Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. – Steve Jobs
I flunked out of college the first time after a couple of semesters. 0.67 GPA. I broke a kid’s arm in water polo so the coach gave me a passing grade. The rest were F’s. So, okay, four years later, I get out of the Air Force and lose thirty pounds. My uncle gets me a job as a night watchman at IBM. I get married, commute forty miles each way to work, start marathon running, and go to school part-time during the day. I took a couple of classes and I did well. Took a couple of more and did even better.
I quit my job, sold one car, packed the wife and the poodle into a VW Beetle and drove west to Flagstaff. I bought a house trailer, sometimes ran a 100 miles a week, and bought another dog – a fiesty little mongrel, part chihuahua/part pit bull named Charlie after Grandpa Moore.
And I made the dean’s list every semester, graduated magna cum laude, made a national honorary society, got into a number of law schools, won a scholarship to law school, served as an intern with the City Manager. (With a lot of help from my first wife.)
Same guy. Five or so years different. I graduated from high school in 1964. Finally got out of college in 1975. A decade from beginning to end. Sure, I matured, I guess. It was bound to happen. “Mature” is really bullshit. (SEE! Doesn’t the infrequent and measured use of the vernacular make it more telling? When someone who doesn’t call everything bullshit, calls something bullshit, you know he means it’s really bullshit.)
“Mature” don’t mean much. It’s a condition of being, it’s not an actual marketable skill. What it meant to me when I finally could understand it…. Given the vastly disparate results, given the marvelous improvement, I’ve spent not-yet-enough time examining the two collegial experiences. But it seems to me – if I can come away with some lessons that I can apply to my work, my relationships, my entire life – that figuring out how I managed to become so successful the second time around, well, it might help me to become “successful” again. It seems to me that maturity is… a sense of awareness about how other people think you should operate. You are actually mature when you don’t think about maturity, or when you no longer have to think about doing the mature thing.
But, I digress. Anyway, maturity in itself ain’t gonna put you on no honor roll. Maturity, you see, is that which is more than the sum of its parts.
YOU SUCCEED BY HAVING A GOAL. Actually, I was successful both times I went to college. First time, my “unconscious” goal was to flunk out so I could begin the process of breaking away from my parents. Second time, my goal was to get into law school and (part of) the way to do that was to score the highest points I could, GPA-wise.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHAT YOUR GOAL REALLY IS. Believe me, I wish I hadn’t flunked out of Allegheny College. Twenty-six years later, my dad is still pissed about that; he has every reason to be pissed. Not my proudest moment. I am pretty proud of my replay. For purposes of this discussion, we’ll assume your goal is an advanced degree. A credential for the future.
THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE LUCKIER YOU’LL GET.
It’s not true. It just seems like that.
Good things happen if you do things good. If you try. If you don’t quit. If you listen. If you’re polite in class. If you show up on time. If you do the assigned work. If you don’t wait until the last minute. If you give it just a little bit more attention. If you study. If you’re organized. If you exercise a little self-discipline just when it will do you the most good. If you keep your mouth shut. (Show me the last teacher who loved having some wiseass in class.) If, when you don’t understand something, you ask questions. If you’re not too proud to ask for help.
Tackle the hardest stuff first. Tackle it early. Do more than the minimum, do more than they ask for, do more than they expect. If you can work, while others goof off…
DON’T GIVE YOURSELF ANY EXCUSES FOR DOING LESS THAN YOUR BEST. Okay. So, you’re a college-age guy going to college whose number one goal in life (exclusive of getting laid) is to get a college degree. There shouldn’t be any question about what your top priority has to be. No question. None at all. Don’t let anything get in the way, nothing gets between you and your goal. Focus. Re-focus.
YOU CAN DO IT. Of course, you can. I flunked high school Spanish, I flunked Latin, I became a Czechoslovakian language specialist. Turns out I actually have an above-average facility for learning languages. But, I have to do the work. I have to try.
One old Czech claimed at my graduation ceremony, “Mr. Welch, we teach you against your will.” Okay, so I didn’t try too hard then either. But they really frown on skipping class in the military. The next time you decide to hit the beach instead of the books, imagine you’re AWOL, a court-martial offense. Might help your attendance record.
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, least of all college. Nobody is suggesting you turn into some kind of grinding academic dweeb, but if you’re going to be in school, you might as well make it as painless as possible. Apply yourself, really apply yourself to the task at hand, and you’ll be out of there in a couple/three years with your sheepskin in hand and your whole life in front of you.
You don’t have to like the work, you just have to do it. Find a way to enjoy academics. Accept the challenge of college and attack it. I used to look at college as a contest between them – the administration, the professors, my classmates – and me. I was outnumbered, sure, but I was the only one who really gave a damn about me. And whether I got into law school or not. Only me (And that first wife).
I embraced the challenge. I came to enjoy the obstacles. Every time I won, every good grade, every victory fueled the next one.
Whatever your academic record in the past, it doesn’t matter. You’re a new man, mature, focused, driven to succeed, to get that damn degree. Toss your mortar board into the air at graduation and head for Europe for a couple of months as a reward.
Remember, you are a good student. You must believe that about yourself. Make the professors believe. Prove it.
You have to want success, because it doesn’t necessarily want you. Success, like water, looks for the easiest route. Give yourself a chance.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Now, go forth and commence.