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Sup, same boat. Terrible at college and "successful". The worst feeling was hanging with peers that you felt they were way beyond your skills and seeing how ev

Sup, same boat. Terrible at college and "successful". The worst feeling was hanging with peers that you felt they were way beyond your skills and seeing how everything was "natural" to them. Yesterday it was the fifth anniversary of my college graduation. One of my frequent dreams is that I didn't graduate because I failed a course. Strange, since college was not even that demanding for me; one of my best friends was brilliant and he let me piggyback the hardest projects. The main difference I see between people like us and other highly accomplished academic developers is that we deliver (since we are highly pragmatic) and we are enjoyable to work with (our guilt overcompensates with empathy). Yet, I had studied 10x more in the last 5 years (post-graduation) than in college. My mind matured significantly, and luckily it had developed a sense of natural curiosity for computer science, programming, design, finance, etc.

d33lio 6y ago
> The worst feeling was hanging with peers that you felt they were way beyond your skills and seeing how everything was "natural" to them. This is what is most painful for me. In high school I was hailed by my friends as "highly adept at science" and we got into all kinds of crazy - albeit somewhat educational mischief. For context, this group of friends came together after we all competed and placed in the first division of the Intel ISEF engineering competition. I was one of the only people in the group who didn't go to Stanford, MIT, get a full ride to U Chicago or go on to become a neuro-surgeon (I'm completely serious, one of these friends completed pre-med in two years and med school in 4). Maybe my friends were astronomically more intelligent than me and I've picked a bad point of comparison. But the most painful thing to watch in college was others seemingly effortlessly pick up complex math and CS intuition while I struggled and even with help, at times failed miserably. Though, to your point. Surprisingly with a few years post-college under my belt - my mind has sharpened and become more focused and driven than I ever could have imagined being in college. If anything, something I understand now is that it's futile to try to anticipate what I'll be doing or what kind of person I'll be farther into the future than 2-3 years at most. Thanks again for sharing.

d33lio 6y ago

> The worst feeling was hanging with peers that you felt they were way beyond your skills and seeing how everything was "natural" to them. This is what is most painful for me. In high school I was hailed by my friends as "highly adept at science" and we got into all kinds of crazy - albeit somewhat educational mischief. For context, this group of friends came together after we all competed and placed in the first division of the Intel ISEF engineering competition. I was one of the only people in the group who didn't go to Stanford, MIT, get a full ride to U Chicago or go on to become a neuro-surgeon (I'm completely serious, one of these friends completed pre-med in two years and med school in 4). Maybe my friends were astronomically more intelligent than me and I've picked a bad point of comparison. But the most painful thing to watch in college was others seemingly effortlessly pick up complex math and CS intuition while I struggled and even with help, at times failed miserably. Though, to your point. Surprisingly with a few years post-college under my belt - my mind has sharpened and become more focused and driven than I ever could have imagined being in college. If anything, something I understand now is that it's futile to try to anticipate what I'll be doing or what kind of person I'll be farther into the future than 2-3 years at most. Thanks again for sharing.