I Can't Wait!

<p>i am not trying to put these students down...</p>

<p>i have no feelings of resentment towards them... rather, i am frustrated with the situation...it seems like there are very few people around me who share my interest of succeeding academically, and that is what makes me look forward to college next year. Hopefully i will find myself surrounded by more intellectuals (i assume that such students will make up a larger part of the student body since they obviously had to show some interest in the academic realm to get accepted...)</p>

<p>The students at my highschool have made their choices, and i, in no way, hold that against them. i think that a large part of the problem is that (at least in my state) students AND their parents incorrectly assume that in-state schools will be more inexpensive than out of state schools NO MATTER WHAT...thus they take the minimum amount of classes that will allow them to get accepted to these state schools and do not challenge themselves...
i really wish they were better informed...</p>

<p>my advice: as hard as it may be to take...enjoy high school!!! college sounds like (and definitely is!!!) a blast, but there's so much you have right now that you're never gonna get back...your own bed, good food, a chance to shower without flip flops...anyone care to add to the list?</p>

<p>lol, but i can't blame you for being pumped about college...i definitely was (and still am!!!) too...:p</p>

<p>
[quote]

i have no feelings of resentment towards them... rather, i am frustrated with the situation...it seems like there are very few people around me who share my interest of succeeding academically, and that is what makes me look forward to college next year. Hopefully i will find myself surrounded by more intellectuals (i assume that such students will make up a larger part of the student body since they obviously had to show some interest in the academic realm to get accepted...)

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</p>

<p>There will still be a lot of people in college who don't care about their academics (as hard as it is to believe), but keep a positive and open attitude about it, forget about those people you're so frustrated about, and just simply surround yourself with people you who you aren't frustrated with. Problem solved.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Sorry, but I completely disagree. That's basically, to me, blaming your circumstances on anything but your own choices you made (in other words, "deterministic factors"). Those don't exist in my opinion. There is influence but not enough to attribute an environment as deterministic. You're either responsible for the choices you make or you hide in a corner and pick scapegoat(s) for your circumstances and become those kind of people. We are not talking about absolute power but rather absolute realization of free will.

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<p>I completely disagree. If you live somewhere where 80%+ of the families have a single mother, the whole neighborhoods struggle to pay bills, drug dealers (17-22 year olds) on the corners, bars on all the store windows, 80% of kids from 14-22 carry a gun, travel in gangs, 75% drop out rate in high school, where if you venture into another neighborhood it might be the last thing you do... I think that might cause you to make different decisions. You can't just get up and leave. And even if you can, what are you gonna do moving a 17 year old with a 7th grade education who made his money dealing drugs on the street corner to the country? You can take the kid out of the ghetto, but taking the ghetto out of the kid is a completely different story.</p>

<p>There's an entire discipline that studies this: Sociology. Check out "Code of the Street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city" by Elijah Anderson.</p>

<p>I'm not saying the OP's situation is like this, it's not at all. BUT, if you haven't noticed, you can't just jump from poor to wealthy. And you cannot always make the decisions that you "know you should." Some of these kids at the OP's school, will likely turn out for the better. Maybe they will transfer to a 4 year school. Maybe they will get their associates degree. If they are going to community college, they will be better off than a lot of people.</p>

<p>That is all good if you believe that we don't ever have the ability to transcend a situation in our mind and simply make new choices (whether they are "bad" or not is not the point, but simply the fact that you were able to make choices outside of the influence generated by the environment).</p>

<p>Of course you can't immediately jump from poor to wealthy or unmotivated to motivated. However, to better illustrate what I am trying to say, I will present a personal example...</p>

<p>I was totally unmotivated in early high school. I blamed it on my environment. I was getting many C's and D's and even F's in some report cards. With a divorced family, no goals to strive for in life, lack of hobbies, lack of character, lack of friends, and siblings and other people in school putting you down constantly, you can bet that I became pretty unmotivated about school. Later on, I ran away from home and this event turned around my life forever.</p>

<p>When I came back, however, I realized that I could make many new choices. I decided<a href="and%20made%20a%20commitment">/i</a> to limit my time on the video games, I *decided to join DECA and other clubs in school, I decided to start a new hobby of making websites instead of browsing the Internet aimlessly, I decided to try and be more open minded, and I decided that suicide or running away is never an option. Because of these commitments I made, I am no longer the unmotivated and depressed person I was before. Yes, it took a long time, but now I am no longer that kind of person. And that was because I became responsible for myself. I was already starting to notice changes. Almost all A's on the report cards, a couple of new friends that I am still keeping in touch with even now, less people "picking" on me, found some goals to strive for in life, and blah blah blah so on.</p>

<p>I hate to talk about myself so much, but I figured it would be the best example to give you. I hope you understand what I am trying to explain here. This is all, of course, in light of how many students in school blame their depression or lack of motivation on outside factors that seem "deterministic" to them.</p>

<p>I remember an example question that was given in a class last semester: if a poor person who was unaware or careless of the dangers of the drug scene was given the choice to either sell drugs and get lots of money or go work at McDonalds for minimum wage, which would they likely choose? Most might choose the first, right? If they did, then they chose that out of ignorance. And ignorance, to me, is the refusal of acknowledgement. I am not saying that they are an ignorant person overall. However, since they did not take the time to even do some research of any kind to examine the drug scene and the risks involved, then how can they blame what happens to them on anything else other then themselves?</p>

<p>And suppose they did do some research of some kind. In that case, they ought to realize that what happens to them is indeed their own fault for making the choice to enter the drug scene in the first place anyway.</p>

