Things are getting harder / 2nd title: This is probably only interesting to me.
School sucks.
After high school, I found myself going to a university that I didn't want to be attending. I had originally had my heart set on a Marine Science career* and attending school in the Hamptons on the east end of Long Island. This, unfortunately, was not to be as I had what they call "No Money". I was not eligible for financial aid and mom didn't make enough to be able to pay for me to go to a private college. She decided that student loans were not an option because she didn't feel like the career I had chosen would ever allow me to pay off the loans after I graduated. Her answer to my pleading: "We don't always get to do what we want". Nice.
So I lived at home and commuted to my nearby state university (SUNY Stony Brook, if you must know) and I hated it. HATED it. Perhaps as a form of rebelliousness or perhaps because of a guy** I never went to class, never did any work and promptly was put on academic probation and withdrew from the university after 3 semesters. With a Cumulative GPA of 0.67. Yes. I. Did.
I wasted my mother's money (which is still a topic of conversation today) and threw away my education because I couldn't get my ass out of bed on a daily basis. During this period of my life, I didn't do much but sleep until 4 pm, get up and go to above mentioned guy's apartment, pine, and go home before sunrise only to do it all over again the next day. Sometimes i worked, but for the most part I slept a lot, really. There was, in fact, one day that I never saw because I slept right on through it. Depression can be an interesting thing.
Eventually I got my first full-time job*** and became a stable, useful adult. This made mom happier, though upset for me since she knew that eventually I would totally and utterly regret what a mess I made of myself. In 2002, I decided to go back to school part-time for my Associates to start, as I knew that if I stayed away from school for much longer, I would never, ever go back. (Because my life had been so terribly glamorous up to that point, obviously.) And I can't afford to NOT go to school because I have no skills except for what I've learned at this crap job which seems to be highly specialized, and perhaps only useful here at this company. (And I am not going to be here for the rest of my life, thank-you-very-much).
Fast forward to last monday night, as i'm standing in line at the registrar on campus. I am actually standing in line to withdraw from a class. After all the shit that i'd been through with doing badly in school, I was so disappointed in myself for actually going through with this. I am only taking 2 classes a semester at night and for some reason, I can't work through one of my classes. Funnily enough, Linear Algebra is just too hard. For a Liberal Arts major. That has only taken Statistics I. There is no extra-help helpful enough to give me a good grade for this class.
I spent the weekend before debating with myself over whether or not to go through with withdrawing from this class. It seems like it shouldn't have been such a life or death situation, but considering my history, I was really worried how it was going to reflect on my transcript. On the other hand, I have a GPA of 3.9**** which means that failing or scoring badly in this (impossible) class would destroy my GPA which is just way too high to throw away. People want to give me money to go for my Bachelors. Give ME money to go for more school. I'm in Phi Theta Kappa and everything. It just sounds like such a cop-out for me to say that i'm dropping a hard class because I don't feel like I can work hard enough to salvage my GPA. Ugh.
But I did it. I dropped it. There's going to be a big ugly "W" on my transcript, and i didn't get my tuition back but I don't care. You know why? Because its easier, dammit. And i'm going to have Monday nights free until the end of the semester.
Except of course now I won't be graduating in August like I had planned. I'll have 3 classes left now until I can graduate, so i'll have to wait until December.
Crappers.
*What can I say? I love the fishies.
**Right. It's ALWAYS because of a guy. There is no doubt that if I wasn't so retarded over this guy who never gave me the satisfaction of committing to me, that I would have gotten my shit together. I was so stupid. And where is he now? Maryland. Yeah. He ran away to Maryland.
***Um, and last. I'm still here. I'm still in the same job 6 years later. Wheeeeeee.
****That damn B ruined everything. I am still furious with my Freshman Composition instructor for that.
After high school, I found myself going to a university that I didn't want to be attending. I had originally had my heart set on a Marine Science career* and attending school in the Hamptons on the east end of Long Island. This, unfortunately, was not to be as I had what they call "No Money". I was not eligible for financial aid and mom didn't make enough to be able to pay for me to go to a private college. She decided that student loans were not an option because she didn't feel like the career I had chosen would ever allow me to pay off the loans after I graduated. Her answer to my pleading: "We don't always get to do what we want". Nice.
