studiousness

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just curious:

regardless of how well you did in school, were you studious as a child? (i mean specifically for school, not as an independent hobby). if you you were, was it because you liked to study for school? or was it because you had no choice? if you weren't, was there any reason? or was is it simply because there was no particular reason to study?

did anything about your studiousness (or lack thereof) change as a teenager or college student?

As a young child, yes. I did very well at school, getting everything right and working at a much faster pace than my peers. I loved learning, absorbed everything and enjoyed every piece of work I was given. Ultimately I ended up being put forward for a scholarship at a private school when I was 8 years old, because the teacher at my state school didn't feel the school could accommodate my needs (positive reasons, not negative), and I won this scholarship and ended up studying there.

As I reached the end of primary school, aged 10-11, things started to go downhill. I became extremely disorganised as there were demands for me to remember things of my own more often - turning up with books, etc, rather than them already being in the classroom. I didn't get into the private secondary school at 11 years old (mutual choice, though I think they were very glad I agreed with them) and through my time at a state secondary school from 11-18 things just got worse and worse.

I became extremely disorganised, learned how to do the minimum amount of work to pass at a level that I considered to be 'acceptable' rather than good, and continued that way. I very rarely did homework because my special interest had really taken over, my executive functioning issues meant that I often turned up to classes without my work or even a pen/pencil, and as I didn't have friends and had trouble speaking I also withdrew and stopped trying to join in with my classes.

I did leave school with grades that a lot of people would have been very happy with, and they were certainly fine for me as they were the minimum I required to get into university, but I know I had a lot of unmet potential. University was much of the same - I enjoyed a good project to get stuck into, but struggled with management of multiple subjects taking place at once and didn't interact well with the other students. I ended up burning out a bit in my final year and much of it is a blur, but again I passed with an acceptable/good degree.

I was told early on that you went to school to study, learn and get so grades... so I did that. I also enjoyed school as a young person. I liked the subjects and the quiet classroom environment. School was something like an escape from my chaotic household as well. I went to a gifted type of school and many of the kids there had 'quirks' so I was fortunate to escape bullying. Elementary school was a pleasant experience for me.

I remember in 7th grade being informed that I would have to sit on a stage with other students in an honor roll assembly. I told the counselor guy that I would do not such thing. He said I had to. I skipped school that day and then proceeded to get one C each marking period that year to avoid that hassle. Middle school proved to be overwhelming to me with the class switching, loud people and so on. Further, I became a 'bad' kid most likely in response to my household, so school/studying became less and less my sanctuary and I tried to find contentedness elsewhere as I became a teen. I ended up homeless at one point and living in this lady's basement with her son eventually. I dropped out of school got a jb and sailed through an adult ed program where I excelled.

I did do some college, and while I very much applied myself, did my work, studied, enjoyed the material, and so on... I never have figured out how to consistently do college education and not become overwhelmed by it all. Love the work, hate the classes. Even internet classes can overwhelm me as the tend to involve a consistent social aspect (be it regular message board interactions or regular visits to a testing center) and I lack consistency in being socially tolerant... sometimes it is simply more than I know how to handle and I shutdown. I like the learning part, dislike the people part.

No, I wasn't studious in school----I was always bored, and thought the teachers were stupid.

No. I hated homework and studying with a passion. School was torture, and then they torture you even more when you go home. Never mind other things you do besides schoolwork that are also important. But I did read a lot of books as a kid. But that was for fun. I guess the way to make a kid hate learning anything is to make them do it in school.

i remember until the end of elementary school i actually liked school, compared to home. most of my days, the only relief from boredom outside of school was tv, which was a very limited form of entertainment. i was a straight-a student, but i never actually opened a schoolbook at home if it wasn't strictly required for some kind of homework. i remember in middle school my usual way of doing homework was by figuring out what kinds of things each teacher paid attention to. like, some teachers would give four-page assignments but only read the first and last paragraphs. so i'd only do those two paragraphs, and everything else was just filler text copied straight from the schoolbook. i talked a lot during classes, but i wasn't loud, and teachers either assumed "i was helping" other kids or they just didn't mind that i wasn't paying attention, because my grades were good anyway

it also made a huge difference to me that i had no classes in the morning. everything changed dramatically once i started middle school and had classes every day in the morning. i had to use several alarm clocks at once, and i was often late for school anyway. i slept a lot during classes. bullying started to be a more constant problem, and there was also all the preoccupation with girls. my mood started to get a lot worse, and i started to hate school. but i had a friend i used to talk to every day during breaks, and my grades were still great for the most part (other than a c here and there on phys ed or "behavior" )

in high school, skipping classes became a possibility, so most of the time i didn't even show up, or i only showed up to sign the attendance sheet and then i snuck out. my grades were still mostly good, but in my country it doesn't make any difference for college, so all i cared about was passing the classes. i was more concerned with effective ways to cheat than anything else (as were all my friends at the time). we came up with rotating schemes so everyone could be as lazy as possible. one person would do the homework, and then everybody else would copy it with slight variations. i did study a lot for my college entrance exam, but it wasn't hard, it was just boring and stressful (as far as i was concerned, failing was simply not an acceptable possibility). it was one exam, and i was really determined to go to a good university, which i did. i thought "if i pass this exam, i'll just be back to my regular routine of learning without studying". i was wrong

for the first time, i was faced with tons of very complex topics that didn't interest me at all, and that i knew i would never use (too much math), and most classes were in the morning. all of a sudden, i actually had to study. not just for one exam, but dozens. and unlike my entrance exam, all of it was new content rather than old and easy stuff i just needed to review. which was something i had never learned how to deal with on a regular basis (and still haven't and probably never will). too many competing priorities. my mind freezes, and in the end i don't give the proper attention to any of those priorities. i ended up playing video games most of the time

i kept insisting, doing things the way i knew how to do them (almost never showing up for classes, studying on my own at the very last minute), and i got close to graduating after 7-8 years (instead of 4). but then i realized that graduating wasn't the end, it was just the beginning, and things wouldn't be much better at all for me if i got a corporate job (which would be practically guaranteed after my graduation) or if i managed to stay in academia despite my spotty history in college (there were professors who wanted me to keep working for them, so it was an actual possibility). my anxiety levels skyrocketed. boom! collapse. and here i am

both of my parents are teachers. i was raised to believe that you just need to go to school, and then your life will be magically figured out. it turns out that that's not how it works... unsurprisingly, both my brother and my sister (and even my sister-in-law) work in academia. it's all that they know

I hated studding. I'm dyslexic & an auditory learner. I read very slow compared to my peers but had an above average reading comprehension. I also have ADD & daydream & zone out instead of reading. I did not learn from studying.