Rules. Rules. Rules.
I get that we have to have rules and order.
Without all rules, we have anarchy and chaos.
But it feels like some schools just go overboard.
I mean, a principal is the head administrator, not a warden.
Especially when there are so many do's and donts that make absolutely so sense.
Redditor DekuSkrub18 wanted to hear about all of the rules that left people dumbfounded when we were students, so they asked:
"What were the dumbest rules put in place at your school?"
I can't recall a ton of silly rules at my school.
That was back in the 1800s though. Things have changed.
Stand Up
No Way Wtf GIF by HarlemGiphy"Students weren't allowed to sit on the floor in the hallways because it promoted sex."
Arius_de_Galdri
Oh!
"Something would happen: like a dropped tray or a book loudly hitting a table, and the whole cafeteria would yell Oh! The administrators hated it and would try and get us to stop. One week it happened a couple of times in a day."
"The assistant principal stood on a chair and loudly declared that if it happened again, they were going to turn off the vending machines. Of course, everyone yelled Oh! immediately. He angrily walked over and ripped the cords for the vending machines out of the wall… only to be met with a chorus of more Ohs!. It was hilarious but also incredibly stupid."
andronicus_14
Rewards
"At my primary school at the end of the year, there was a beach day for all students who had no detentions. Fine, I guess a reward for good behavior."
"But when you also have a policy of putting anyone who fights in detention regardless of who started the fight it becomes a bit unfair. You get picked on by a bully and you both get detention."
Mythical_Atlacatl
Funneled
"One-way system. You had to go around the entire school to go to your class that was directly next to your previous class. Also, the one-way system funneled all the students into one corridor, when if they could just go the fastest route they could avoid getting in each other's way. They used to say that the school was built in the 70s for much fewer students so the hallways were too small to let students walk where they want."
"So their solution was to funnel all the students down a single hallway. It didn't make sense to me."
Affiliations
"Our school tried banning 'gang affiliated' clothing. I can tell you right now the closest thing we got to 'gangs' in my school was one kid who listened to too much 50 Cent and Eminem, and another who actually grew up in Detroit but was about as clean-cut as they come."
"But oh no, my camo-patterned fall jacket? That I got at OLD NAVY? I must be in a gang. That lasted all of a month until about 1/3 of the school had been sent home for 'dress code' violations multiple times. It was utterly arbitrary and nobody cared except for a handful of the administration."
subtxtcan
Cheers
Cinco De Mayo Drinking GIF by WDRGiphy"The song 'Tequila' was banned because parents said it promoted underage drinking."
LordBaranof
But it's such a great song!
Hairy Situations
Long Hair GIF by Hollie KitchensGiphy"In our school, girls weren't allowed to wear their hair down. If any girl forgot to tie her hair, she was reprimanded. This really irritated the teachers."
Goddess_Gwendolyn
That's Exiled!
"It was always dumb when they would outlaw whatever the new cool harmless fad was. I remember when they outlawed snap bracelets, wacky cards and garbage pail kids, magic cards, etc. I think tomagatchies too."
wpascarelli
"We had both Pokémon cards and marbles outlawed because of people doing unfair trades. It was a bit of a thrill playing a secret game of marbles at the far end of the oval on lunch break once they were banned."
Special_Objective245
"It would disrupt the class. I was in school when Tamagotchis, yo-yos, Pokemon cards, and Yugioh cards were all a thing. I remember how it could be distracting or how kids would get into fights over them."
ibn1989
Skip Away
"If you are X minutes late, you must do the detention during your lunch break for the same amount of time."
"For example, if you came 5 mins late, you have to spend 5 mins doing detention during your lunch break."
"There was no detention if we don't show up to class. Basically, if you're late to class it's better to skip the class."
Goatmanthealien
Terrible
"No jeans."
skarlettohara
"My secondary school (U.K.) had a no jeans policy, our uniform was back trousers white shirt. I wore black jeans to school for the last 4 years. Would get pulled up about it from time to time. I’d just say 'Ah yep, won’t happen again' then continue wearing black jeans. Our school was utterly terrible."
minigmgoit
Water Sounds
noise GIFGiphy"We couldn't have metal water bottles because they might make loud noises if they fell."
