Keith Devens .com

gee keith, you should have gone my route... --take your time(only five years, mom!), become a commie, 420, 420, 420, don't go to class too much, slip through the cracks and get a crappy job doing everything you've never dreamed of!!!!-- ...ok, maybe i'm not the best example........(oh, and i'm not a commie)

More things I hate about school:
- The rampant ultra-politically-correct liberalism among the majority of students and overwhelming majority of faculty.
- The couldn't-give-a-damn, condescending, pompous, detached-from-reality professors.
- The lazy spoiled rotten parent-subsidized don't-have-to-pay-any-of-their-own bills students.

I partially agree with you... You may find this interesting regarding school.

I feel exactly the same about school, and lately I've been doing almost NOTHING at all. Just enough to get by, but not a bit more (so I've done no homework at all). It's just that I don't have the motivation anymore to really study or work. Same goes for all my friends. Each class is just a boring wait until the next hour. I can't wait until the day ends, and when I can go home and do interesting stuff.

Woah, man, you're really having almost the opposite experience I had. Maybe it's just Rutgers... maybe it's just that you're at a public school... or just your mindset. I enjoyed school. I really, really did. Didn't find it stifling at all. Had great, interesting classes that I wanted to do my work for... and great professors that I wanted to perform for. There were a few boring classes/professors, but they were certainly in the minority. I loved campus... beautiful buildings, climate, flowers, lake, river... girls. I was extremely motivated to learn, have a good time and get involved (two jobs, RA and crew team member). I treated school like a job, because I had so much to do in so little time. I taught myself what I needed to do, when, and how to get it done... studied/did work/wrote papers between classes, so I didn't really feel the regret of procrastination or slowness you do. A majority of courses I took didn't really have 'homework' in the traditional sense... just suggested reading and problems... we were graded maybe twice a semester (midterm/paper and final). I was also lucky to not have many required courses, getting a majority of the classes I wanted.

Honestly, I find work stifling... I feel much more forced to do things in work than I did in school. And, it's much, much more boring... now, at least. That may, and hopefully will, change soon. I mean, geez, I'm at work now writing this... shouldn't I be working or something?! I don't think work is just work... and work, because it's work will just always blow ass... I realize it'd be awesome to get a job I love to do, and get paid for it! But, still... it is going to be work, in that you're doing it for money... to provide for yourself and family, until you have enough cash and don't need to work anymore... and do it only because you want and choose to spend your time in such a fasion... and then it's not really work anymore. To quasi-quote Red from That 70's Show, "If it wasn't work, they'd call it 'Wonderful, Happy, Super Fun Time'." Maybe that's your motivation... maybe you enjoy work*ing* as an activity itself... great! You're a smart kid... I know you know life isn't just working, but, while you found school stifling, others find having to 9 to 5 it to make the small amount of money they do, saving barely anything, a little stressful. I just don't find doing one thing all day, every day, more appealing than having five or six different subjects of my choosing (which change every six months) to study every day. Maybe you do, that's fine... and maybe you figured out what you wanted to do with your life before you got to school... again, great! But, fortunately, I'd say a majority of kids fresh out of high school don't know... and need that college experience to show them what's potentially out there for them and how to form a plan of action to achieve what they want.

I'd like to say to just change your mindset and stop feeling like you're forced to do things you don't want to do, because I don't feel you are... but, I can't, obviously. And, you're not likely going to change... nor should you, if you don't want to. So, all I can say is hang tough and just get through it. You've come pretty damn far already and I'm really proud of you, knowing how tough it is for you to be in school when you want to be out working. I'm really sorry you're having such a terrible time, man. And, so you get the main point of my ramble... I'm not highlighting how much I enjoyed school and my experiences to rub it in your face or anything... you just didn't give any qualifiers in your post above; made it seem like your experiences and mindset are shared by everyone in school, which, I think is certainly not the case... may even be the minority.

While I have been finding school a bit stifling, it has pretty much been because it has been demanding more of my time than I'd like, rather than it feeling like a waste of time or torture. Of course, perhaps I shouldn't have chosen computer engineering, which is more a complete lifestyle than a major, heh.

In contrast, I have been really enjoying my classes for the most part and don't feel like it's some sort of communistic experience. The projects have been fairly fun and intriguing, the sort of stuff that makes me feel like I understand computers more and can talk about in job interviews. I am maybe a little different than some in that I find quite a few aspects of computers interesting; theory of computation, server administration, 3D graphics modelling and animation, programming... I have a bias for software, but even knowing how hardware works is very interesting to me. The professors are passionate about their research and most have a keen interest in their students' success. This stuff I love to soak in; homework and tests merely are opportunities to face a challenge and receive feedback from experts.

However, the two technical communication courses I have taken did feel very sapping and I am glad to have finished them. It seemed to be all about conformity and writing documents in a very specific style and format. You couldn't even talk about an assignment that was just returned to you for 24 hours, and then you were to submit a memo explaining why you wanted to talk about the assignment and why maybe you felt your grade should be higher. They had a spiel about considering their grades they gave out very carefully and being very unlikely to change it. Plus, they claimed that they didn't grade attendance, but participation instead... but since they made "participation activities" at the beginning of almost every class it was effectively grading attendance. Not much intelligent discussion, only memorizing formats and sticking to "best practices" no matter what. If all my courses were like this, I'd feel very dehumanized, too.

Other than TC, if I felt that my time was better off somewhere else, I'd skip class. In CSE, it's particularly pronounced that grades aren't everything; I'd say that they would be only a very high priority if you wanted to go into research. Computer programmers are lucky in that they can practice their trade now, without a lab or fancy equipment. Internships and successful independent projects are probably as valuable or more so than a high GPA.

I also think that school only takes over your life if you let it (which unfortunately, I kind of have... but working on fixing that...). You shouldn't feel guilty when you're not studying, unless you've really been squandering your time. It's true the work has very clear lines, but I think it is good to forcefully set lines for school as well. Education is only part of the process of becoming a better and more competent person; if you get to the point where it seems like diminishing returns, do something else. There is a factor in some classes trying to make students little worker drones (like TC) but I find that college has much less of that compared to high school and earlier.

There is also a sense to me that college is only part of education and that education isn't just to be able to work better and make money. But my comment is already long and this would take a bit to explain. Yeah... I'll shut up now.

I am going through the same thing. School is like a prison to me and I would rather be anywhere else than be in my classes. I hate the control. I really cannot take it anymore.

I totally understand your feelings. I go through the same feelings of imprisonment a little more than halfway through every single semester. I deal with it by just reminding myself that these feelings won't last forever. When a new semester starts, I usually feel optimistic and energized to get my work done. I lose steam though, and when I do, even looking at my text books hurts.

If I were you, I'd avoid thinking of school as a place for you to get much learning done. The real education lies outside of class, when you finally have what I call "a lightbulb moment". It's then that you see all the loose ends come together and make a nice pretty bow. Don't expect to be exposed to every single nuance of a topic in school, ain't gonnna happen. What you really end up with is a compilation of your professors education with his opinion thrown in. If you're lucky, you'll leave school with the ability to think critically and then you'll figure most of this stuff out on your own. The benefits come later, not when your in school. It's almost like learning has to take place in retrospect...after you've been exposed to a myriad of things..then you can fit the pieces together at a later time. This is called wisdom. You get the basics in class and if you're diligent (which it sounds like you want to be)wisdom comes later. Good luck to you and remember that this semester is almost over.