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My College Story

Higher eductation has a purpose. Unfortunately, as realized by many, it has been abused and bastardized for years. Unknowing students have been coerced into believing that if they don't go to college:

There's something wrong with you.

You will never amount to anything.

You will be part of a lower class.

You will be poor.

So what do you do?

You work to increase your grades, excell in your extracaricular activities in and out of school, you try researching some schools, visit a few. In the end, you only apply for one.

And you get accepted!

You nieve young adult.

Some people are lucky to know exactly what they want to do in life. As such, they have already hit the ground running and do well, get internships, graduate and get a job. Most of the time.

Unfortunately, I was not a model student. I was not the worst, but definately not the best. I chose electrical engineering as my major since I enjoyed science, electronics, and technology. I also found that I liked designing things from some of the electives that I had taken over my highschool years (drafting, cad, and architecture).

I attended a small out-of-my-state urban private university. Living on campus is a weird change from highschool. I knew how to take care of myself, wasn't super keen on partying, and I was pretty good at attending classes. I had stopped playing Runescape II years prior due to some of the changes that JageX had made (pre EoC). I even had managed to avoid the World of Warcraft plague like the plague. Of course the email came from the administration about financial asistance. This is the time when I should have just packd my bags and gone home. I, as many many other students, knew not enough about what I was about to get into. My familly was not poor, not to my knowledge, but we were not rich. We were what you might call middle-class (That might not exist at some point in the future). Higher education has a high price tag, especially when you go out of the state that you reside in. I followed the instructions and filled out the forms that were designed to shackle you for the rest of your life. But I was going to be a well paid engineer, so what does it matter? I'll be able to pay it off no problem!

What I wasn't good at was keeping up with classwork. I managed to get through some courses, but looking back, and looking at some of my current challenges, I'm bad at asking for help. I did not seek help. Over a 3.5 years I managed. Well, struggled. I enjoyed some of the topics, I loved learning how things worked. I didn't like that everything seemed hyperfocused on the discrete components rather than systems. Perhaps I had misjudged what to expect? Programming a microcontroller in assembly was an interesting challenge, but it also felt impractical. I was starting to read and hear about this new microcontroller board that was cheap and seemed accessible, but I didn't persue it, it wasn't part of the carriculum, it was the Arduino. I also was not having a good time with math, calculus to be precise. Calculus held me back from some of the EE carriculum, so I had to take a few more classes to fill out my credit hours. I took a few computer science courses, Python, C++, and Java. They were all mostly introductory, but I did enjoy them for the most part, except Java, it wasn't my cup of coffee. I finally passed calculus, and was able to continue onto the next challenge; differential equations. Boy howdy was that hard. Did I mention that this was circa 2010 or so. The economy was in the pits, I couldn't even find any company that would take me as an unpaid intern, some of my much better performing classmates couldn't either. College is expensive, and the debt is piling up. So...

I quit.

I felt like there was something wrong with me.

I felt like I wouldn't amount to anything.

I was a failure.

I didn't want to be poor.

I spoke with my parents, they of course didn't want to continue supporting my endless endevor and I didn't want to continue it either. My Mom asked if I had considered a trade, they would be willing to support me going to trade school. Of course I hadn't, that's the whole reason why I persued college! Having not given the trades a thought since deciding not to go to the local vocational highschool since they didn't have a music program, I didn't even know what trade to look into. I did manage to think a little more critically this time. I wanted to study to be an electrician. After all, I knew plenty of electrical theory, I knew my way around most basic hand and power tools. All I need to do is learn how to install some things and learn what these code things are about. After some light research, I found a trade school that was close to home. It was of course a for profit school, I liked the instructor and the facility seemed pretty good. I signed up for the one year program which would allow me to persue an apprenticship with a significant amount of on the job training hours, and all of my book hours. All of this, of course, came with another round of signing up for more financial assistance.

But this time, it was different.

I was determined. I showed up to class on time, almost every day. There was maybe a time or two I overslept, or miscalculated traffic. I also had an edge, the amount of theory I knew surpassed what I needed to know, I knew more math than we were ever going to need. These codes, while complex, weren't as mysterious as they initially seemed. I burned through the labs that the carriculum provided. I was assisting the instructor with his workload by helping the other students, I was making my own labs. Conduit bending intimidated me quite a bit. The instructor and I had arrived to the school before the administration canceled school for snow, so I got 1 on 1 instruction on how to bend conduit, it wasn't that bad! I loved my experience.

I passed, with perfect attendance and a 4.0 GPA.

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