Automatic_You4321
Color Lines
"That you couldn't dye your hair at all, even if you chose a natural color. They were so rigid that we kept our hair the color we started school off with that when one particular girl came back after the Summer holidays with brunette hair and revealed that the brunette hair was in fact her natural color, they made her bleach her hair back to blonde!"
Creative_Recover
Who thought any of these idea were valid?
Focus on more education please.
College Professors Share Their Funniest 'I Don't Know How You Made It Out Of High School' Experiences
Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.
On the whole, that's undoubtedly a great thing. A more educated workforce will be prepared to solve the most complex issues facing human beings in the next several decades.
But there are some pitfalls to the great college push. I barely need to mention the student loan debt crisis.
However, there's another concerning dynamic. Students are herded through the high school-to-college track so automatically that actually educating can take a backseat to logistical considerations.
So when that young adult lands in a college classroom, they're liable to be hopelessly unprepared for the education they're paying for.
Some Redditors shared examples.
redmambo_no6 asked, "College professors of Reddit, what's your 'I'm surprised you made it out of high school' story?"
Many people simply never learned how to effectively convey their thoughts through writing.
Research methods and essay writing are apparently common areas where college students show some serious gaps in knowledge and preparedness.
Dates on Dates on Dates
"As a college freshman, I took Advanced English with a student who didn't know how to write a research paper or even possibly read (I don't know). When I realized she didn't know how to research, I gave her my sources and showed her how to navigate them."
"The next class when we were supposed to edit each other's rough drafts. I handed her my paper to edit, she gave it back to me after 10 seconds without reading it and said it was good."
"She then handed me her 'paper' and it was just a list of random dates."
The Wrong Paper to Butcher
"In grad school we had to do weekly presentations on individual scientific studies within the focus of our thesis and this one girl was completely bombing on a study about biomechanics."
"The professor gently tried to guide her to a different conclusion and she began to argue with him."
"That's when the professor asked her to read out loud the authors of the study and, of course, he was the lead author. She unknowingly chose to butcher a study that her own professor authored..."
-- cjdking
The Be All End All
"Not a college professor, but I worked in my university's writing center for a while."
"I had a girl come in with a research paper bibliography that listed 'my mom' as a source several times."
"When I pressed, she told me her mom looked up everything and sent it to her and she just...put it in the paper. She told me she had always done it that way."
-- SalemScout
Sloppy Writing, Everywhere You Look
"I worked at my university writing center and saw a lot of really terrible writing. SO MANY poorly written essays. I really don't know how you can graduate from high school without at least being able to perform simple tasks like 'Point to your thesis statement.' "
"The whole point of a writing center was to teach students to correct their own work, but there was a direct correlation between how awful a paper was and how likely the student was to throw it at you and say 'I'm going to go have lunch. Will you have it fixed in an hour?' then try to leave."
"The tutors all got really good at an authoritative, 'Stop right there! Sit down. Now let's talk about how YOU are going to improve YOUR paper.' "
"The most frustrating papers were the science majors. I could never tell if the paper was terrible or I just wasn't following the details of their experiment on chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons or whatever."
"The absolute worst was the ENGLISH MASTERS DEGREE STUDENT who came in several times with absolute gibberish. To be fair, English was his second language but... are you absolutely sure you do not want to consider a career change, my good sir?"
-- hananobira
Other students showed a complete lack of historical knowledge.
Of course, not everyone is a history buff. Not everyone will know about the finer details of an obscure era, region, or event.
But goodness, some of the obvious ones should be clear to most.
Gorillas at War
"Not me, but a friend who taught in the politics department received a paper about 'gorilla' warfare in South America."
"It was so poorly written she couldn't tell if it was a typo, or if they genuinely thought Colombia had been overrun by a Planet of the Apes style revolution."
