(no subject)

[vaxjedi]

So I downloaded the PalmOS programming tools from Handspring. I found out that it had a copy of GCC (GNU C Compiler) with it. So I wrote a "Hello World" program - it just says "Hello World!"

I started actually shaking. It was like getting a fix of drugs I hadn't had in years. I knew that I had missed coding - but I hadn't realized how much.

I mean, I have this degree in Computer Science that has pretty much gone to waste. Almost all of my friends from Grinnell got nice computer jobs - and they got their degrees in physics, history, biology and such.

I know I was never a good student - my professors reminded me of that pretty much constantly. As did a few of my friends.

Unfortunately, after the breakdown at the beginning of my second year, college ceased to be primarily about learning - it was about survival. My continued emotional survival required I stay in college any way I could. So I guess what my friend in college is true - I was a waste of financial aid.

Comments

More than a grade

[itisally.livejournal.com]

I have to admit. Programming can be the greatest power trip. And I am no good at it at all.

As for not being a good student.... You know that that mostly translates to you not being good at their game. Being a good student has less to do with true learning and more to do with being a good paper pusher. I know that you are an inteligent and helpful person. I know that you are better for having a college experiance, even if it was to survive.

So, Bah to those with fancier jobs and huzzah to the people who enlighten the lives of others like you do!

Re: More than a grade

[xiombarg.livejournal.com]

Well, on the good student thing, I pretty much told him the same thing throughout college and he never believed me. ;-p

Re: More than a grade

[vaxjedi]

Oh I know there is more to it than a grade. But I look back and see a lot of lost opportunities - places where I could have learned alot if I had been capable.

Re: More than a grade

[itisally.livejournal.com]

Then what is trully important is that you are now able to see oppertunities . Look to the ones that are current in your life and grab on. To see them is a sighn of growth as a person and as long as we continue to grow it is all good.

[(Anonymous)]

Waste of finanicial aid?
Fuck that noise. The measure isn't now, and it sure as shit wasn't at Grim-hell. The measure is 50, 60, 70 years from now. What you learned is so much more than anything that could be quantified in a grade book and what you gave, what you taught others is so much more than that.
Who knows what that financial aid bought you? What it bought those who knew you? Simply put, no one, not even you. And no one will until it's all over and done.
You are here, this is now, save the cost to benifit analysis for the big walk across the black desert.