Funny how now it's been about 1 year. I'm not a senior in high school now, i'm a freshmen in college. And my opinions have all changed.
At college there really aren't too many stupid, dangerous people. Even the drug users are some of the smartest. A lot of my previous opinions were fairly unfounded. But my viewpoints have changed. I certainly don't hate the drug users anymore. In a society like we have, marijuana should be the least of our worries. Legalize it, take the power from the criminals, and put a fat tax on it, get some money going back into the system rather than through a chain of criminal hands that leads back to south america or somethin.
Alcohol, i really can't make a huge argument about because it's been with humans for thousands of years. Use it, but don't abuse it. It shouldn't be about "getting drunk," it should be able spending quality time with your friends and new friends, and if some alchol gets your buddied talking more and creates a more fun atmosphere, then power to you. So long as it's not the center of the party right.
Now more about what i wrote earlier. I'm still kinda elitist, i don't mourn the passing of everybody, and i strongly believe in natural selection and weeding out the weak. But i don't put so much stock in academics anymore. So what if people don't do well at it... eventually most people fall into place and find something to do. School just isn't structured to work well for everyone. I'm really, especially disappointed with the academics of college life. I have found UC Berkeley to be a computer hardware wasteland, where i'm pretty much an outcast. Hell, i was anticipating making an overclocking club, i can only find about 3 people out of SO many people i've talked to who understand what i'm talking about.
I placed so much stock in high school. For years i told myself i was right. Do well in high school, go to a good college, do nothing but work, and then get a good job. Only, it isn't so simple. I worked my ass off in high school, and my "reward" was to come here, to UC Berkeley, with one of the top ranked Computer Engineering programs in the world. But what have i found out... no one here has a passion for computer hardware, i have found no "hands on," stuff. It seems that everything here is reduced to cryptic theoretical stuff... needless to say, not what i was expecting! I had told myself for years to put up with the BS of high school, and i'd get set free in college to a place where everyone understood me, where i could make an OC club, borrow dry ice from the Chemistry department and conduct experiments, learn soldering and create boards. O
Oh i dreamed of so much, but hell no, nothing has come to pass. The other people in my major are in it for the money. They are pretty much: "I'm smart so i'm taking this stuff so i can get a good job and get rich. I don't care so much about the stuff, i just took the hardest, highest paying major possible because i'm the smartest guy from my town." lol... not quite what i wanted! All the guys are into software too. And i hate software, hate it with a passion. I just wanted a straight up Electrical Engineering major... EECS at UC Berkeley is Electrical Engineering and Computer Science stuck into a super major. When i first told people i was in EECS, they told me i was crazy. I thought they were dumb - surely i was smart enough to handle it. Nope...
My college grades have sucked, i have to admit. I have pretty much stopped trying. Everything i have come to believe in popped like a big balloon. College wasn't an agency of open thought, it's a conveyor belt where you get rushed through theoretical classes that attempt to teach you how to think, and only teach you one way, and that way is long, arduous, and has more Greek symbols than i'd care to know.
Needless to say, my whole philosophies on life have changed. No more is it about trying 100% in high school and working through college to become an automatron. It's about finding something you like, a real passion, and following it and only it. I have been so pissed off because i know exactly what i want to do with my life, and it seems like this college isn't getting me any closer to it... everything we've done so far is highly hands off, theoretical BS. In Calculus II they had the guts to tell us that "The only reason you're learning this math is so that you understand how a calculator works." Oh well i feel just great knowing that some great mathematicians labored away inventing calculators so that i WOULDN'T have to do this crap, and here i am doing it anyway because these old guys think it'll build character or something.
Truth is i know just what i want to do. I guess this school was a bad choice for me, but i think college doesn't fit many people either. I know one of my friends at my college was going to go into Mechanical Engineering - that was his passion! He decided not to though, because it was too hard. Can you believe this, the system is so hard that it's keeping people away from their goals. I can't agree with that at all.
I have to admit, at Berkeley, the teachers aren't great... the teaching system isn't great. In fact i haven't learned much... and i can't say the teachers are on a much higher level than high school teachers. In fact, my high school Calc teacher kicks the crap out of all the teachers here. He spoke in UN-ACCENTED english, in a way i could easily grasp and understand. Only now do i miss him, only now do i miss high school. HS wasn't so full of crap, the teachers weren't so bad, they were all nice, chill people. College teachers are just geniuses in their tiny little respective fields, all with big accents, these guys are basically imported straight out of Eastern Europe to teach here. And the Graduate Student Instructors (TAs) are graduate students - they have their own crap to do! I have had GSIs that didn't care one bit about the students
. So, i'm very disilluioned. My last blog has me putting all my stock in academics and a hard work mentality. Look where it has gotten me, into a crappy institution that's all about theory. Now, i am tired of it. I didn't realize colleges were so fulla crap. They don't really teach any better than high school, they just make stuff harder. Take Physics and Calculus for instance. In high school it was explained well to me, i understood all of it, i got nothing but As. Here... the work isn't even that much harder. It's barely more difficult. Yet, it isn't explaiend at all. My professors go on long chalk-scrawling rants deriving equations and putting them together. Seeing the evolution of an equation is interesting (not) but doesn't help me do the homework at all. I've really struggled with the homework and tests - this stuff just doesn't sink into my head. I hear a teacher rambling with some thick Eastern European accent, they write pretty fast. And get this, when they write something they stand in front of it while they explain it, and then move off to the side and start writing more very fast. So i have to figure out what the previous thing was when they explain the new thing. See what i mean? They can't take a second to slow down... they don't do easy example problems. Everything is like "You guys made it to Berkeley, you're smart, figure it out." I'm like.... i am not paying 24,000 dollars a year for this! WTF mate...
So now, ive got a different approach to life. Enjoy yourself in high school, do lots of cool and interesting things, figure out what you like. Go to a community college and get a keener sense for that passion of yours. Work your way up once you know what you want, and you're good at it. With the money saved by going to a community college, you should ultimately tend to do graduate school, and really specialize, once you know what you want and you're past all the (EXCEEDINGLY PAINFUL) undergraduate BS. Guys that are 14-17, take it slow, figure it out, and with colleges work your way up. The whole American mentality of setting straight off to College with no idea of what you want is so flawed, and that's why people end up coming out of college jobless because they can't find a job they want. You have to do a job you enjoy to succeed. If you are in a field of work because it pays well, or because it was the easy thing to do, you probably won't enjoy it!
So that's what i had to say. I don't mind partying now, whereas before i would /slay the "hedonistic" people. Can't believe i used that word. Life is too short to worry about crap. Too short to spend time in college doing BS classes like me. I'd rather be outside doing stuff than locked away in this tiny dorm room i share with 2 people.
I plan on transferring to another UC (University of California) where i can do a straight up EE major. It shoudl be much easier than at this school, and more hands on. I want to get a Bachelors in EE, and with money saved from NOT going to UCB, afford graduate training in Thermal Engineering or something. Ultimately, it would please me if i could design computer cooling solutions. I dont know if that would work out in the end, but anything in that direction would make me a happy man.
Hope some readers learn from my mistakes.