A Very Old Country
"My graduate school classmate wrote 'America is a country that has been around for thousands of years.' "
"It was a group paper on social policy."
Wrong Guy
"I once got an exam essay that mentioned how much Mandela hated the Jews. After scratching my head for a bit and wondering if I'd missed some obvious signs of his anti-Semitism I realized she meant Mengele."
"As in Josef Mengele, the Nazi 'Angel of Death.' Hard to think of a worse person she could've confused him for."
Time Scales
"Not a professor but in undergrad I was taking an American history course. Our professor was from Maryland and was probably in her early forties."
"This kid asked her if she was one of the pearl harbor survivors. He couldn't grasp the fact that she was very much not alive at that time and that Pearl Harbor was not a harbor in Maryland."
And last, some college professors were simply shocked by a complete lack of fundamental logical thinking. They couldn't believe people made it so far.
After all, one does need to put two and two together just to navigate basic daily life, right?
Measuring is for Nerds
"For a couple years I taught first-year college students in an ENGINEERING program, the majority of whom didn't know how to do unit conversions."
"Not even, like, inches-to-centimeters. To repeat ... college ... ENGINEERING ..."
-- JSanzi
That's the Whole Thing
"I once spent an hour explaining to college junior that an even number is divisible by 2." -- KingofSheepX
"wh-, what? how? literally the definition of an even number is a number that's evenly divisible by 2. what?" -- TheDonutPug
"Not as big of a deal, but in freshman year, I was the only one out of me and a few friends (including a math major) who knew 0 was even" -- StaleTheBread
Convenient Reasoning
"My first year teaching I had a student who had failed the previous year due to missing too many cooking labs to pass and not handing in half the assignments."
"I had rewritten the curriculum and assignments."
"I noticed that this student hadn't been handing certain things in and had been skipping my lectures, so I decided to have a chat with them."
"They thought their marks for that semester were cumulative with their previous year's mark (with a different curriculum, different assignments, and a different professor) so they just had to make up enough marks to get a passing grade."
"This is a post-grad program. They had a BSc in dietetics."
LISTEN
"Not a professor, but I used to TA for undergrad organic chem lab courses. Had a... challenging student once who was not great at reading directions or thinking critically. We were setting up an experiment that required GENTLE heating of a volatile solvent.""I explicitly told the class, multiple times, 'only turn your hot plates up to 2 when heating, these things get very hot." Maybe 30 minutes later I'm making my rounds through the lab and I pass said guy's fume hood and notice his reaction is smoking.""I look closer and see that all of the liquid in his flask is gone and its just a charred, black smoking mess (which is still heating). I ask, "Student! What's going on with your reaction??? What's the temperature set at?!" "The guy goes, oh, I wasn't sure how hot to heat it, so I just turned the plate all the way up to 10. Is my reaction going to be ok?' No, no man, it's not going to be ok... he literally boiled the thing dry 🙄"Validation
"From a friend who is an economics professor: a week after a midterm, a student came up to my friend and said she took longer on the midterm than expected, didn't have enough money in the meter to cover the additional time, and got a parking ticket as a result."
"She asked my friend who in the department should she submit the ticket to for reimbursement"
All Over the Place
"I had a student who didn't know what the stapler was or how to use it. I accepted his assignment as separate pages."
"Unsurprisingly, his writing was similarly disjointed."
Please DO NOT Eat the DNA
"I was a TA for two years. One of my students (outside of class) explained that she and her whole family truly believes that microwaves mutate the DNA of your food (they don't) and mutated DNA is dangerous to eat (it wouldn't be)."
"I couldn't help myself for calling her out. It was such a strange thing that it didn't even occur to me to be sensitive. I just said she clearly needed to take my biology class again."
-- king063
Keeping It Casual
"I had a student include numerous emojis in a term paper."
"A different student came to my office a week after the final, and asked me why she had failed the course. She hadn't turned in a single assignment, or written the final."
So, yes, it is very possible to find yourself encountering someone with a puzzling lack of knowledge or intelligence throughout daily, adult life.
This list should hammer home just how common that will be.
