" College is like high school, except all the classes are Honors classes and the teachers don't care about you as much. "
I remember that... The shock when I got to uni and wasn't being spoon fed any more. I was just one of 30 kids who was expected to turn up to lectures, hand stuff in, and show up for the final exam, and if I was failing that was my problem and nobody else was going to intervene.
I failed my 2nd year. After a long hard think about why, and about my future, I managed to talk them into letting me re-take the whole year if I could come up with the money. The county council agreed to pay the extra year's tuition fees, but not the maintenance grant (living expenses, rent etc.). For the first time, I went and got a summer job because I *needed* the money, not 'cos people said I should, and saved up as much as I could for the year ahead (not a lot). And I was *very* lucky to have a pal who suddenly became wealthy enough to fund me the equivalent of a standard maintenance grant, and who was impressed enough with my change of attitude to invest that much in me.
I got through the re-take year by focussing on the stuff that I'd been bewildered by and not bothered to work at the first time round - basically all the quantum stuff. I already knew I could pass the acoustics stuff, so instead of sinking my time into those, I just turned up to the lectures, *listened*, and actually helped out the other students occasionally (chipping in analogies or real life examples, mostly).
By the end of the year, I *still* didn't understand the quantum stuff, but I had a much better handle on what it was that I didn't understand, and why, and could write down the main crazy-complex equations that I didn't understand and explain what some of the terms meant. And that got me a barely acceptable mark on those few papers, which therefore didn't drag my total down enough to make my overall grade a fail.
Mercifully, the final year had much less quantum and much more acoustics. A came out the end with 3rd class honours... And a system of organising my work and life which worked OK-ishly, and kept me going (with minor changes) for several more years, right up until my employers started trying to teach me "better" ways that just didn't work for me (I know realise a lot of that was to do with my short-term memory/distractability isues, that those methods just didn't allow for), and it all decended into chaos. =:o\
GTD is the first system I've seen that incorporates some of the stuff I had to learn the hard way, such as organising your "things to do" according to context. (e.g. A list of things that need to be done while you're sitting at your desk is no use while you're out at the shops, and vice versa.) Alas, my past experience of trying to adopt new systems (I keep flashing back to old systems I've tried in the past and just getting more confused) means I've made no progrses with adopting it. Every time I try to get myself organised now, I start out with one plan in mind and then find I've switched to a different one partway through. It's... annoying. So yeah, Id say find your own system, refine it if you can, but don't let anyone else bully you into doing it *their* way. If an employer insists you follow certain organisational procedures, then do the paperwork the way they require, but keep your *own* system going in parallel rather than trying to switch over, or you'll just get lost. Especially when the employer decides to switch their system around just when everyone had nearly got the hang of it... =:o{
no subject
I remember that... The shock when I got to uni and wasn't being spoon fed any more. I was just one of 30 kids who was expected to turn up to lectures, hand stuff in, and show up for the final exam, and if I was failing that was my problem and nobody else was going to intervene.
I failed my 2nd year. After a long hard think about why, and about my future, I managed to talk them into letting me re-take the whole year if I could come up with the money. The county council agreed to pay the extra year's tuition fees, but not the maintenance grant (living expenses, rent etc.). For the first time, I went and got a summer job because I *needed* the money, not 'cos people said I should, and saved up as much as I could for the year ahead (not a lot). And I was *very* lucky to have a pal who suddenly became wealthy enough to fund me the equivalent of a standard maintenance grant, and who was impressed enough with my change of attitude to invest that much in me.
I got through the re-take year by focussing on the stuff that I'd been bewildered by and not bothered to work at the first time round - basically all the quantum stuff. I already knew I could pass the acoustics stuff, so instead of sinking my time into those, I just turned up to the lectures, *listened*, and actually helped out the other students occasionally (chipping in analogies or real life examples, mostly).
By the end of the year, I *still* didn't understand the quantum stuff, but I had a much better handle on what it was that I didn't understand, and why, and could write down the main crazy-complex equations that I didn't understand and explain what some of the terms meant. And that got me a barely acceptable mark on those few papers, which therefore didn't drag my total down enough to make my overall grade a fail.
Mercifully, the final year had much less quantum and much more acoustics. A came out the end with 3rd class honours... And a system of organising my work and life which worked OK-ishly, and kept me going (with minor changes) for several more years, right up until my employers started trying to teach me "better" ways that just didn't work for me (I know realise a lot of that was to do with my short-term memory/distractability isues, that those methods just didn't allow for), and it all decended into chaos. =:o\
GTD is the first system I've seen that incorporates some of the stuff I had to learn the hard way, such as organising your "things to do" according to context. (e.g. A list of things that need to be done while you're sitting at your desk is no use while you're out at the shops, and vice versa.) Alas, my past experience of trying to adopt new systems (I keep flashing back to old systems I've tried in the past and just getting more confused) means I've made no progrses with adopting it. Every time I try to get myself organised now, I start out with one plan in mind and then find I've switched to a different one partway through. It's... annoying. So yeah, Id say find your own system, refine it if you can, but don't let anyone else bully you into doing it *their* way. If an employer insists you follow certain organisational procedures, then do the paperwork the way they require, but keep your *own* system going in parallel rather than trying to switch over, or you'll just get lost. Especially when the employer decides to switch their system around just when everyone had nearly got the hang of it... =:o{