The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

In The Old Tonto Fashion

Since Simmy keeps asking me to dig up my old Tonto college posts, which pretty much no longer exist, and since he went and ranted about college in the last entry, well, we're just going to create ourselves a college post right now.

Let us, shall we, talk about the whole 18 credits deal, since I think it lies at the root of our problems, here. So, flashing back to the fall of 1999, we have my final grades for my first term:

ALS 111 OSU ODYSSEY 1 credit, Pass
BA 131 BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE 2 credits, A
HHP 231 *LIFETIME FITNESS FOR HEALTH 3 credits, B+
MB 230 *INTRODUCTORY MICROBIOLOGY 4 credits, B
MTH 111 *COLLEGE ALGEBRA 4 credits, B+

Total of 14 credits, 3.31 GPA.

Looks good. But on closer examination, we note that the Odyssey class is an orientation, with stuff like "Where's the library?" and whatnot. BA 131 had such monumental concepts as how to use email. HHP 231 was fundamentally no different from HS health, and had fill in the blank notes. MTH 111 was essentially a repeat of the college algebra I had JUST had in HS. Only MB 230 was at all new, but it was highly interesting and fun, so it worked out.

So you could say after that first term, I got a little cocky. So let's examine winter term's final grades:

COMM 111 *PUBLIC SPEAKING 3 credits, C+
GEO 102 *THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH 4 credits, C+
HST 101 *HISTORY WESTERN CIVIL 3 credits, D-
HST 203 *HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 3 credits, B
MTH 241 *CALC FOR MGT & SOCIAL SCI 4 credits, D

Total 17 credits, 2.51 GPA

Now, these aren't exactly hard classes, except perhaps MTH 241 for us non-math types. Speech, well, I've always sucked at that, though I did reasonably well considering. GEO 102 was almost impossible to fail, yet boring. HST 203 was taught by an awesome prof, so I did ok. But I flat out failed HST 101 of all things.

So what's up with that?

Well, first is, I tried to do too much. Now, later on in my college career, with a few upper division classes under my belt, this sort of schedule was easy enough. But for 2nd term? No way. So I was struggling to keep up, especially in MTH 241, which was not only taught horribly, but beyond my ability to comprehend. And, thing is, when you start floundering in one class, you generally get demoralized and start floundering in others, too, which is what happened here. So we see two things:

1. Don't get in above your head.
1a. If you do, drop a class.
2. Don't let one class demoralize you and drag you down.

Now, it didn't get a whole lot better from there for a couple years, which had a lot to do with utterly hating every single part of my major at the time, which was business. I initially tried to stick with it, since my parents wanted me to, but, well, there comes a time in every person's life when they need to tell their parents to just fuck off already, and that was mine. Switched to history, and almost immediately got both a dramatic increase in GPA, and a dramatic increase in happiness as I ceased beating my head against things I didn't care about and hated doing.

There's a third lesson involved here, which I definitely didn't learn until long after this, multiple crises and boring as hell core classes later, which was:

3. You know that old saying "This too shall pass"? Yeah. It will.
3a. And you know my old sig, "When it rains and shines, it's just a state of mind"? I keep that around as a way of saying "Whatever it is that's wrong, it will go away. It will go away. If you keep yourself optimistic, you'll feel a lot better."

Try it. It works.

I have said this before, and I will say it again. Do not be afraid to get out of your major if you hate it that much. Do something you enjoy, no matter what that may be. However, make sure you end up on a course that leads to some sort of paying job after graduation. Internships, whatever. I didn't, and I'm sanding doors at $10/hour until I can get into grad school. Talk to your advisor about it. They can help you out.

OTOH, if you do love it, and it's just the one class, stick with it. It'll get better.

Now, let's talk about this whole dropping out thing, shall we?

In my mind, coming out of HS you have 3 ways to get yourself grown up, responsible, and ready to face the world. They are:

1. Go straight into the workforce.
2. Enlist in the military.
3. Go to college.

There's also a 4th option, involving dropping completely out and doing the drugs/gangs route, but that's so obviously bad we'll ignore it.

Now, for option the first, with an HS diploma and no work experience, you'll be damn lucky to get a $20k/year job like I have, and I only got it because I took 3 years of shop classes and so technically have experience. You cannot live on $20k/year at all easily or well. For you lot making minimum wage, it's even worse. On the other hand, you'll get responsible for yourself real fast, or else you won't make it very far.

As for the military, well, I have a lot of respect for it, and a lot of respect for people who've been there. Drill sergeants will instill a certain amount of responsibility in you, which seems to have worked for my father and Laurent, among others. OTOH, at least for the three members of my family who went that route, it was a pretty shitty experience.

Thus leaving college, which is astonishingly forgiving as long as you can pay for it. If you live away from home for long enough, and at least make an attempt to go to classes every once in a while, you'll eventually pick up a measure of responsibility. Maybe not to, say, Regina-esque levels, but enough. Even if you're that guy who slacked all of HS like me.

I'd like to say more on the topic, and on others such as studying and time management, but being responsible as I am forced to be these days, I'm going to bed, because I have to get up at 5:30, and that freaking sucks.

You lot in the audience, many of whom are in or are college graduates, feel free to chime in, and Simmy, if you have questions, or want me to talk about anything, leave a note.

Posted by Dwip at February 8, 2006 9:07 PM