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College Graduates Who Discovered Their Majors Were Useless In The Real World Share What They Do Now
The real world is a harsh place and we don't learn that soon enough.
When we're younger we believe everything is possible and whatever it is we want to do for a living is going to be a success. So we head off to school to procure that dream and in school we learn all we can and the dream grows bigger.
Then a little while after graduation, many people realize the dream is a fantasy and the major they chose may be more problematic than bountiful.
Not many companies are looking for experts in socioeconomic post revolution Russian literature.
Redditor Mahimah asked:
"College grads who discovered too late that your major is useless in the real world, what do you do now?"
Hospitality Days
Working in a job I could've done with my high school degree and that I hate. 💔
diner dancing GIF by Justin TimberlakeGiphyI feel that. I was doing restaurant work for a long time, then went to college, and then went back to restaurant work. I'm now back in college for another roll of the dice.
And given the state of the economy right now, I will probably go back to waiting tables once again.
Head Games
Not exactly realized it was useless, just realized I couldn't do it. I was in Psychology. I went back to work for a while then ended up taking Computer Engineering and I'm now a software developer. I went back to school. The went back to work thing means in between I wasn't in school and was just working
I should add that job is what made me realize I should take Comp Eng.
I did a site visit to a custom fabrication shop and they had a team of devs to program the machines for custom orders. I was fascinated, did some research, and here I am. I do make software for manufacturing even, just not doing that specific thing that got me interested.
The Writer
I write emails for the functionally illiterate. I'm actually a personal assistant which is all you need to know. The only reason they'd pay me is the college degree and its name. I literally do get paid minimum wage but it's in a place where I can make that work with roommates. I don't know what else to say except I'm in the same place as so many! So don't be impressed. :)
The Spotlight People....
Studied performing arts (film, tv and theatre) at a decent university.
Was working in theatre until Covid hit.
Now I make youtube videos about MMO games and twitch stream Runescape.
I actually manage to survive doing this.
acting jon lovitz GIFGiphyP & P
Degree in psychology with a minor in philosophy. Realized I hated research 4th year in but grinded through and finished it. Currently in management in manufacturing. Wouldn't say the degree was useless as it helps me in my interactions with my workers and building a good culture. Don't ever think a degree is useless just because you don't get a job in your field. You build learning habits and study methods which can be applied to anything in the future so just keep that in mind and be positive!
LIT....
English Lit Major.
I'm a gate attendant. Graveyard shift.
Have you considered writing content for websites? You know, the web pages that are really ads disguised as actual content that made the Internet a worse place. I hear the pay is OK, I would guess probably better than a gate attendants pay.
No Regrets....
I have a sociology degree! I don't think it's useless but many people do. I don't regret it. There's a decent amount of socially relevant marketable knowledge and skills.
I'm a healthcare worker and I love it.
I am also very good at it, and would not be if I didn't have my degree to inform my practice.
I plan on getting my masters or going to law school at some point because I'd like more prospects for upward mobility and I genuinely love school but I also do really love my job now.
Crap Start....
Psychology major, got jobs in my field right out of school, but pay was pretty crap and no real room to move up without more school.
Went back and got my RN, made six figures straight out the door.
Episode 4 Hbo GIF by Curb Your EnthusiasmGiphy3rd shift in....
Got an English/Film Studies degree, now I work 3rd shift as a deli stocker at a local supermarket chain.
I have the same degree. I'm a buyer and customer assistant for an independent hardware store.
When I was at school I wrote about film quite frequently. My English teacher told me I should pursue it as a career.
I had zero interest in going to university but I was told it was the easiest way to make connections in the industry.
Throughout Uni I attended every networking event I could, took unpaid writing gigs, and showed my portfolio to as many people as possible. As I approached graduation I still had no job lined up despite submitting countless applications.
After graduating I took a full time job unrelated to my degree while working part time as an unpaid writer. I eventually burnt out.
There was no point in doing the work if I wasn't being paid, and none of the paid opportunities I had dangled in front of my face ever materialised. I didn't see the point in trying anymore if the only thing I got out of it was disappointment.
