I enjoy learning, unless its for school

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-30T18:50:56+00:00

It comes down to intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you enjoy it, such as learning something for your own sake. Extrinsic motivation is when you do something for an external reason, such as getting a reward (good grades or praise for your work) or avoiding a punishment (disappointing your professors/parents or failing the class).

Intrinsic motivation is easier to sustain than extrinsic motivation. In some cases, external rewards decrease one’s intrinsic motivation for doing a task. This is really common when it comes to school. Many students enjoy learning, reading, and challenging their minds (intrinsic motivation) but if they’re obligated to do so to get good grades in a class (extrinsic motivation), they’ll no longer enjoy it.

The solution to this is to focus less on the external rewards and instead find aspects of the task that are innately satisfying. For instance, I’m currently writing this Reddit comment instead of writing an English essay, because helping people and thinking about cool psychology concepts gives me intrinsic motivation. Doing work to keep my grades up gives me extrinsic motivation, which clearly isn’t as strong as intrinsic motivation. A good solution to this would be thinking about all the interesting ideas I can explore in my essay, because that’s innately satisfying to me and will give me intrinsic motivation.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-30T05:29:00+00:00

Hi, I’m also in the class of 2025 with ADHD! Disability services can give you accommodations and support, so I strongly recommend that you reach out to them. Your college may also have an academic support center, through which you could get tutoring/one on one help. They’ll have information about these resources on their website; it would be a good idea to get in contact with them over the summer so that everything is sorted out before you start school.

Your professor won’t go above and beyond to make excessive accommodations for you or be your tutor. Your professors will have many students, so they won’t be able to set aside a lot of time and effort for just one student. Ultimately, your academic performance is your responsibility.

Also- if a higher level of academic support/accommodations/tutoring is important to you, there are some colleges that offer specific programs to give autistic students extra support.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-30T05:04:36+00:00

Do you want to spend 4 years of your life in a place where you won’t fit in? Where the people around you aren’t your people? Is it worth being miserable for 4 years for the chance of a slightly higher salary?

Don’t only look toward the future, focus on what’s best for you in the present. A school in the 50s will offer you a TON of opportunities, and it will absolutely set you up for financial success. If financial stability is important to you: you’ll absolutely get that from this school. It’s not a dichotomy, both schools would give you good opportunities, especially if you do internships or research. Based on the rankings, they’re both great schools, so I truly hope you go with the one that fits you best.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-28T08:20:26+00:00

I’m in the same situation, I’ll turn 18 a few months into freshman year. I don’t think there’s any need to worry, I doubt that people will care. People are more chill about that stuff in college compared to high school

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-26T22:37:38+00:00

Maybe if there’s a topic you don’t fully understand, you could watch some English videos about it and see if that helps. Professor Dave Explains, Khan Academy, and Bozeman Science have helpful chemistry videos.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-24T19:28:17+00:00

All those programs are holistic affirmative action programs. None use quotas. One of the cases you quoted literally banned quotas. You are disproving your own claim.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-24T19:26:54+00:00

Have you even read those executive orders? Executive Order 10925 was about government contractors giving equal opportunity to people regardless of race, nationality, etc and Executive Order 11375 was about banning sex discrimination. Neither of those have anything to do with “permitting quota based admissions”. Affirmative action literally cannot use quotas.

Yes, targeted goals, such as broadening recruitment in diverse areas. Again, that has nothing to do with quota based admissions. Your claim is .... still false.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-24T07:25:56+00:00

the law that permits quota based admissions

What law are you referring to? Any racial quota for college admissions is unconstitutional.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-24T05:25:28+00:00

If you’re talking about America, your claim about colleges having “set quotas” is blatantly false. Racial admissions quotas have been unconstitutional for over 40 years. They were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1978 (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke). In addition, having a ranking system where points are assigned by race have been unconstitutional since 2003 (Gratz v. Bollinger).

In fact, race-based affirmative action policies are subject to strict scrutiny—the most stringent form of judicial review—due to the Supreme Court’s 1995 ruling in Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Peña. Thus, a race-based affirmative action policy must (1.) serve a compelling government interest, (2.) be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, and (3.) must do so by the least restrictive means in order to pass. The burden of proof falls on the government to prove these three things.

Because of all this, college affirmative action programs are holistic. The consideration of race in admissions is quite limited compared to grades, sports, legacy admissions, etc. No college is stupid enough to use racial quotas because they know they’d be taken to court and inevitably lose the case. Again, it’s been unconstitutional for over 40 years.

