcut - against everyone's advice - by taking a 'higher up' role and skipping the one usually done before it. Thought I'd just cheated my way out of two years of grind. Funnily enough, I wasn't respected in the job, and was marginalised within it because I didn't have the necessary experience.
I'm starting a new career now, and my biggest thing is to always give one hundred percent, even if what I think I'm doing is a waste of time. In general, the benefits in terms of niche skills, reputation, and maintaining a positive attitude far outweigh any marginal loss of time in doing them
Aiden Hall
Furthermore, I really couldn't overstate the importance of good communication skills for technical types. Being able to write concisely, and present your ideas to the technogically illiterate, is arguable a more bankable ability than pure technical skill.
I don't know what sort of modules you'll be doing - but, say you had to take a gender studies module - you could write an essay about making gender-fair search engine results or somesuch, and really think about writing it in a way accessible to your teacher. Definitely not a waste of time.
Ryder Davis
>In general, the benefits in terms of niche skills, reputation, and maintaining a positive attitude far outweigh any marginal loss of time in doing them Damn, this is a fantastic point. That makes perfect sense to me.
>and really think about writing it in a way accessible to your teacher This is great too. You've given me a much clearer idea of how I can adapt low-priority work for my own benefit, while also satisfying the original requirements of the work.
Given that I HAVE to take these classes, I might as well approach them like this. I was thinking that I could probably cheat my way past the more arbitrary stuff, but humans are not good at optimizing in that way. There are almost always unseen drawbacks to cutting corners, and unseen benefits to working hard. That's true in my experience as well, now that I reflect on it in those terms. I've only seen small, isolated grind-eliminations when cutting corners, but the net has been negative. I'd be much better off right now if I had just tried to grind in a graceful/purposeful/entertaining way, instead of wasting so much energy try to optimize the grind away.
This has given me a lot to think about, thank you. What the hell are you doing on r9k??
Haha, I've been here on and off here since I was nineteen. Messed a lot of things up in my twenties, having a period of 20/20 hindsight as I reflect to try and set things right.
I think you've hit the nail on the head with your 'unseen drawbacks' comment. I believe it's something a lot of analytical types fall afoul of (I'm a physics grad, see your ambitions lie with CS). The decisions I made were completely logical - yet they were ultimately wrong because they were founded upon incomplete information, things which I had no way of knowing that I didn't know without the benefit of life experience.
Anyhow, best of luck user!
Bentley Powell
Bump. This thread is tiny but it's been so useful. Keeping it alive just a while longer.
Is there no one left here above the age of 25? I wanna hear about your shit
>26 today honestly just fucking smother me in my sleep lads i've done nothing with my life
Juan Davis
What's wrong with your lives?
Andrew Reyes
people don't want help
Hudson Watson
reading your post I forgot how old I am. im either 27 or 28. But yes, going back to uni for engineering after being out of school ffor a few years. Registered in classes, applying for EI soon. Overall, im doing ok
27. I'm the eldest of my friends. But I feel like the most immature. I was a hikki due to physical illness from ages 16 to 25.5. One day, I just couldn't take it anymore. Living with my mother in a small town. So I moved to my states capital with my savings from neetbux into a motel. It is very hard to rent a place with no job history or references. Lots of shit happened. Skip to now. I am in community college, and taking two extra courses and an entrance exam that will hopefully get me into a proper school for next year. This was the first year I made friends since 2008. I feel like I went through all of adolescence in one year. Arrested development. I still feel like a kid, though. But at least I did grow. I learnt a lot about myself. My strengths. My many weaknesses. Still miserable though. Still have feelings for an unattractive girl whom I have nothing in common with. I could go into more detail, but I already have in other threads, and people weren't that interested. Not that I blame them. Or I could tell the story of being in the den of a burger joint as I saw 2 ladies making out with 1 guy as they smoked a hookah. I didn't even know people did that in melbourne. But seeing stuff like that and not knowing how to react just reminds me how I'm still basically a teen. Even have the face. Haven't aged. Physically or mentally. Only gotten a little wiser. I'm rambling.