I stopped writing. I stopped poring over media job sites. I took down my online portfolio. I bristle whenever someone asks me what I have a degree in because it's not hard to tell they're thinking "oh, you got one of those useless degrees." Yeah, mate. I know that now.
Teachers deserve more....
I was originally majoring in earth and space science with a minor in education.
walton goggins hbo GIF by Vice Principals GiphyThe goal was to teach secondary school earth science. That degree only lets you teach those subjects from an education stand point as for other jobs it qualified me for a tour guide or a museum worker. Changed majors to education which set me back about 3 semesters of course work. Now i manage at the local big box retailer for almost 15k more than the starting wage of a teacher.
Trade
Get into a trade. Only high school education required and you can get in as someone who's only job is to sit on a bucket and make sure the welders don't catch crap of fire starting out at 18/hr. After that the next position can be anywhere from 18-20/hr as a helper and perdiem comes in. An extra 70-100 a day tax free for your hotel and stuff. I've been in construction for 4 years and I average 28/hr and 100 a day perdiem. Average weekly check of 1500+ and only a high school education baby.
PhD
Serious answer: I have a bachelor of science in psychology. It is truly useless as a lot of bachelor of science degrees are if you're not going for a Masters or PhD. I interned in a medical lab and got a technical degree, MLT, which I think nowadays technical degrees are 150% more valuable than a non-technical 4 year degree. I'm working on turning my MLS at the moment.
Next Year it is....
So not me, but my husband. His first bachelor's is in entertainment engineering and design and he worked for a minute in his industry.
Pop Tv GIF by Schitt's CreekGiphyHe was getting to the highest position he could with that degree before COVID and got furloughed and then laid off. He's going back to school now for electrical engineering and will graduate next year hopefully.
Find Friends
I have a BA in political science. I run a data science and analytics team. Didn't figure out what I liked until I was 28 and 6 years out of college. The library and community colleges are your friend.
It's all a mess...
I work in my dad's business and live with my parents. In my culture is not that unusual to live with your parents in your 20's but it still sucks. The money they pay me is not nearly enough to be independent either, but at least I'm not homeless and try to take care of them. The future is uncertain. I couldn't get a job in my former career before the pandemic, and now the job market and the economy are totally messed in my country.
educators...
Not me, but my brother has a history degree and couldn't get a job in his field. So he went back to school to become a teacher and now he's teaching history at the university he got his history degree at. He hates teaching.
Season 3 Running GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyBest of Luck...
I did my major in mathematics, and without much of a plan going forward, other than one very specific idea that ended up falling through. I did temp work for a little while and ended up doing some self-taught programming to improve the efficiency of my work there. That led to me getting noticed and promoted by the IT team leader, and now (years later) I'm in a leading software developer position. So it all worked out in the end, mostly through sheer luck.
Choices
Work in a grocery store and languish in my poor choices.
But for real though, I wouldn't trade the experience I got in college for anything. I got a Bachelor of Arts in Interactive Media Design. I've been working on small projects off and on since graduation but the actual industry, if you don't want to try cutting your teeth as an indie dev, is a meat grinder. There's a lot of uncertainty in employment, exploitation, false expectations of advancement.
You're either a dynamo and get hired into a good position/get noticed or you slog through QA with a minuscule chance of getting promoted. Turns out the industry has a crappy life/work balance and I refuse to deal with that.
Research the Plan
If you're in a country with strong unions, do consider vocational roles like a plumber or electrician. Some of them do pay well.
If you're ok with it, joining the army is ok as well.
Alternatively, upskill through online courses.
Anthro...
Anthropology degree. I do IT Helpdesk at a University. Anthro helped give me a good understanding of different people and cultures. Made my customer service skills waaaaay better knowing that people can see things so differently.
home humans GIFGiphyAt around age 5 or 6, we begin to attend school.
On a personal level, that is the day that we begin to make years-long friends, develop interests, grow more comfortable with adults, and learn how to function in society.
