I have been mulling the thought over in my head the past few days, and so far I’m still leaning towards my realization that I am not fit to be a student. I am not good at it. This does not mean I don’t do well for myself as one (I do decently and this is not false humility), I just don’t find it particularly engaging. I also don’t share the same sense of motivation as my peers for doing exceptionally well either.
To explain the image, I like building things. I very much enjoy designing badass stuff. I love the process of taking a bunch of raw materials, and infusing myself into them through work and application such that they take on form and function worth more than the sum of the parts. Contrast this affection with my falling out with “school” and all it stands for and you have a perfectly good reason to post a shot of my dear Phoebe’s nude body.
Back in high school (and even before), I played the role of a student rather readily and even enthusiastically. I enjoyed all my subjects and had great rapport with my teachers barring Olsheski the Unfit and to a much lesser extent, Quejada the Exiguous). I picked up new information and facts, relationships and theories easily enough, and applied them as well as I could be expected to. And this was all fine and dandy, if not for the subject matter itself, then for the thrill of competition.
Now that I’m in university, now that I am a faceless user ID number in a grad-production factory, and now that I have outgrown the petty score keeping, grade school antics, what am I left with? As far as academia goes, I’ve a set of course requirements, and possibly a dean’s list to make. I don’t know anyone particularly well in my program (nor do I have any inclination to do so), so I have no close peers to compete with. I personally hold that I fall somewhere near the average (preferably on the slightly higher side), meaning I have no reason to compare my performance with the truly exceptional students (wow—some people are fast), and I am doing better than most of the cool kids I’d want to talk to (who, oddly enough, don’t seem to want to socialize). Everyone else that’s left around my neighbourhood of the spread is likely as level-headed and balanced as myself, meaning I might as well be racing myself.
I am not a fan of my program, and the people in it don’t help. Math, however elegant, lacks the grounded, practical side for the most part (I mean, there are badassedly useful stuff to be learned in computer science classes and advanced Calculus was beautiful, but in general, it’s all very abstract). It’s very hard to take ownership of a math solution and say “Yes, I made that,” especially if it’s all derivative work based on some dead guy’s theorem. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the business courses. These fall somewhere in between “useful but boring tidbits of information” and “excruciatingly detailed rehash of things anyone with common sense could deduce”.
All this leads me to the current situation that I am in. I know I probably ought to exert myself a lot harder if I want to do better than just “better than average”, but I don’t really see the value in that. Employers do not hire based on who has the biggest number on the page, but based on things like creative problem solving, critical thinking, people skills, and badassedness. I think I’ve got all these things in flying colours. Sure, I coast on nimbleness of intellect rather than dedicated memorization, and that leads me to do well enough. And I think that that’s enough. I’d rather spend my life doing what and being who I enjoy—and proving myself capable conforming, when I need to, to someone else’s definition of successful—rather than the other way around.
Aside: does anyone have an idea for a t-shirt that they want made?
Or, this is my mind trying to justify forgetting a summation sign on the formulation of a regression-based linear program in that midterm last night.
Note: I looked at the very last question on the midterm, and saw the solution right away (through some magic that I can’t explain), and then failed to show how to arrive at that correct answer via the “proper” algorithm. I just did a bunch of shit that makes sense, wrote my answer, and then made a list at the bottom entitled “The Proper Steps”. Have fun, paper-grader.