My life in shambles (not poker related)

[BeerMoney]

[ QUOTE ]
A couple of facts,
It is who you know not what you know.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's for people who develop no talents and skills and want to depend on someone else putting food on their plate.

[toots]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A couple of facts,
It is who you know not what you know.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's for people who develop no talents and skills and want to depend on someone else putting food on their plate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but a wildly successful strategy for the talentless and skill-less, just the same.

[fnord_too]

I had the same reaction and results to college at the beginning. When I ran into classes that were beneath my intellect, or boring, or poorly taught, I did not go. As a result I was put on accademic suspension once or twice. When I finally went back to school, it was fine. I salvaged my GPA, though it certainly wasn't steller. In grad school (several years later, while I was working full time) I did great. I have found this to be a common pattern with bright people, and have several friends who went through the same sort of crash before coming back.

Don't get depressed about it, you will overcome this. You may or may not be able to salvage the F's by talking to the professors, but you should have no trouble graduating with a 3.0+. Grad schools care more about recomendations and tests than grades, if you go that route. (That is to say, you won't have trouble getting into a good grad school with a 3.0 and good rec's, gre's, though you may not be able to go top of the line). Employers don't really care that much about grades, either. A 3.5 may get you slightly more interviews than a 3.0, but if so not many. How you perform in the interview and the fact that you have a degree are what's important here.

Is there a co-op program you can join (this could help on many fronts: You get away from the classroom for a semester, you get used to a more regimented routine (it is easier to go to class for 2-3 hours a day and study for a couple of hours after you have been putting in regular work days), and, since you are basically on your own now for paying for school, it will help you out financially. Also, you may end up with an in to a post college job.)

There is a strong chance that if you go back next semester you will ace it, since this semester likely will serve as a wake up call.

Again, don't get too upset by this. The holliday season can be very stressful, and you are probably putting more emphasis on your accademic situation than you should. In the short term it is a biggish deal. If this semester is a trend that continues, it's a big deal. Otherwise it is a tiny blip in your life, don't beat yourself over it, just learn from the experience and move on, you will get through this.

[Dave H.]

My second son was a skinny little boy who was in all the advanced classes in grade school up until the 8th grade. His older brother was similar in stature and in brainpower. The older brother was quite uncoordinated and was a bit of a loner, preferring to become a computer nerd while the second son shied far away from computers and was more into athletics. One day when he was in 8th grade (I found out years and years later), the second son saw his older brother get beaten up. The second son's grades began to diminish ever so slowly, until by his senior year in high school, every grade (literally EVERY GRADE) was a 'C'. Additionally, beginning in the 8th grade, he began a 2 hour regimen of weight lifting 6 days a week, forcing himself by age 14 to eat a minimum of 6,000 calories a day to insure the proper weight gain for his high metabolic rate.

The older brother grew to be about 6'3" and went to college and followed all the rules as a first child would be expected to do. He landed an outstanding programming job and today is quite successful.

The second son, after high school, preferred the "easy" life. He decided that a bartender's life would appeal to him. So he took a 6 week course and hopped around from bar to bar until he found a fairly decent job. His weighlifting for all those years created an incredible body and his outgoing personality was suited well for his chosen profession.

One day, he finally leveled with me. I told him that I never could understand how his grades had gradually diminished because he was a highly intelligent individual. And I asked him about his 5 years of bartending and whether he planned to continue, being very careful not to sound disappointed in his choice.

He told then about his brother being beaten up years ago and how he had made a decision (at age 12!!) that he would try to be as unlike his brother as possible, mostly because of that single incident! He avoided computers, FORCED his grades down, and did everything he could to create a HULK body. He was even intelligent enough to get all 'C's in his senior year and laughingly told me that that became a challenge for him...to get ALL C's.

He told me that now that he was 26 and living on his own and understanding what a great person his older brother was, that his thinking had changed a great, great deal.

With absolutely no coaxing or cajoling on anyone's part, the second son enrolled at Arizona State University the following semester. He supported himself through his bartending and loaded himself to the max with credit hours and wound up graduating as an electronics engineer THREE YEARS LATER WITH A 3.89 GPA! Two years after graduation, he is in the six figure income category and is doing, of all things, embedded chip programming!

He told me recently that he just wasn't ready for school when everyone else thought he should be. But once he was ready, there was nothing that was going to stop him.

He taught me quite a lesson and I think you will do something similar.

[BeerMoney]

Thank you for that.

[john smith]

Great story, truly inspirational.

I'm sort of in the same situation you are, except I'm in my first semester of college. I did well the first few weeks but got depressed and lost the motivation to do any work or go to any classes... It looks like i'll be ending this semester with a GPA in the 2.0 range if I'm lucky. I'm considering taking next semester off and getting a job, but there are a lot of factors I need to consider... Anyways if you want to talk hit me up on AIM, my sn is lazyaznguy16. Good luck!

[Scotch78]

Umm . . . yeah . . . I did that 4 times before finally dropping out for good. Just look yourself in the mirror every morning and repeat the following phrase, "I will not be like Scott. I will not be like Scott."

Scott

[eastbay]

Kyro,

I've been there as well. I was an overachieving, driven student through college and I entered a very, very tough ivy league PhD program. In the space of about two months I went from feeling on top of the world - that I could accomplish anything, to feeling like I didn't give a [censored] about any of it, and once you have that feeling, doing the work for real becomes impossible. Your concentration is shot. I ended up failing out. I knew it was over when I walked into class one day and there was a midterm that I didn't even know about. I hadn't the slightest idea how to even begin to solve any of the problems on the test. I was crushed. I felt like a total screwup who had worked for and was given the world and turned it all to [censored], and for no particularly good reason. I just couldn't get my act together.

By some miracle I got myself readmitted to the program after a year of making myself indispensible to a professor's research program. I passed the qualifying exams after working 12 hour days straight for 5 months. I was on a mission. I graduated with my degree a couple years later, and ended up getting probably the most lucrative job available to me in my research field.

The point being: it's never too late to gather your strength and achieve your goals.

But I think it's important to try to diagnose why you lost interest. Could it be that you didn't really lose interest so much as your interest was consumed by other things? That played a large part in my demise. Once I resolved not to be sidetracked by other things, it helped TREMENDOUSLY in getting the job done.

Best of luck to you.

eastbay

[kyro]

Wow, I must say I'm amazed at the amount of replies this has received. I truly appreciate everybody's input on this. Even the ones who told me that it is my fault and if I really care, I need to get off my ass and stop being lazy...because you're right. That's basically what it boils down to.

I have read everyone's replies up to this point, and they are all very important to me. I have felt like [censored] the past 2 weeks, but talking to my advisor, friends, and last but not least reading the responses on here have certainly helped me.

Anyways, thanks again. To those that pm'ed me, I will get back to each one of you hopefully by the end of the weekend to let you know I received your message. I still don't necessarily feel good about myself, but it was beneficial to me to get things out and to read your responses. Thanks again.

Kirk

[turnipmonster]

dude, you have some amazing kids for sure. great story, you must be very proud of both of them.

--turnipmonster