But if we take a bird's eye view, that is the day we become one individual student shepherded through a massive, complex, and influential institution.
Whichever country someone lives in, the Education System is profoundly important. And it is very likely full of flaws as well.
Creating a common system meant to educated millions of complex human beings that all arise from different biological, economic, social, and cultural backgrounds is extremely difficult and almost impossible to not be reductive.
Some Redditors shared how their school systems' flaws impacted their lives personally.
Wingless_Draco asked, "How did school fail you?"
Extrinsic Motivation
"By the time I got out of elementary school I'd gone from a smart kid who was wide-eyed and in love with learning to a kid who just wanted to get easy A's, be done with school, and play video games all day."
"I've found that in general the US public schools accomplish the remarkable feat of sucking the love of learning out of children."
Glossing Over the Big Ones
Mostly in English. It did shock my college professors when I genuinely asked, 'How do you write an essay?', 'What is/How do you do a citation?', and 'What's a Shakespeare?'" -- SonicXE21
"I thought I was the only one completely flabbergasted by how you write an essay. Like 'Intro middle conclusion' is not helpful." -- nerdprincess73
Setting the Wrong Tone
"Made EVERYTHING fun not fun, and told me I was stupid. I've spent the last decade rediscovering how cool all the things that school made shi**y are (e.g. all sports, all learning, languages, math, art, dancing, socializing, etc, etc)."
"So much time wasted not having fun and learning everything. Also the message school gave me, directly or indirectly, was that I was fundamentally not an intelligent person and therefore should maybe not try do things reserved for smarter folks."
"I carried this for most of my life, until at some point in the last few years I started to figure out that I'm actually not (at least not entirely) an idiot."
"This has really opened up the possibilities for me and I feel like I've come alive. I'm chasing med school now and while it is killer, I'm crushing it."
"How would I have lived the last 10 years if I hadn't been operating under the assumption that my potentially was extremely limited?"
"A lot of people really loved school, but for me it robbed me of not only the time I spent there (which was a nightmare, and anything of any significance that I learnt was from somewhere else or self taught) but also much of the value of the years afterwards."
"One of the reasons that I don't want kids is because I don't want to have to put them through that."
Bureaucratic Realities
"Cut the funding to the point we had no electives and that we had to have the least experienced teachers."
"Our principal was forced to retire in shame because he was trying to help our school."
A Relentless Emphasis on Results
"School didn't teach me to try and get better at anything. They just taught us to separate the kids that were good at something from the kids that weren't and then move on."
"Take gym class for example. If we were in the basketball unit we were all just thrown together and the kids that were already good at basketball just destroyed kids like me and I didn't even want to try anymore."
"Do you think that taught me a healthy love of competition? Or that if I worked hard I could get better at something? No. It just reinforced the idea that they were good at it, I was bad at it and that was the way it is."
"Imagine if instead I had been shown how to dribble or shoot, I had my technique adjusted by someone and been allowed to practice, practice, practice."
"By the end I might not be as good as the jock kids but at least I went from not even being able to dribble to being able to. I would have been shown that with hard work and practice I could at least get better at something."
"Unfortunately that never happened and to this day if I'm not immediately good at something I have to fight really hard to not want to just quit."
-- Cheese464
An Ironically Named Policy
"Thanks to the 'no child left behind' bill, school didn't even try to help some of the struggling students. It was up to the teacher/administration to help the struggling student which was rare."
"All the school did was move students along and force them to learn useless info for the standardized testing that none of the students have studied/prepared for."
What Could Have Been...
"I have a mental disorder making it difficult for me to do computational math in my head, but I grasp conceptual math very well. In school I was driven away from the mathematics world because 'you won't have a calculator in college/the real world.'"
"Had I not been I probably would have pursued a 'proper' higher education, and not gone for an art degree."
"Don't get me wrong, I like my current field, but I think I would have gotten more out of life had I not been pushed away & had ended up as an architect, engineer, or physicist."
