[OT] destroy all software (was Programming language WATs)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mvloclloufauudewjnrj at dfeed.kimsufi.thecybershadow.net...
>
> First off, they required all the first year students
> to live on campus. WTF. And, of course, they required
> these exorbitant fees for all that too.
>

At BGSU, they required first *and* second year students to live on campus. 
They had some sort of bullshit excuse about "bettering yourself" or some 
other such meaningless crap like that.

But that's not the bad part: There was one year (that I *know* of) where 
they had more first and second year students then they had dorms for. 
Obviously, they couldn't do the sane thing and relax the requirement (after 
all, that might make BGSU look bad!), so they made a bunch of students (not 
me, luckily) *live* together in the dorm's lounge rooms. That was one of 
first of many "College, WTF?!" moments for me. (I had thought Animal House 
was fiction!)

>
> Best of all, I have my own bathroom and kitchen. And it's
> quiet here, pretty much all day and all night. I live next
> to a fire station, and it's infinitely more quiet
> than living next to college drunkards.
>

And even in the dorms, you still get the middle-of-the-night fire alarms 
anyway (speaking of drunks). But in the place you have, I bet you don't have 
to leave the house every time it happens...

>
> The classes are OK, but the other crap they *required*
> just gets a huge HELL NO.
>

I was...sort of...the other way around (kinda):

There was admittedly a lot about campus life that was terrible, but there 
was also a lot about it that I loved and still sometimes miss (Many 
intangibles, but also the panini sandwiches at the campus convenience store! 
Yum! Much as BGSU sucked, they *did* have very good dining halls as long as 
you avoided anything resembling asian).

Even though there were a *few* very good teachers/classes, it was mostly the 
academic (and administrative, financial and bureaucratic) aspects I had a 
problem with. Oh, and the drunks, of course.

> Aaanyway, I did round two at the community college,
> and switched to computer science figuring an AS in
> computers is probably more useful than in physics,
> and is something I should be able to turn around
> quickly.
>
> And that wasn't bad at all. Government grants paid
> for the whole thing (for three semesters... I had
> already eaten a huge chunk of them in year 1) and
> I could live wherever I wanted.
>
> I might be ok with finishing that off someday if my
> business crashed and burned (and nobody took my years
> of experience as a substitute for college), but
> since the free money ran out, even the three or
> four grand they'd want to finish it off just doesn't
> look worth it.
>

Heh, I finished off with community college, too!

I started college (in 2000) with 2.5 years at BGSU (public party school, and 
in retrospect, the *best* of all the colleges I've been to, not that that's 
saying much). I had an absolutely terrible apartment situation the last 
semester (Lesson: *Never* get into a student-oriented apt complex with 
management that's based out-of-state. Especilly if it's leased by anything 
longer than month-to-month.)

So then I transferred to JCU (private school, highly-respected, at least 
locally) so I could commute and save on living expenses. Was there for 1.5 
years, retaking all the same CS classes I had already aced at BGSU (because 
JCU didn't believe I could possibly know what I was doing - I was merely a 
"student" after all - and an "undergrad" at that). Although it was 
technically 1.5 years, the last semester I was so jaded I was really only 
there physically; I wasn't actually trying at all, and I didn't care to. So 
they did put me on a one-semester academic suspension, but it didn't matter 
since I was already done with them by that point anyway. (It was somewhere 
in the middle of my time at JCU that I decided I genuinely *wanted* to not 
have a degree. I know that sounds like a rationalization to most people, but 
I swear it really isn't one for me.)

At that point I went to the super-cheap[1] local Lakeland Community College 
part time, mainly so I could keep the ~$100k (yes, that's right) I'd racked 
up in loans out of repayment until I could actually pay them (for the 
record: I still can't :/ ). At the first two schools, I had been declared CS 
all four years from day one. Did it differently at LCC: *Officially*, I was 
going for...I think it was some sort of EE associate's or something like 
that, but really I took the opportunity to *for once in my life* actually 
take the classes that *I wanted* to take[2]. I even took an acting class 
that I absolutely loved; heck, it was the only class in my life I was 
genuinely sad to see end (and then I took a second one that...umm...didn't 
work out so well...)

That community college is very highly regarded locally, and I was fairly 
impressed with it - at first. Then the staff, administrators, and one or two 
very specific instructors, kept finding all manner of new and creative ways 
to severely fuck me over. Eventually their demands got *so* unreasonable, 
and their bullshit *so* deep, that I just said "Fuck it, I'm done." That was 
probably about six-ish years ago. Things haven't been easy since (Hah! Like 
they ever were!), but I've never had a hint of regret about leaving. I have, 
however, had many regrets about having ever gottn involved in the first 
place. And I've also had many regrets about having listened to the people 
who talked me into not cutting my losses much sooner than I actually did. 
("You've already gotten this far, you may as well get something out of it!" 
Yea, *thanks*, all you self-righteous assholes, now my debt is double what 
it would have been.)

[1] That's "super-cheap" relatively speaking: it's still insanely expensive 
(and less effective) compared to a good library. Or even a good bookstore.

[2] That was one of the many things I despised about college. I had always 
been told that in college, unlike high school (which made my miserable 
college experience seem like utopia by comparison) you choose your area of 
study. But that turned out to be a load of crap - unless you go to a tech 
school, 65%-75% of credits are completely unrelated to your major and it's 
*dictated* that you take them. (Academically, college literally *is* an 
expensive redo of high school). Now, I might have not minded the lack of 
self-direction, except that *I* was the one paying tens of thousands of $$$ 
for the classes!  Who the fuck has ever heard of, say, a grocery store that 
told people which of their stock they could and couldn't buy? *Everyone* in 
faculty/staff thought I was nuts for seeing it that way. In their mind, 
you're *expected* to be happy paying them a fortune for the privilege of 
being told what you're allowed to learn. Talk about narcissism.