Welcome Back Gray, part two

I found the entire thing a little bit ironic - those of you who have known me since my university days know that back then I was a horrible student, and probably couldn't have been less interested in computer science. I should amend the "horrible" statement - I actually did quite well in my first year and my last year (coincidentally, the years of my degree that I wasn't distracted with women and drama classes) but I am not terribly proud of the middle years of my degree. Sure, there were some great things that happened in those years, but *none* of them were of a scholastic nature.

I went through almost my entire degree program having many profs that ranted/yelled at me about "wasted potential". I thought they were just being blowhards, but they were right...I really should have made more out of my time at the U. I once scored a 10% - that's right, ten percent - on a statistics mid-term, and I got that for writing my name. Realizing I was in great danger of failing the class, and also flunking out of my degree program, I crammed hardcore two weeks before the final. For this, I was hauled into his room after the final and accused of cheating, because he thought that scoring a 10% on a mid-term and a 90% on the final were not congruent. Even after he realized I hadn't cheated on the exam, he was still angry. I couldn't figure this out, until he turned to me and asked...

"Do you have any understanding of what you could have done in this class had you actually been applying yourself?"

And that answer would have been "obviously, no". ;) Honestly, this didn't sink in *at any time* during my degree program. I was too busy thinking about how I would one day be going to NY to acting school and that these classes were therefore completely irrelevant to me! =)

The truth is, I was a *huge* slacker in university compared to what I *could* have done if I had even tried a tenth as hard, and when I first got out of the U this carried over professionally; I treated things as if it was always someone else's fault, it was never my problem, and it was (of course) never my lack of effort that was the difficulty. ;) Certainly I think this is a large reason as to why my first employment opportunity (at a place in Edmonton while I was still at the U) was pretty much a disaster by anyone's reckoning...I can say with complete confidence I was less competent than almost any employee of any other job I've had since (with a notable few exceptions). =) I'm not sure what actually snapped me out of this destructive mentality, but it might have been facing a year of unemployment and considering selling myself on the street to make money (1).

This is actually the sad truth as to how I'm able to detect a bad attitude or someone who is simply going through life making excuses - because I've been there, and been worse than *any* of these people! Honestly, I've been interviewing people before where I've privately thought, "This guy is just like you several years back ...there's *no* way he's a hire!" =)

In the end though, I'm still grateful for the experiences I had at the U...if I *had* been applying myself at the degree, my life would have been a very different place and might not have ended up where it did today - and I kind of like where it ended up today!! =)

Peace,
-J

(1) And let me tell you, if I had done that, it would have been some *serious* money!!