I struggled with Jr. College after being in the Navy; exactly like an extension of High School… without the low-life. I was very serious about getting on to forwarding my life and had very little patience for young adults that had never seen battle and death. I was very rigorous and always took a full-load and worked full-time. I can’t imagine trying that without the military discipline; it just made organization and focus so much easier.
Even today I see these young guys come out of college, never knew anything else but school, and they have no sense of practicality. I interview often in my line of work so it’s frustrating to get a wingnut self-tripping on an empirical question that has no merit in the practical world. I simply do not have time for these people. Guess I’d make a great first responder, having been trained to put out house fires verses being trained to run for the door.
So with college, I took a summer class of Algebra whilst still in high school, and after the NAV, local JC for two years. Took a break and went to a technical school to learn Design-Drafting, got in the field – did that for 2-3 years and once I made enough dough to live on my own, went back for more college.
In Round II, the Drafting Professor said I had to do 2 years of drafting to meet my Engineering transfer requirement. Yes, and did he overlook that I was in the field as a professional? I guess it didn’t matter that I was good enough for the DoE and put to work designing gloveboxes for handling Plutonium.
Nope, none of that mattered to him; I had to take 2 years of Drafting at his JC. Total fuq story. Eventually I challenged every course but couldn’t get out of his pet classes so he made a deal with me and said if I took a year out to get an AA in Drafting Technology he’d wave the rest. Total f’ker; I was pissed. :x But that’s what I did. In the final drafting class – the “design” class, he said we’re going to design a 3-wheeled electric handicap vehicle. If we design it in CAD he’ll raise he letter grade by one, and if we build a scale model, again up by one. The year before they designed a pencil sharpener and the year before that – a coffee grinder. I thought he was out of his tree. But I wanted to prove to him I was better, and so I built my first electric vehicle in 9 weeks and drive it into class on the day that it was due.
Story here.
After that – I lost faith in college, instructors, and the material; it was all just a heady game. I knew I could teach myself anything… and after that – I took what I wanted and learned what I needed on the fly as required. Later in life, not finishing the degree has cost me opportunity. If I had to do it over, I’d man-up and just do it for the paper trail. It’s stupid the way our society works, but that’s Life.
With some regrets,
KF
