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Edit: holy gently caress this is long as hell, I'm sorry, just read the tldr at the end.  I'll share my story here for op but idk how much use it will be as being not male and not white I don't think I've ever identified as a ~goon~ although I'm sure there are a few others on SA who are in the same demographic as me. So yea, loving long post incoming I'm gonna lead with some childhood poo poo because I think it's ultra relevant to this thread to show that for a lot of people luck plays in very early on and decides a lot of poo poo for you and it's not really always "aha! But see truly your LUCK was your personal SKILL AND OPPOURTUNISM all along" and sometimes it's "actually some people get to not starve because other folks made choices for them and also a lot of poo poo is out of your control but determines which choices you are aware you have" Grew up in a single parent household in Brooklyn just above the poverty line (wavered at too much $ for food stamps a couple of times ). I took some test in pre-school that said I was smart so I got to be in the classes that ~challened kids~. At this point it's worth saying that I guess im smart in that I retain information and test really loving well, but other than some enjoyment of problem solving I don't feel like I'm especially better than anyone at any one thing. So I am considered SO SMART WOW!!! and am not actually being challenged by any school work. Mom got me into what she thought was ~free summer school and after school stuff for the youths~ but was actually test prep for the SHSAT, Which is this ridiculous test for getting into competitive high schools in NYC. I really am not kidding you, she went to my elementary school guidance counselor and said "what can I do so this kid is at home the least possible amount of time because I need to work" and the guidance counselor found something that wasn't just a time sink, but also didn't really explain it to my mom at all. At the end of the SHSAT thing (two years of learning to the test and getting really good at gaming exams lol) I HAPPENED to let slip to some teacher there that I didn't give a gently caress about going to a good-er high school and liked the school I was at so I would take the test (all random answers) and not put any schools down for where I wanted to go. They lied to me and said if I don't take the test seriously + apply for at least one school then "they"  would tell my mom that I hadnt attended the program for the last 2 years and was a Bad Child and Liar.To be clear my jr high wasn't bad and was also a high school and I could have gotten to college earlier and poo poo if I had stayed there because it shared a campus with the college and they did some cool college programs. But anyway I got into a gooder school and this was announced in front of my whole class and I was made to call my mom on the spot, in the middle of class and tell her about all the good news and how excited I was to go to this new school. :/ Lots of stupid guilt trippy nonsense about how I'm literally letting down my race if I decide to stay at my currently very good school. So I watched my GPA plummet such that I was in the bottom 25% of students in my new school (my GPA was 80.23~ when I graduated). I wanted to go to job Corp and just do cooking or something after high school, especially bc I didn't have the grades for merit based scholar ships But Was Once Again Told I Was Destined For Greatness and MLK Would Roll In His Grave If I Passed Up These Chances. But also had NO guidance on where to go and everyone in my school is a genius so you can get ANY DEGREE and be great because YOU TOOK A TEST AND IT SAYS YOURE GREAT!! And how am I going to disagree with that? I took the PSAT/SAT and I was like 88-90th percentile for my state or something. That's got to be good enough to get a job right?? (Note; this was like... 50th or 60th within my school.  did I mention that at this point I have undiagnosed Dysthimia? Because I sure did lol) I start applying to schools for Creative Writing because ?? I liked it I guess. But at the time my mom married a dude who started stealing my college apps money and no one told me that since I was from a low income family I could get waivers for college applications, so I couldn't afford to actually apply to a bunch of schools that I wanted, like Bryn Mawr where I had to pay money for them to see if I qualified for need based financial aid  . I got more depressed and hopeless/apathetic about my future and also mom (who was full tilt telling me poo poo like "obviously he only stole that money bc youre a bad kid, etc etc if only you cared about anything other than going to school and book learning!!!!" Nevermind that I was CONSTANTLY getting complaints sent home from teachers about how I'm extremely unmotivated, I sleep in class and some days sleep through every class and skipped gym because I'm tired. Hmmmmmm.), So I pulled up the actual expected job market growth and median salaries for a bunch of careers and just went down it by Expected Growth until I picked one that made more money that my mom did annually but didn't directly mean people would die if I was bad at my job. I graduated high school in 2010 so I only checked this poo poo because it was what was constantly being talked about in the news as a metric for which fields were healthy or safe to study/work in. In retrospect this was a crazy good decision on my part, but at the time I was hopelessly lost trying to figure out how I was supposed to meet everyone's expectations and was just crying while trying to Get The Right Answer For This Question In The Exam Of Not Starving To Death Forever. Anyway, Computer science is the winner because I was currently learning visual basic in school and Wow That poo poo Is Easy. Mom was also adamant that if I stayed at home after college I was a Bad Child because gosh she's already spent so much time and money on me when am I going to earn my loving keep??!!! And I CANT go to trade school because those aren't real careers that are upwardly mobile and if I do those then I will end up poor and dead (??? My mom went to job Corp and if she didn't spend like $200 a week on drugs she'd be doing OK for herself right now really, this would have been fine.) I get $0 in scholarships/grants (except Pell Grant). mom has kindly informed me that if I work while going to school that I won't be focused enough on school and will be WASTING MY TIME so I gotta do school FULL TIME school IS my job! So I'm a wreck and scared because college is expensive but I cannot fathom any other way to get away from my mom without severing and I can't sever at this moment for reasons. I pick the first school that sends me my full financial aid information so I can just be done with this poo poo and get more time in playing MapleStory and sleeping and being always tired. Happens to be a great school for computer science. I get Cs my entire time at school but it turns out that making it through a comp sci program and being able to program decently means you get to have a job. It also helps if you're too depressed to have any standards (because your classmates are right you're not good at this you're just a token not-white/asian-male!! You've got it easy and are basically cheating and stealing from good hardworking Americans!!!) and have literally equated moving back home after college with dying perpetually of Starvation. The only reason I didnt drop out was because I was too apathetic and scared of Starving and was too hosed to even have the ability to imagine myself X months from now so I just assumed that I would die a sudden death some time soon so I guess I should just plug away at this degree and play league of legends until the clock stops ticking and I am free of this hell. (I'm gonna mention here that at some point after getting the job I then went to therapy and was diagnosed with Dysthimia + also learned that probably since grade school I have had periodic bouts of "double depression" , and I am now medicated and am slightly less dour about everything, I do not think I will literally starve to death.) Tldr; conveniently angled depression and anxiety tricked me into going to school and getting a job that underpays for my field/skill level, but is still A LOT of dollars as far as I'm concerned, instead of killing myself I guess. GenericGirlName fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Jul 17, 2017 |
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Jul 17, 2017 10:52
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:50 |
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