Comment by zxexz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zxexz | Hacker News Reader

I empathize with you! I enrolled in community college after leaving school in 1st grade (yes, first grade. I was six). No high school diploma, no GED. After 2 years I transferred to a top 50 university, and it's a miserable system. I'm taking grad classes at the same time as undergrad to try to spice up what I'm learning, but the complete lack of interest-driven education is absolutely despicable. I would drop out and work as a freelance coder full time (it's crazy how much that pays), but I only have a year left, supposedly. My grades are only good in the classes I've enjoyed and have been interested in, and the rest are Cs and low Bs. Even an F. I just can't bring myself to mundane, boring work. I know that people say I should learn to live with that, because life is filled with mundane work. But I've always been able to make money coding, etc. and loved every minute of it. I honestly feel like Uni is "harshing on my vibe, man" if you know what I mean. I could be learning so much more if I could spend less time with my Uni work :(

Aha, well that was as relevant to this post as I thought it would be when I started writing it. C'est la vie. HN is getting my rant anyways...

> I just can't bring myself to mundane, boring work.

The problem is that even really interesting/fun projects and jobs consist of an overwhelming amount of mundane and boring tasks. Building a race car? Someone still has to crimp connectors, run hundreds of feet of wire, clean grease off of tools at the end of the night and buy gas. You either have or develop the grit to power through these tasks so you can enjoy the fun stuff or you develop an appreciation for the mundane tasks and learn to enjoy them. Nobody wants to work on a team with the guy that gets really excited, does a few interesting parts of a project then wanders off when the rest of the grunt work needs to be completed.

Yeah, I get this. I wasn't talking about project based stuff and problem solving, I was referring to the silly things undergrad involves. What good is paying taking boring irrelevant classes that aren't related to what I'm paying to learn about? I still haven't worked that out. I guess it's to obtain an accredited degree. But shouldn't I be paying for knowledge instead of a piece of paper? I've found it's best not to think too deeply about it, lest I drop out in my last year of academia and become a choreographer or whatever it is happens to people who drop out of school.

I don't mind running lots of wire though, that's very zen :P

>I was referring to the silly things undergrad involves.

>What good is paying taking boring irrelevant classes that aren't related to what I'm paying to learn about?

"Irrelevent" Classes are to college as boring tasks are to jobs. I could take the exact same argument you're making about classes and put it into the context of a workplace:

"Why do I have to write all this boring documentation? I just like coding, isn't my job title programmer? Don't you pay me to code? I'm not a novelist. I don't understand why I have to write all this documentation when I'm a programmer!"

It's also good to mention that what you think is relevant and irrelevant as a college student may not match up which what actually turns out to be relevant as a working professional or researcher. I learned this the hard way.

I just can't bring myself to mundane, boring work.

Most work is. Be careful not to squander your opportunities, though. Once you leave grad school, you don't really get to be around that type of environment anymore, for better or worse.

(I mean opportunities like being among people who share your personal interests, not financial or business opportunities. Though those are there too, if that's what you want.)

Yeah I probably should have phrased that differently, but my ramblings already resemble those of a pseudo-schizophrenic almost-sentient toaster so it would be of little help.

I don't mind the mundane work related to the fields I actually care about, which is why grad school is so much nicer than undergrad. Being surrounded by people of similar interests is nice, but academia is a but too cozy/cushy for my liking, to be honest. Not much really happens; not much excitement or risk.

I know in a few years, though, my views will be totally different :P The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and I resemble a cow in many of my physical characteristics.

This is satire, right?

wait, what? you were at university as an 8 year old?

"After" could be any period of time.

Nope :P started community college at 15, transferred to uni a few years later. Bit of an alternative educational history.

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