The smart underacheiver's guide to acheiving (rough draft)

College Life
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<p>k so i got a lot of c's and d's in high school despite a 2280 sat, went to community college, did actual work, and now i'm at ucla (the real intro will sound better)</p>

<p>k so first you need a motivation, your motivation is probably that you want to get laid, i knew this hot chick who got into harvard so my plan was to graduate early and go to harvard grad school and impress her by being all successful and stuff (i'm no longer on track to graduate early)</p>

<p>second you need to let yourself get overwhelmed, pack your schedule with as much as possible, the semester after i got motivated i took honors classes, did school newspaper, tutored, and took a full load of 5 regular classes. i ended up dropping all of that, that's not ideal, you want to end up sticking with some of it, but it's the feeling of being overwhelmed that will really help you</p>

<p>third, go to a psychiatrist and get diagnosed with something, add, bipolar, depression, insomnia, it doesn't really matter, just get a medication and take it until you realize that it isn't helping you and nothing is wrong with you mentally, it's just your will holding you back.</p>

<p>take summer classes so that you don't get lazy again in the fall, fall is death for underachievers, this isn't point four though</p>

<p>point four is that you should gradually build yourself up again, doing more and more things until you're doing as much as you were doing at that first point of being overwhelmed, but now you're not overwhelmed (i still haven't gotten here, i'm not in any clubs and don't have a job)</p>

<p>point five will only happen if the other ones work and you get into a good school, realize that your intelligence alone means jack at a place where everyone else is intelligent, and that you need hard work to stand out, then realize this carries over to the real world and...</p>

<p>bam, you're an achiever</p>

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<p>thats pretty much what i did, only i skipped the whole effing up part after getting motivated and the whole recovery process that follows. i was in like six clubs that semester and got all As anyway.</p>

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<p>good, i had a feeling my process was too convoluted</p>

<p>time to distill it to the basics for my final draft</p>

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<p>if you’re smart, major in math, applied math, physics, astrophysics, statistics, or CS (where most of the professors teach out of the book/notes and don’t even care if you skip class) and just skip class and go there for exams (that’s what many caltech students do). hell, just torrent the solution manuals for them (but do make sure you know how to do the exercises - it’s really debateable what learning tactic really works best, and what works for one doesn’t work for another). the exams are easier than the homework anyways. </p>

<p>plus, if you fail at getting into the job market, you can still get a phd in a field that won’t screw you over for life (and grad schools are a lot more forgiving on low gpas than other departments - just do really well on the subject GRE).</p>

<p>also, there are no excuses for laziness, but at least adderall helps you get past sticky situations, and it also helps you develop the initial “activation energy” to force you through things.</p>

<p>also, if you go to a fairly cheap school or can take breaks, then use those to your advantage and take more than 4 years to graduate. do make sure that you’re actually getting something out of your break time though (honestly I recommend it just so that you can read so many books from the university libraries).</p>

<p>==</p>

<p>by the way, i’m not a partier and i hardly play computer games (nor will I advocate anyone else to do those things). i still try to learn as much as possible within my means. i just have to do what i do due to severe ADHD and social anxiety.</p>

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<p>it’s all a true story, bro</p>

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<p>So you haven’t even gotten to step four yet you somehow know step five is foolproof?</p>

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<p>That was the worst written, uninformed thing I have read today.</p>

<p>The only way for an underachiever to become an achiever is to CHANGE. Change your priorties, attitudes, etc.</p>

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<p>I don’t necessarily think all unmotivated people don’t belong in school, I think it’s more complex than that. For me, my learning disabilities weren’t diagnosed until sophomore year of college and I was unmotivated because I thought I COULDN’T do well-- it wasn’t until I got those diagnoses that things changed. It wasn’t as though I didn’t want to learn, I really did and education was important to me, but I had given up really trying to achieve because it was just like slamming my head against a brick wall repeatedly anyway and I never got anywhere-- until I got my diagnosis. Had I given up altogether and just joined the workforce I probably would never have come back to school, and that would have been a colossal waste to me and to society. I am perfectly capable of doing well.</p>

<p>I would guess there are a lot more underachievers than one would think that had a similar situation to me. Lack of motivation isn’t always the same thing as laziness or unwillingness to learn, sometimes it’s a lot more than that.</p>

<p>My point in posting before wasn’t that the OP’s suggestions were a good idea, more that they were a complete waste of time. This post here largely has nothing to do with OP, I am more just responding to PaulandArt.</p>

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<p>it’s better to set goals too high than too low, so yes.</p>

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<p>Anyone else read this with Mr. Mackey’s voice in your head because of the overuse of “k”?</p>

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<p>No chance that either smart people or underachievers would read that entire post.</p>

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<p>

too true, great advice.</p>

<p>i don’t think this is a joke though… this guys got nearly 2k posts so he must be truthin</p>