The joys of being a 2E student.

Gifted, with undiagnosed ADHD.

Flew in to university without ever learning how to organise my time. Smashed every exam university put in front of me. Failed every form of written assessment that required time management and planning, instead of just knowing the answers. Even after they put me on academic probation and I understood how serious it was, I couldn’t fix it, because I didn’t know I had ADHD at the time, and had never learned the organisational skills required, because I’d never needed them to succeed academically before.

My father developed a gambling addiction and drained my college fund without telling me. If my parents had told me right away I would’ve had time to take a leave of absence and work full-time or apply for additional financial aid. Instead the school kicked me out for unpaid tuition and won’t let me come back to receive my degree.

I completed all the coursework for a BA in CS. I just couldn’t pay for it, so no degree for me.

I eventually graduated.

The short version - my mental health was fucked up, including a very intense anxiety I had about school.

Only leaving school, lucking into a job with good healthcare, earning enough to be independent for the first time ever, seeing a therapist AND taking medications, made me stable enough to finish.

I asked my dad if he had any money saved to help with college and he told me that people like us don’t go to college. I dropped out in grade 11. I hope to graduate university in three years from now at the ripe old age of 41.

It was partly because my parents forced me into a scholarship that was tied to teaching afterwards - I was entirely unsuited to being a teacher, but neither of them even attended high school, and to them being a teacher was the pinnacle of achievement. I was pretty good academically but university overwhelmed me, so between that and no incentive to succeed, I failed miserably, only passing a few courses. I ended up getting a professional qualification (not a degree) in my 30s and had a decent career.

Living in a squat for a few years showed me I would have made a fantastic electrian or plumber, but you had to have a penis for that for some reason.

What’s “graduate” in a global internet context?

I graduated, but it required me to cheat. Among other things, I was failing science and history, ironically two things I love.

I didn’t graduate from university.

In order to get some more money, I decided to take a TA-position at the school.

For context, I live in Sweden - university costs nothing to attend here, and you get access to a mix of governmental assistance and near-zero interest loans (at about 1/3 assistance 2/3 loans) to finance your living costs while attending university. To get this money you are required to get passing grades in a certain percentage of the courses you take, around 75% is required). If you do not meet these requirements, you lose your benefits, and quickly risk not being able to afford food and rent.

This TA-position however took up more time than I thought it would, and as such, I didn’t manage to pass the courses I was taking. Since I no longer met the passing grades requirement, I could no longer get student loans and assistance, meaning that I had to keep working TA gigs to stay afloat. This finally became untenable, and I decided to drop out and move to another city and look for work.

So far, it’s worked out extremely well. I’ve been ridiculously lucky.

I didn’t graduate with my class in high school because I was 1 credit short. Not giving a fuck and home life. I moved out as soon as I turned 18 and finished that last credit. Eventually did some college programs and crushed them because I was interested and in a much better place mentally.

I couldn’t manage the stress. Thankfully I used the G.I. bill, so I have zero debt from it, but wow is it not for me.

Did way too many drugs and dropped out

11 years sober and hoping to graduate this semester

Started college at 2020 January. Information technology. I did well during the time I was there but whole covid thing just made me hate my school and like I needed change.

We were going back and forth remote and in person classes, both of which were really bad in terms of quality of the teaching and I felt like if I am mostly learning from external sources and teaching sucks.

I refused to attend in person classes due to covid risks despite it being kind of mandated so I managed to negotiate that I just study on my own and take the exams. And my grades didn’t even get worse.

I’m not the type of person to keep doing something I feel like is useless for a paper that might give me slight advantage for getting a job. Education itself is free in my country but I just hated getting more and more student debt to cover other my living costs.

I decided "fuck this I’m just gonna get a IT job and teach myself and that’s what I did. I wouldn’t say that I’m at my dream job now but I feel confident I am able to progress on this career just fine despite dropping out.

I was homeschooled, have ADHD and dyslexia. Even well into adulthood I’m denser than the average high school grad.

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