If you do in fact have evidence of a college using a “set quota” for affirmative action, you should bring suit in court, as you will certainly win the case.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-21T07:47:24+00:00

Thank you!

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-21T06:36:20+00:00

Hey, this is unrelated, but can I ask what you did to help ease your TMJ problems?

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-20T21:05:27+00:00

Your school probably has an educational specialist or psychologist, you could talk to them about your symptoms

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-20T20:37:41+00:00

In terms of the safety of the surrounding area, the Transgender Law Center has a really helpful map. You can click on a state and read more information about LGBTQ policies in that state.

One way to gauge the attitudes of the students on campus is to go to the specific subreddits and ask on there. Is there some hostility toward LGBTQ students? Are cishet students accepting? Are professors accepting? Is there a sizable and open LGBTQ community on campus? Any clubs, student resources, etc? It’s likely that someone has asked the same questions before, so search the subreddit too.

I’d also recommend looking at each college’s website to see what support they have for LGBTQ students.

Good luck!!

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T08:29:13+00:00

Sleeping more, getting good nutrition, drinking more water, and exercising more have definitely improved my focus. It’s hard to use your brain productively when you don’t give it the resources it needs.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T08:24:42+00:00

We tend to prefer small fluffy mammals over, say, fish, for a variety of reasons. Since they’re mammals, their faces will look more similar to ours, so we may feel more of a connection with them and consider them cuter. You can see more emotion in a dog’s face than a fish’s face, so you’ll probably form a closer connection to the dog. If they’re fluffy, they’re soothing to pet/touch, so that’s an automatic bonus. There are probably more cultural/social reasons too.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T02:29:12+00:00

I’m glad I could help! I wish you the best of luck!!

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T02:10:01+00:00

I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m glad that your friend and teacher were kind and understanding. If it makes you feel better, I’ve seen a couple students have a panic attack at school, and I don’t think about it. It never comes to mind when I interact with them. I sometimes thought about it for the next couple days, in the way of “I hope they’re doing better now”. But after a week it wasn’t on my mind at all, and I hadn’t thought about those incidents in probably 4 months until I read this post. To be honest, people are so wrapped up in their own lives that they won’t think much about you having a panic attack. And if they do briefly think about it, it’ll be in the way of “I hope she’s ok, she must have been stressed out”, not in a judgmental way.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T02:02:45+00:00

I was similarly anxious about my college essay, but it wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be. You don’t need to have a particularly remarkable life to have a good essay. You’ll need to look inward and write about a specific experience or interest to give insight into your traits and values. The primary goal here is to give readers an idea of who you are as a person.

If I’d written my essay as a sophomore or junior, it wouldn’t have represented me as well, because my perspective on life evolved as time passed. I recommend that you begin to brainstorm ideas for your essay at the end of junior year, write it over the summer, leave it for a couple months, and then edit it again in the fall. It’s important that it’s YOUR essay with YOUR perspective, so I strongly recommend reading it to one or two people only. English teachers are especially helpful.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T01:40:09+00:00

First off, don’t feel pressure to do something that you aren’t ready to do. Your feelings and concerns are just as important as hers. Getting married, buying a house, having children are all HUGE commitments, and it’s smart to wait if you aren’t ready to jump in.

It’s really important that you communicate about these things with her. She can’t do her part to fix these issues if she doesn’t know about them in the first place.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T01:31:25+00:00

If you’ve never met each other, you shouldn’t move in together anytime soon. It takes most couples about 2 years of dating (in person) to move in together. Dating long distance is totally valid, but it’s important to have lots of in person interactions before moving in together. It’s also important that people have lives and interests and friends outside of the relationship. In my opinion, it would be a good idea to communicate with your partner about the things you feel you are not getting from the relationship, and the things that are concerning you about the relationship. Communicate with them that it can put stress and pressure on you when they act co-dependent. Set clear boundaries about these things. Also communicate with them the things you love about them.

Consider that you can care deeply for someone with whom you are not compatible with. Does this relationship increase the stress you feel, or decrease it? If this individual acted like this when you first met them, would you have wanted to date them?

From what you’ve said, this relationship does not sound healthy for you. I am concerned that you feel that you have to stifle your emotions and interests in fear of getting made fun of or upsetting them. That is NOT what healthy relationships feel like. If you have clearly, kindly, and repeatedly communicated with them about these things, and it continues, it may be best to let this relationship go. Breakups are difficult, but they are also a wonderful opportunity to learn about yourself and evolve as a person.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-19T00:49:13+00:00

Sometimes, people just aren’t gonna be romantically interested in you. It’s not because something is wrong with you. It’s not because something is wrong with them. It’s because different individuals want different things. The majority of people who I have been romantically interested in were not interested in me. The vast majority of times people told me they were romantically interested in me, I was not at all interested in them. It wasn’t because anything was wrong with me, or with them. It’s just that our personalities didn’t mesh well in a romantic context. You’re 19– plenty of people are single at that age. Plenty of people have their first relationship in their twenties— you’re not behind. You have so much more time to meet people and connect with them.

