Disclaimer: Long venting/rant ahead. Reader discretion is advised.
The following story still bugs to this day. Let's see if writing it down helps at all.
The whole thing started way back in 2003. I was going to start my second to last high school year. And until the previous year, I was always among the best students of the class. That thing by itself never brought me any trouble, here we didn't have at the time those silly stereotypes, and I always had a group of friends which included other nerdy guys and "bad" guys. So, by that year I was kinda tired for some reason of being the A+ kid, may be I felt that I deserved some reward for that at home and I wasn't getting it, and of course, probably the whole business was at the end just hormones and "teenage rebellion". I didn't got crazy or wild at all. I just stopped putting effort on my studies. It barely affected me, public education is quite mediocre here, but that attitude, aided by terrible professors lead me to not learn a damn thing of trigonometry nor calculus.
Despite that serious lack of knowledge I was able to graduate successfully from high school, and I was admitted to the best university of my country, in mechanical engineering. You won't find it in the list of world's best universities, but it is the best of my country. And by the end of that semester I realized that I just lacked to invaluable knowledges for a student: the academic one and the social one. As I didn't knew calculus, I found that class extremely hard and eventually I dropped it, believing that I would just see it again the next semester. But the lack of social knowledge stroke me harder; I found out to my horror that I'm unable to socialize with women, and I just had a few acquaintances and no friends at all. The two thing mixed horribly as I had to make a group exposition (in case you didn't know, I have no problems with talking in public), but for some damn reason I didn't wrote the exposition date, and as I never thought of asking my exposition mates (or anybody I knew, for that effect) their numbers, I eventually missed the exposition, which was the main note for this stupid humanistic class, so ended with a zero in that one and in calculus.
It turned out that because of my crappy notes (which were barely over 3 -out of 5- for the ones I approved), I wasn't able to repeat the calculus course and got kicked out. I immediately presented a reentering petition that got approved, but now I was a semester late from the people I entered with and which after all, I somewhat knew. And there begun the road to hell. Although I eventually managed to make two friends, in many classes I was totally isolated, I didn't knew anyone, and that screws you a lot when you need some studying partners. I went on for another three years with crappy notes and failing courses, making a very slow progress on my career, but the accumulating lack of academic knowledge, the lack of friends to ask for help with studies, and the lack of motivation that came with that lifestyle, exploded at the second semester of 2008 when I failed 5 of the 6 courses I was taking.
The university's rules were clear, and let's admit it, fair. After such disastrous performance, I was kicked out for good from that career.
I was devastated. My life just had lost it's course, I cried like, well don't know like what, but cried a lot. I disappointed my self and my family. I had a great career in the best university of my country and now I was just a failure.
I had to move on, but it wasn't easy. For the whole next year, I couldn't find a job or get into another career someplace else (there were few options, I'm poor and there's few public institutions). I had 20 years, and it was by far the worst year of my life. There was another public university (very good one too) with the same career, but it turned out that the equivalent of what most of you know as SAT test was too old and I had to take the test again, so I had to wait to the second semester of 2010 to enter in that university. Finally, at the beginning of 2010 I could find a job (as a salesman, haha), and then at the second semester entered to try again in university.
I'm doing so much better now. Academically, I'm again among the best of my class, and they passed me on a couple courses I approved in the previous university. I have more friends now (although I never hang out with them outside the uni).
But the wasted years still bug me. I should have graduated by the end of 2009, or by the end of this year tops. But I won't graduate until 2016 (it's a 6 years career in this new university). That's 7 damn years. By that time, if I had did things right, I could had even a doctorate.
I shouldn't complain, I got a second chance when so many never had a first one. But those 7 years keep bothering me. Let's wait how I'll feel once I've finally graduated.
The following story still bugs to this day. Let's see if writing it down helps at all.
The whole thing started way back in 2003. I was going to start my second to last high school year. And until the previous year, I was always among the best students of the class. That thing by itself never brought me any trouble, here we didn't have at the time those silly stereotypes, and I always had a group of friends which included other nerdy guys and "bad" guys. So, by that year I was kinda tired for some reason of being the A+ kid, may be I felt that I deserved some reward for that at home and I wasn't getting it, and of course, probably the whole business was at the end just hormones and "teenage rebellion". I didn't got crazy or wild at all. I just stopped putting effort on my studies. It barely affected me, public education is quite mediocre here, but that attitude, aided by terrible professors lead me to not learn a damn thing of trigonometry nor calculus.
Despite that serious lack of knowledge I was able to graduate successfully from high school, and I was admitted to the best university of my country, in mechanical engineering. You won't find it in the list of world's best universities, but it is the best of my country. And by the end of that semester I realized that I just lacked to invaluable knowledges for a student: the academic one and the social one. As I didn't knew calculus, I found that class extremely hard and eventually I dropped it, believing that I would just see it again the next semester. But the lack of social knowledge stroke me harder; I found out to my horror that I'm unable to socialize with women, and I just had a few acquaintances and no friends at all. The two thing mixed horribly as I had to make a group exposition (in case you didn't know, I have no problems with talking in public), but for some damn reason I didn't wrote the exposition date, and as I never thought of asking my exposition mates (or anybody I knew, for that effect) their numbers, I eventually missed the exposition, which was the main note for this stupid humanistic class, so ended with a zero in that one and in calculus.
It turned out that because of my crappy notes (which were barely over 3 -out of 5- for the ones I approved), I wasn't able to repeat the calculus course and got kicked out. I immediately presented a reentering petition that got approved, but now I was a semester late from the people I entered with and which after all, I somewhat knew. And there begun the road to hell. Although I eventually managed to make two friends, in many classes I was totally isolated, I didn't knew anyone, and that screws you a lot when you need some studying partners. I went on for another three years with crappy notes and failing courses, making a very slow progress on my career, but the accumulating lack of academic knowledge, the lack of friends to ask for help with studies, and the lack of motivation that came with that lifestyle, exploded at the second semester of 2008 when I failed 5 of the 6 courses I was taking.
The university's rules were clear, and let's admit it, fair. After such disastrous performance, I was kicked out for good from that career.
I was devastated. My life just had lost it's course, I cried like, well don't know like what, but cried a lot. I disappointed my self and my family. I had a great career in the best university of my country and now I was just a failure.
I had to move on, but it wasn't easy. For the whole next year, I couldn't find a job or get into another career someplace else (there were few options, I'm poor and there's few public institutions). I had 20 years, and it was by far the worst year of my life. There was another public university (very good one too) with the same career, but it turned out that the equivalent of what most of you know as SAT test was too old and I had to take the test again, so I had to wait to the second semester of 2010 to enter in that university. Finally, at the beginning of 2010 I could find a job (as a salesman, haha), and then at the second semester entered to try again in university.
I'm doing so much better now. Academically, I'm again among the best of my class, and they passed me on a couple courses I approved in the previous university. I have more friends now (although I never hang out with them outside the uni).
But the wasted years still bug me. I should have graduated by the end of 2009, or by the end of this year tops. But I won't graduate until 2016 (it's a 6 years career in this new university). That's 7 damn years. By that time, if I had did things right, I could had even a doctorate.
I shouldn't complain, I got a second chance when so many never had a first one. But those 7 years keep bothering me. Let's wait how I'll feel once I've finally graduated.
