After high school were you sick of school? What did you do?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I was so sick of high school, I took summer school classes so I could finish early. I didn’t think it was boring so much as stifling. Luckily, I’d sat in on a college class or two and realized college was a whole different ballgame. I didn’t view college as a boring means to an end but as an opportunity to explore stuff that fascinated me, like cosmology or the Dark Ages or philosophy.

I think the people who are most likely to view all schooling as boring and just a means to an end are those without curiosity. Sometimes that’s because curiosity got suffocated out of them by dull teachers… Sometimes incurious parents squashed any tendencies in that direction. Then again, some people are curious, but only about stuff that wasn’t not taught in their schools, like automotive technology, or, in my case, metaphysics.

42

I don’t think I’ve ever been lacking in curiosity, but I never thought I needed to be in a classroom to satisfy it. I never liked school at any level, but I tolerated grad school because it was leading to a career. I’ve worked as an elementary school librarian for the last 14 years. I’m convinced that there are some people who aren’t going to like school no matter what. I was one of those kids, and I tend to connect with them at my job.

43

In high school I wasn’t sick of school, but when I finished my undergrad I didn’t even think about grad school because I was so done with school.

44

(UK education system- some differences)
At the time I was at school, compulsory education was only up to 16- it’s now 18. I’d been at a very competitive girls’ school, and at 16 I wanted to move to the local mixed college for A level (age 16-18). I wasn’t expecting my mother to be thrilled, but she absolutely threw a wobbly about it and declared that if I switched I’d have to start paying rent and paying my own transport costs to get there. No way I could have done that, given where we lived and the absence of work.

In retrospect, I should have asked Dad, but there we go.

So, my last two years of school- age 16-18, were pretty hellish; almost all my friends had transferred out, and even though A level is supposed to be when you get to pick the subjects than interest you, I wasn’t allowed to pick what I wanted due to the school. I didn’t want to be there, I certainly didn’t want to be in those classes, I had almost no friends and my home life was pretty crap as well.

So, when I finished that, hell yes I felt done.

The university system here isn’t like the US system- you don’t have a minor or other ‘off piste’ subjects, you study a set course, where all the modules are pretty much related to your course (you might get something unrelated but useful, like a computing, stats or essay writing module on a science course, but not French Art History). It’s also very hard, once you start, to transfer between departments; you can probably move from, say, Zoology to Biology, but if you love the stats module or something and decide that’s what you’d love to do, you’d almost certainly have to drop out and re-apply. What this means is that you really do need to know what you want to do before you apply.

I didn’t mind the idea of university, but I wanted to take a year out first, decide what I wanted, and then apply. Mum, again, had different ideas. I was going. She didn’t care which university, she didn’t care what course, she just wanted her daughter to go to university, and the school has a similar attitude. Given the employment and housing situation at the time, plus my total lack of savings, I would have been homeless with very few options if I hadn’t done as I was pushed.

Incidentally, she’d wanted to go to a competitive school and university and hadn’t been allowed to ever apply, because her Dad didn’t think it was worth it. I don’t think she’s ever worked out that what was really important wasn’t going exactly, but having the option. I’m just as pissed off at not being given the choice about my own life as she was, probably more so, because she knew how big an impact it had on her, but she still did the same to me.

So, I went. I did Zoology, for one semester, before realising that, though I was kinda enjoying the social life, and I didn’t really mind the classes, I wasn’t interested at all, dropped out, and after a month or so back with the parents and a lot of being yelled at, moved in with my boyfriend.

I don’t think Mum fully forgave me for dropping out until I went back to Uni in 2017, in my 30s, on a course I want to do. I’m in my second year now.

I really don’t know why I didn’t just tell Dad first- he also didn’t like school much, has a degree he’s never honestly used much, and didn’t have rose-tinted spectacles about either of those things. My parents always had a policy that if one of them made a decision about the kids and told us, the other would generally back them up, and at least would never veto what the kid had initially been told (when I wanted to go to Glastonbury festival at 17, with a friend and no adults, I asked Dad- Mum was furious, but I still got to go. Highlight of my teens, that trip was).

45

I discovered computers and machine language programming my senior year of high school, so not only did I not hate it, I snuck back into school to work on the computer some more. Not illicitly - the computer room could be seen by the head of the Math department. So going to college meant I could program more, and that was fine with me.
Also helping was that 90% of my teachers were excellent, and in our heavily tracked and gigantic school I got to hang out with other nerds like me, so I never felt oppressed.

46

I wasn’t tired of school, I was an arrogant little shit who turned down a free ride to what ever initials I wanted behind my name to go out and get some “real world” experience. I thought I’d manage college on my own later. It’s been 30 years now and later still hasn’t arrived. I do have that real world experience though.

47

I always knew I wanted to be a scientist, even before I knew exactly what a scientist did (my mom has a third grade assignment of mine that attests to this).

By the time I was in HS I knew a bit more about what a career in science entailed, but had no idea what area of science I wanted to go into. But I knew that no amount of “real world” experience would substitute for a degree if I wanted a career in science. So I applied to the state university system, got accepted, and never looked back.

College was a never ending buffet of new knowledge and tools, and all that was expected was that I learn. While I pretty much drifted into my area of expertise, I never regretted a day of the university experience.

48

Bro I was sick of school by Day One of 6th grade. By the last day of high school I wanted nothing more than to put that michegas behind me.

What did I do? I went to college. Loved every minute of it.

49

I think the signal-to-noise ratio goes thusly:

> High school: 90% useless busy work / waste of time
> Undergrad: 50% useless busy work / waste of time
> Grad school / research: 10% useless busy work / waste of time

So by that logic, it only takes 16 years of schooling at a regular pace to get to some ACTUAL education that isn’t predominantly a waste of time, which sounds about right to me. If I were god-emperor, some of the first educational changes I’d institute are:

  1. A way to test out of high-school entirely that isn’t a GED and that is wholly acceptable to academically competitive colleges at all levels

  2. Entirely eliminate gen-ed requirements in undergrad. Learning religion 101 or French 101 or Comparative Basket-Weaving 101 has literally no value to 90%+ of people, and should absolutely not be forced on 100% of the student body. You graduate when you demonstrate good enough grades in a sufficient number and level of 300 and 400-level classes in your degree path, full stop.