<p>I wrote a 7 page paper on this sort of topic one time, but it's very philosophical and hard for a lot of people to understand unless they have read certain philosophers. Otherwise, I would've summarized what I said in that which really shows what I am trying to convey to you.</p>

<p>I think everything that ever needs to be said regarding the free will vs. determinism debate has already been said.</p>

<p>I've argued for and against both sides and have basically come to the conclusion that this metaphysical nonsense is simply a waste of time.</p>

<p>Now, in regards to Incompleteness Theorems, those are much more interesting lol</p>

<p>:-/</p>

<p>Yeah, I suppose that it could be a waste of time, but it's always fun to think about. Plus, each person participating in the debate has the opportunity to reexamine their beliefs and perhaps refine their method of debate or argument if needed (including myself). So, the results are, in some cases, two sides refining their method of debate and/or belief systems. So I guess you can get something out of it. Plus, who doesn't think about these things on their own anyway? ; )</p>

<p>LAgal, I so agree. Both (high school and college) are fun and interesting and depressing and weird in their own ways. The showering w/o flip flops made me laugh. :)</p>

<p>adconard</p>

<p>I see what you're saying, but I also would point out that you were in a setting where other people were experiencing success, and tried to make decisions that would let you follow those paths. You acknowledge that those decisions were very hard, and took time, and I would say that if you had no positive goal to shoot for, and everyone else in the school was experiencing the same thing you were, that you very possibly would not have changed the decisions that you had been making.</p>

<p>Obviously, we disagree somewhat (which there is nothing wrong with) =P</p>

<p>I disagree that looking at the effects a society has [or doesn't have] on an individual is not important.</p>

<p>But anyway, to the OP - if you want to find motivated people in college to hang out with, you can. If you want to find people who drink too much and do drugs, you can do that as well. Once you are there, it's up to you what you make of it.</p>

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Once you are there, it's up to you what you make of it.

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<p>That is something I can strongly agree with.</p>

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I disagree that looking at the effects a society has [or doesn't have] on an individual is not important.

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<p>I would say that it depends on the situation. Sure, in some situations, there is a stronger *influence<a href="note%20that%20I%20do%20not%20mean%20stronger%20deterministic%20factors">/i</a> going on, but in the end, like you said, "it's up to you what you make of it".</p>

<p>
[quote]
metaphysical nonsense is simply a waste of time.

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</p>

<p>When you are talking about merely social influences, metaphysics has little to do with it.</p>

<p>But even if you want to discuss metaphysical determinism, the discussion will be useless, not because it is nonsense, but because the conclusions are worthless whether or not they demonstrate determinism.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I wrote a 7 page paper on this sort of topic one time

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</p>

<p>Whoa! Oh baby that is huge... [roll eyes]</p>

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Whoa! Oh baby that is huge... [roll eyes]

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<p>Never said it was huge. Just saying that I have formally researched the topic extensively at one time.</p>

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Just saying that I have formally researched the topic extensively at one time.

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<p>Six pages in no way constitutes extensive research on a subject; a dissertation or honors thesis, however, does.</p>

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Six pages in no way constitutes extensive research on a subject

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i completely disagree with this. Yes a thesis is definately a more in-depth study of a subject, but what he was trying to say was that he has, in fact, done a good deal of research, and thus knows more about the subject than the average person. </p>

<p>Do you mean that EVERYTHING anyone has ever written in their lives that occupies less than 60 pages was a waste of time? Obviously that is crazy...</p>

<p>Do not try to dismiss his knowledge of the subject because you may have done research on it for your thesis...just because you may know more about it than a person who has "only" written 7 pages on it does not mean that those 7 pages are full of false information...</p>

<p>
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Do you mean that EVERYTHING anyone has ever written in their lives that occupies less than 60 pages was a waste of time? Obviously that is crazy...

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</p>

<p>That was not implied by my post.</p>

<p>
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ust because you may know more about it than a person who has "only" written 7 pages on it does not mean that those 7 pages are full of false information...

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</p>

<p>Nor was this implied.</p>

<p>Once again, a mere six pages does not constitute substantial research. Dissertations and honors theses are instances in which substantial research is performed; there could be other manifestations.</p>

<p>Fair enough nspeds, I can agree with that. Five or six books/articles on the subject is a mere fraction of what is really out there. But the fact still stands that I did do at least some research on the subject. That was the point I was trying to get across anyway in the first place. Unfortunately, I am not a philosophy major although I think I might double major with computer science one of these days because it's too fascinating of a subject to me.</p>

<p>
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But the fact still stands that I did do at least some research on the subject.

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</p>

<p>That is a much better claim. Thanks.</p>

<p>It sucks that the OP is making rude comments about kids that are... let's say... "below" him, yet he has a point.</p>

<p>In college, we'll find people that are more similar to us, level of intelligence, motivation, ect. It's not the work load that makes high school tough, it's the people. So the OP probably feels college will be easier with the new people in college.</p>

<p>People are probably thinking that the OP has too big of an EGO, but at least he has the guts to express how he feels. I bet tons of people on this board feels the same way, but feel too shameful to admit it. </p>

<p>I totally feel where you are coming from, (OP) because at times I feel the same way. Tired of the kids from high school, hoping that college will bring new blood.</p>

<p>Yup, I'll admit it, I felt like the OP when I was in high school.</p>

<p>I think you're all in for a big let down if you think every college student sits around having intellectual conversations all day.</p>