-- PFreeman008
The Real Lessons
"It taught me that what mattered were scores and that relationships were things that happened to you. That my humanity was entirely dependent on people with no investment in my success or lack thereof."
"It taught me that nothing was fun and that I always need to be ashamed. At least, that I did learn there."
"Also it failed to teach me how to inflate my resume. I had to learn to polish that turd on my own."
Not a Sure Thing
"They lied to me and said college would be able to place me in a job afterwards." -- Beginning-Smoke-5965
"I think it's partially because teachers and school staff have never been exposed to the outside world. They go from school, to more school (college), back into the school setting."
"They have no idea what the real world actually looks like. Maybe they worked a retail or fast food job in HS/college, but 90% of their life experience exists within a school building. And these are the people who prepare our children for 'life.'" -- iforgottowearpants
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People Who Did Poorly In School But Have Great Jobs Now Explain The Secret Of Their Success
School isn't a totally accurate barometer for success. It's often said geniuses like Albert Einstein did very poorly in school, but went on to have extremely fulfilling careers.
When we are in school, though, we are taught to believe that we must become factory robots who produce straight As or else our future will be flushed down the drain. While this is not always the case--sometimes, the system in the United States really does work against those with lower GPAs and less opportunities.
But those stories that circumnavigated that hardship are inspirational.
u/asensetive asked:
Here were some of those answers.
Planes, Trains, and More Planes
I almost failed my last year of High school. I have no idea how but I managed to pass lol
I'll always have a little resentment for this. My parents forced me to go to college and I didn't even know what I wanted to do. I enjoyed animating at the time, I just didn't know if I wanted that as a career. The only class I thoroughly enjoyed was Drama. I liked acting, I was in ALL the school plays. So... I went with trying to become a teacher to teach that course. It went alright until my YouTube channel was doing GOOD. My animations were skyrocketing and I realized I wanted to that instead of school... but. My idiot mind didn't handle it well then I got kicked out of University at my 2nd year. So I spent a long time animating... then my channel got shut down for no reason. F**k you YouTube. Then my fiancé left me after that.
I was in a dark place for a long time. But out of the blue my buddy asked me if I wanted a job in a components shop for Aviation. They said they "needed an idiot to wash parts" and... I wasn't working. I needed money so I was like "yeah!" And I showed up the next day. I showed up an hour early regularly, I was genuinely interested in what was going on. I think both my manager and my boss noticed. I liked being there. I think my first week there as a temporary employee I did overtime. Like on a Friday I worked till 9 lol. So they obviously saw I was a brand new ace in the hole. After 4 months they hired me full time and now they're sending me to school. I got my level 1 AME license done and I'll be going for level 2 next January
It became a dream job after I arrived and I'm so happy to be where I'm at. My grades didn't matter. They just saw I was a hard worker... and now. I have my life together again.
Creativity Knows No Math
I did really badly in school. I hated it because I struggled with maths and with writing. I had good ideas but couldn't seem to get them onto the paper. I left school and worked in a shop Then I joined an acting class and eventually got into drama school in London. Learned to touch type as a way of writing comedy sketches....did well. Now I'm a professional writer. Turns out I have dysgraphia and dyscalculia. Took me 15 years to work that out.
It's Always Creatives
Got tired of high school, so I quit and did different jobs. In my mid 20's I started doing webdesign courses and found out I really loved it. Used all my savings (and got some help from my mom) to put life on hold for a few years and went to finish my high school degree, start college and get my degree to become a webdesigner. At 29 I got a permanent job at the place I interned and get to do design work and front end development in a small web agency and I love it ^^
It's Not One Size Fits All
This is me but let me explain something first.
Some kids respond better to different teachers and different environments in different schools. I feel there are very few bad teachers, it's just some teachers don't gel with some kids.
First school I went to, I was bottom at everything, went to a new school and suddenly didn't just excel, I became top at maths and IT. Next school, right to the bottom again, next school, I went into the top few in some subjects, even doing some exams early.
I then went to college and flunked everything because I discovered girls and how being a DJ got me lots of sex.