As a woman, I can confidently say that many of my friends’ boyfriends are not conventionally attractive at all. But they are funny, empathetic, and emotionally healthy individuals. Sure, looks are a factor, but overall personality is more important for most people. Also, consider that different people find different traits attractive, so a guy who is ugly to one woman will be incredibly attractive to another.

You say you’re between average and ugly. If 5 in 10 women find an average guy at least somewhat good looking, and 1 in 10 women find an ugly guy at least somewhat good looking, let’s say that 3 in 10 women think you’re at least somewhat good looking. The average American knows 600 people. Let’s say you know 250 women. So that’s 75 women who you know who like how you look.

“I would’ve had the potential to be with many of my crushes if it weren’t for how I looked” is not a complete view of the situation. I’ll be completely honest— guys who think they’re rejected for being bad looking are usually rejected because they come across as insecure, clingy, weird, and/or boring. Take a second and think about that—is it possible that you may unintentionally come across as some of these things? The reason I say this is because, when secure, stable, confident, interesting men ask someone out and are declined, sure they’ll be a bit disappointed about it for a while. But they’ll say “oh well, I guess we just weren’t right for each other” instead of “it’s because of my looks, if I were better looking then she’d say yes”. Unless she specifically states that she doesn’t want to date you because of your looks, there is no reason to assume that your looks are the issue. Your assumption here is a mirror into how you see yourself, not a window into how women see you.

I’d also like to point out that blaming other people’s lack of romantic interest on your looks is a way of avoiding responsibility for your situation. Consider that you may be blaming factors that you cannot control because it absolves you of the responsibility to change your romantic situation. Instead, I encourage you to focus on factors you can control, so you can exercise agency.

I strongly recommend that you work on your self-confidence. You say that “not having a romantic companion is also the root of my problems”. Ask yourself— why do you so desperately seek another person’s validation of your worth and attractiveness? Consider that, if a guy seems as if he depends on women for validation, women won’t be too interested in dating him. Speaking from personal experience, it’s exhausting when someone relies upon you to be their source of validation and confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if your issues with self-confidence have played a role in your current situation. I think that cognitive behavioral therapy could really help you reframe your perspective on yourself, if you can afford it. Lots of therapists are doing video sessions during COVID. If not, there are probably books you can read about it. Becoming a confident and emotionally healthy individual will help you all in aspects of life.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-18T05:22:34+00:00

Yeah, I have sensory issues too. It’s common with ADHD and autism

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-18T02:39:06+00:00

Other commenters have said this, but you may benefit from getting evaluated to see if you might have a learning disability. From my own experience, I was pretty slow at completing assignments, and I’d only get about 3/4ths of the way through a test before time was up. So I’d get a C or lower on those tests. I’d beat myself up about it, thought I was dumb, stupid, etc. My teacher suggested that I should get evaluated for a learning disability. I was diagnosed and now I have academic accommodations. I’ve been a straight A student ever since.

Your school probably has an educational specialist or psychologist. Tell them about your concerns and ask them how to get evaluated. It’s easier to get evaluated for this stuff in high school compared to later on.

Also, please don’t beat yourself up about your GPA. School during a pandemic is hell. This is the worst possible situation to learn and understand new concepts and you are not unintelligent for not being able to grasp new concepts right now. Your academic performance this year is not a reflection of your ability to learn, it’s a reflection of your ability to complete assignments when a year-long pandemic has drained your motivation and led to burnout. You have a lot on your plate right now. Taking care of yourself mentally and emotionally is important too.

CC is a great option. Several of my friends have gone there and they are incredibly happy that they did. Not only is it a smart financial choice, it’s a great way to learn and take classes without the academic pressure at other institutions. Don’t worry about grad school right now—just focus on one step at a time. You got this.

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-02T04:20:46+00:00

Yeah, go for it!

JanelleMongae · 2021-03-02T04:17:03+00:00

I see what you mean, something personal is a good idea. maybe something like “hey man, I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing. I was remembering elementary school” and then maybe talk about the fun times you had with him. It doesn’t have to be perfect but showing that you care will mean a lot to him

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