<p>I'm actually the reverse of you guys. I had an absolutely horrible time in middle school. So horrible that everytime I run into one of my former classmates and find out that they're addicted to drugs, pregnant, packing groceries etc. I laugh. I ran into one a couple months back and took nothing but joy in basking in the fact that this person was obviously avoiding my eyes while she was packing my groceries. She was horribly overweight, looked liked she'd been working a minimum wage job for at least two years and was a definite smoker. </p>
<p>High school was a lot better but I was a slacker. I was able to get A's without really applying myself. My family ran into some real-life problems during this time however which led to bigger financial problems and this kinda forced everyone to put higher education on the back burner. I met some great people in the process though and I love running into old friends whenever I'm back at home to see how they're doing.</p>
<p>After graduating, I didn't have enough money to go to post-secondary. My family was first issue, so off to work I went. After we got back on our feet again, I decided it was time to go to university, something I never really thought about when I was in high school due to circumstances beyond my control. Deciding that I had enough of living in Toronto, I decided to pack up and move to Montreal, try and learn French, get a job and live off student loans.</p>
<p>First semester, I failed a class and dropped another. After that, I worked my butt off to get a 3.0 GPA, which was incredibly hard to get at McGill (it's not exactly a school where grade inflation runs rampant, it's actually quite the opposite).</p>
<p>Going into second year. I have an apartment in Montreal, a job to pay rent, my French is improving and I'm brushing up on my Math (which I never really did back in the day).</p>
<p>What was/is your major, MacTech?</p>
<p>Nearly lost a full ride to Berkeley 1st year. Came within .013 points of losing it. </p>
<p>Yeah, that was a wake up call. Fortunately, that motivated me enough to keep it. </p>
<p>I wouldn't really blame it on partying though. More of an existential crisis causing me to lose all interest in my coursework. Yeah, I'm weird...</p>
<p>Was in the Honors Program at Nebraska. Poor first semester (largely due to an 830 MWF Honors Seminar with an attendance policy) screwed me. I couldn't make it to those friday morning classes after being out the night before partying. Couldn't make it up second semester, and couldn't take hours during the summer b/c of a camp counseling job I got in another state. I wrote a nasty letter to the program director about the policy requiring summer hours to be from the University in order to stave off any dismissal, which probably didn't help my case. I ended up never actually reaching the grade cutoff at the end of any year anyways until I graduated. So it really wasn't meant to be. The honors program "reward" was a book scholarship which was cool my freshman year b/c they paid for the books and then you could sell them back for straight profit. The subsequent years, that was changed as the University was in a budget crunch...so technically I was there for the best year of the program.</p>
<p>Elementary Ed is my major.</p>
<p>And I hear you about profs screwing you. I got screwed in a mandatory freshman class because the guy didn't like my opinions. He gave me a friggin B+ instead of an A because he didn't agree with me about reverse discrimination on a paper--and the prompt CLEARLY stated to state your opinion.</p>
<p>At least it wasn't as devistating as my high school friend. She wrote an opinion paper about taking trips and the dude didn't like it. She rewrote it by changing a few things but sticking to her honest opinion, which is what the paper wanted. He called her a spoiled brat to her face. Needless to say this put the poor girl in tears and caused her parents to complain to the office. The dude who had her write the paper was yelled at. Not the first time this dude has done something like that either. (the dude in question was a band director)</p>