After leaving college early, working abroad, etc. I setup a company renting lighting and sound equipment, bought property, sold the company and now I own a software company that in 3 years has taken huge contracts from our competitors and still growing fast.
I do have a high IQ, it's just my parents didn't motivate me regarding school, so I got lousy grades. The same was true for my father. My son is the opposite and is super academic.
I also worked really hard for really long hours, and still do.
Getting rich is not easy, if it was, we all would be millionaires. You are competing against the rest of the planet and you have to convince people that you are better than others so they should give you loads of money.
Life is either a huge stressful competition, or you can have an easy life and do something that you enjoy.
Money is not the the only measurement of success, it is for some, but others are happy with living day by day with no stress and doing a job they love. I wish sometimes I was the latter.
Youth Ain't Everyone's Peak
I was a "Mess up" in HS - summer school every summer, barely graduated, not even a C average. Took a crack at the State U; got put out in short order. Got fired from a string of jobs because I was nineteen and I had a lot of attitude. Got a job in a factory building machinery. Had to go in the Army. Drank, worked as bartender and bouncer. Finally graduated the State U at 36; started law school at fifty, downtown office now. Life is far from perfect but it's vastly better than it was in my youth. Don't give up on yourself, don't sell yourself short, don't buy into negativity! You are not "struggling" - you are on a journey!
School Ain't My Place
Dropped out of highschool, got my GED, tried college but realized it just wasn't for me. I joined the Us Army and while I was enlisted I realized that I'm just going to have to figure my own way because I can't stand school. So I made my own way, learned to code 25 years ago and have done very well for myself. My brother has a similar story but he didn't even bother trying college. He's followed his dreams and made successful careers out of his hobbies. Just because school doesn't work out for you don't think less of yourself and don't underestimate your value.
A Nice Start
I'm in IT. Got bad grades all through high school because I didn't apply myself and took 8 years of online classes to make it through college with "Get a C and get a Degree mentality".
In the long run it didn't really hurt me, but it did make my path to get to my current position a little more convoluted. I ended up joining the Army since my prospects were slim initially and was able to get entry level experience and turn my security clearance into a nice start in the civilian world once I got out.
If I had to do it over again I might do things different, but I don't regret any decision.
Toxic Parenting
I was a bad student in high school, but managed to pass.
In college/grad school, I think what helped me do a lot better was the fact that my parents weren't involved. I am 100% a believer of this. My parents were "involved" in my work all the time — making me tell them about my tests/quizzes/projects so that they'd always know to ask about my grade in it later. They always knew.
One stretch of time in 8th grade, I remember just going 'screw it' and not telling them anything. After ~1mo or so, my dad called the teacher and she told him all my test grades — all of which were in the B-range; a lot better than usual, at the time. There was no acknowledgement of being impressed with my independent performance. The big issue was that I never told them about these tests/grades. That was THE takeaway from that.
My parents always made it sound like a threat that when I finally went to college, they wouldn't be able to monitor my studies. And at the time, it was scary. But in reality, it was GREAT! I made honors three times (each level of school) — all without my parents breathing down my neck!
Now I work in a hospital
Once Again, Poor Metrics
I got fairly bad grades in highschool. My guidance counsellor told me to join the army and be an infantry soldier because I'd never go to university/college or be successful.
I ended up getting a BA and now I'm an ESL teacher. Currently looking at options to get fully certified and step up the teaching game.
Behind Peers
I was a terrible student in high school, bottom percentage of my class, had to take a summer class after graduation because I didn't pass economics. They let me walk but I didn't get my diploma until like, August.
I watched all my friends go off to colleges while I went to community college after getting rejected from a few schools I applied to. Eventually went to a four-year college and graduated in two years with ok grades, not great. I was an art major so my grades depended mostly on meeting deadlines and quality of the work. Forward 10 years, I went back for certificate degree then started to work in my field (design). Now I'm working for a multi-national corporation and making six figures.
So being a crappy student hindered my ability to stay on a timeline along with my peers, but didn't prevent me from a successful life as a working adult.