So I lived at home and commuted to my nearby state university (SUNY Stony Brook, if you must know) and I hated it. HATED it. Perhaps as a form of rebelliousness or perhaps because of a guy** I never went to class, never did any work and promptly was put on academic probation and withdrew from the university after 3 semesters. With a Cumulative GPA of 0.67. Yes. I. Did.
I wasted my mother's money (which is still a topic of conversation today) and threw away my education because I couldn't get my ass out of bed on a daily basis. During this period of my life, I didn't do much but sleep until 4 pm, get up and go to above mentioned guy's apartment, pine, and go home before sunrise only to do it all over again the next day. Sometimes i worked, but for the most part I slept a lot, really. There was, in fact, one day that I never saw because I slept right on through it. Depression can be an interesting thing.
Eventually I got my first full-time job*** and became a stable, useful adult. This made mom happier, though upset for me since she knew that eventually I would totally and utterly regret what a mess I made of myself. In 2002, I decided to go back to school part-time for my Associates to start, as I knew that if I stayed away from school for much longer, I would never, ever go back. (Because my life had been so terribly glamorous up to that point, obviously.) And I can't afford to NOT go to school because I have no skills except for what I've learned at this crap job which seems to be highly specialized, and perhaps only useful here at this company. (And I am not going to be here for the rest of my life, thank-you-very-much).
Fast forward to last monday night, as i'm standing in line at the registrar on campus. I am actually standing in line to withdraw from a class. After all the shit that i'd been through with doing badly in school, I was so disappointed in myself for actually going through with this. I am only taking 2 classes a semester at night and for some reason, I can't work through one of my classes. Funnily enough, Linear Algebra is just too hard. For a Liberal Arts major. That has only taken Statistics I. There is no extra-help helpful enough to give me a good grade for this class.
I spent the weekend before debating with myself over whether or not to go through with withdrawing from this class. It seems like it shouldn't have been such a life or death situation, but considering my history, I was really worried how it was going to reflect on my transcript. On the other hand, I have a GPA of 3.9**** which means that failing or scoring badly in this (impossible) class would destroy my GPA which is just way too high to throw away. People want to give me money to go for my Bachelors. Give ME money to go for more school. I'm in Phi Theta Kappa and everything. It just sounds like such a cop-out for me to say that i'm dropping a hard class because I don't feel like I can work hard enough to salvage my GPA. Ugh.
But I did it. I dropped it. There's going to be a big ugly "W" on my transcript, and i didn't get my tuition back but I don't care. You know why? Because its easier, dammit. And i'm going to have Monday nights free until the end of the semester.
Except of course now I won't be graduating in August like I had planned. I'll have 3 classes left now until I can graduate, so i'll have to wait until December.
Crappers.
*What can I say? I love the fishies.
**Right. It's ALWAYS because of a guy. There is no doubt that if I wasn't so retarded over this guy who never gave me the satisfaction of committing to me, that I would have gotten my shit together. I was so stupid. And where is he now? Maryland. Yeah. He ran away to Maryland.
***Um, and last. I'm still here. I'm still in the same job 6 years later. Wheeeeeee.
****That damn B ruined everything. I am still furious with my Freshman Composition instructor for that.
posted by claire at
9:05 AM
2 Comments:
Go you and your bad-ass GPA! I was on academic probation with a 1.9 my first semester. But damn.
My math classes were called things like, "Topics in Math for the Liberal Arts Major" and "Combinatorics" (which really just means if Joe has 3 shirts and 3 pants, how many different outfits can he put together?)... so props on passing stats!
By
Jess, at 3/13/2006 6:51 PM
I'm totally rockin' with my .67, yo.
"Combinotorics"? Sounds kind of like a disease. Friend of mine took a class at Hofstra called "Excursions through Mathematics". I thought it was very adventurous of him.
By
claire, at 3/14/2006 10:11 AM
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