My university experience was very much “submit! work!” - I was on “keeping of term” almost permanently and had the threat of rustication hanging over my head for the duration of my time there as I flat out refused to attend lectures, tutorials, or labs - I was having way too much fun running a bar and the debating society.

Anyway. What I learned was that people rarely make good on their threats, that charm and doing the absolute bare minimum to not “get fired” will get you through - and that I can cram a three year physics course into a month of intense study and still pass with a 2:1, which they demoted to a Desmond as they didn’t feel they could in good conscience reward me with a 2:1 - which also taught me that institutions can’t be trusted and are ultimately run by opinion.

This lead to a career path of opportunistic system-hacking and an early retirement to a cabin in the woods. I never had a work ethic, apart from in that which interests me. If something bores me, it’s for the birds.

I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say here, other than that at no point in my education was I given any useful guidance or advice, just expectations of prodigy, and was left to figure things out for myself - which I did, but not as I think others would have hoped. I now, in my forties, know that I have raging ADHD - it wasn’t even a consideration as a kid - just that I was “brilliant but bone-idle”.