The joys of being a 2E student.
Gifted, with undiagnosed ADHD.
Flew in to university without ever learning how to organise my time. Smashed every exam university put in front of me. Failed every form of written assessment that required time management and planning, instead of just knowing the answers. Even after they put me on academic probation and I understood how serious it was, I couldn’t fix it, because I didn’t know I had ADHD at the time, and had never learned the organisational skills required, because I’d never needed them to succeed academically before.
Not knowing you have ADHD is almost a bigger curse than ADHD itself
I had a similar experience, but managed to hold it together long enough to make it out in 4.5 years (with some summer classes). Knowing how to do things, but not really able to stay steadily on track to achieve goals is a rough combo.
I eventually graduated.
The short version - my mental health was fucked up, including a very intense anxiety I had about school.
Only leaving school, lucking into a job with good healthcare, earning enough to be independent for the first time ever, seeing a therapist AND taking medications, made me stable enough to finish.
My father developed a gambling addiction and drained my college fund without telling me. If my parents had told me right away I would’ve had time to take a leave of absence and work full-time or apply for additional financial aid. Instead the school kicked me out for unpaid tuition and won’t let me come back to receive my degree.
I completed all the coursework for a BA in CS. I just couldn’t pay for it, so no degree for me.
What’s “graduate” in a global internet context?
I take it as “received a diploma from an accredited educational institution”.
I graduated, but it required me to cheat. Among other things, I was failing science and history, ironically two things I love.
I didn’t graduate with my class in high school because I was 1 credit short. Not giving a fuck and home life. I moved out as soon as I turned 18 and finished that last credit. Eventually did some college programs and crushed them because I was interested and in a much better place mentally.
It was partly because my parents forced me into a scholarship that was tied to teaching afterwards - I was entirely unsuited to being a teacher, but neither of them even attended high school, and to them being a teacher was the pinnacle of achievement. I was pretty good academically but university overwhelmed me, so between that and no incentive to succeed, I failed miserably, only passing a few courses. I ended up getting a professional qualification (not a degree) in my 30s and had a decent career.
Living in a squat for a few years showed me I would have made a fantastic electrian or plumber, but you had to have a penis for that for some reason.
Started college at 2020 January. Information technology. I did well during the time I was there but whole covid thing just made me hate my school and like I needed change.
We were going back and forth remote and in person classes, both of which were really bad in terms of quality of the teaching and I felt like if I am mostly learning from external sources and teaching sucks.
I refused to attend in person classes due to covid risks despite it being kind of mandated so I managed to negotiate that I just study on my own and take the exams. And my grades didn’t even get worse.
I’m not the type of person to keep doing something I feel like is useless for a paper that might give me slight advantage for getting a job. Education itself is free in my country but I just hated getting more and more student debt to cover other my living costs.
I decided "fuck this I’m just gonna get a IT job and teach myself and that’s what I did. I wouldn’t say that I’m at my dream job now but I feel confident I am able to progress on this career just fine despite dropping out.
