Been thinking about this a lot recently. Somewhat of a loaded topic, in this day and age, especially for someone like me. Here's a copy of an email I sent to my mom a little while ago (no it's not a suicide note).
wall of text
This is probably (one of) the last things you want to hear, but what could I do if I dropped school after this year?
I won't try to pretend anymore. I really don't want to keep doing this. There are a few reasons.
I've tried for most of this year to like classes and everything, but I just can't. I know Physics is important, but I simply don't care about it. I know writing is important, but I've taken my First Year Writing class twice now and still feel accomplished if I write 200 words for a 500 word assignment. Politics and Statistics were okay for a few weeks, but however much I try to convince myself I like those classes it just doesn't work. I have at least another year of that before I can focus most of my time on SE: http://www.se.rit.edu/pagefiles/docu...2013-09-08.pdf
I figured out that I would much rather learn on my own instead of have things rammed down my throat and be tested on it. All of the classes I liked in high school - all of them - were classes where I could easily finish my work and learn about things that weren't part of the curriculum afterwards: journalism/NP, Computer Science, Graphic Design. I only tolerated math, core science classes and history because I had a lot of good teachers. Have you ever wondered why I liked Journalism better than Geometry, but hated the rest of my English classes?
That being said, even the Computer Science/SE classes aren't that interesting right now. Even now I can say I learned most of what I know about programming and hardware on my own. Learning the code off the blackboard or a book just isn't the same. There were a few times this year where I was doing something in class that I had figured out on my own months or years before. Even if I could have just copied and pasted my old work and changed a little syntax, it still seemed so much less interesting the second time because it was for a project to be graded for class.
I attend every class and seek help outside of it. I take a lot of notes in class. I do my homework. I got a 58 (fifty eight) on the test after spring break. I will still be lucky to pass with a C in Physics, with the curve. I highly doubt I will pass Physics II at all. There is absolutely no way I will be keeping my scholarship and I don't want to be another college loan statistic.
I'll give that I'm decently smart, usually been in the Honors classes, graduated top of eighth grade, started here with AP credit and whatever but that can't make me care. Neither will the fact that I have a number of intelligent and/or successful people on both sides of my family and have been expected to be one of them since before I even started school. I'd rather write a block of code for a program or game I'm making on my own time than for one that's due on a deadline. There's not really much point in me doing something I don't like now if I'm going to end up doing something I probably won't like later. I remember a few years ago Mr. Lester asked if I really, actually wanted to go to college. Of course I said yes back then. I don't think that's true anymore.
I know what Dad will say. Something about how I am smart and can do this, and I'm just being lazy and I don't know the real world. Something about how I'll have to do things I don't like sooner or later, or I'll be a homeless person. There will most probably be something about how I shouldn't have wasted my spring playing video games, too. Aside from the fact that I have not been wasting my first year playing video games, maybe if it's possible that I have the capacity to get an A in Physics and Physics II next time around, if I sleep in the library and live off instant Ramen for the next four years, but that won't happen. I simply can't. I care too little about most of it. He can take a course in video game art, or string theory, or maybe particle physics and cosmology, and then we will have that conversation.
Thoughts?
Either way, I'll see you in a few weeks.