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University Prerequisites

Before I went to a 4-year university I took one semester of classes at a local community college to just see how it is and get a feeling for it all.

Of the classes I took that semester one was Calculus. I listened very attentively. I took detailed notes. I learned all the material taught. I asked questions in class and the teacher was excited and responded in detail so I learned even more.

Meanwhile the entire rest of the class got left in the dust. I scored 99+ on every single test in that class. The rest of the class? Average of 70 or something like that. The teacher curved the test scores so strongly I could have skipped the last test and the final and still got an A. The teacher was so impressed that he offered to give me a personal reccomendation for whatever I wanted to do. I unfortunately never was able to take him up on that and have forgotten his name.

That wasn't the only class where things went this way. The same basic thing happened in my other classes. Teachers were amazed at how well and quickly I learned. My questions impressed them. My notes impressed them.

This continued when I went to a 4-year college as well, at least for the first couple of semesters. I'm getting ahead of the actual focus of this post though, which involves my first semester at a 4-year college.

My goal of selecting colleges was that I wanted to major in Computer Engineering, because it was the only field I saw that was worthy of my knowledge, skills, and passion. This is part of why I chose to go to UMBC because they had a degree in that. At the time many universities did not.

In the first semester I looked at the classes I was permitted to take and thought "wow these all look pointless and boring." So I went to the university and asked them if I could take 400 level classes immediately, because they were the only ones that looked challenging enough or worth bothering with. The 100 level courses looked, well, dumb.

I still stand by my judgement of them. The vast majority of the classes I took in uni over the years were just a fucking waste of my time. They teach shit all and I could have learned far more just studying on my own. And moreover of what I have learned only a very small bit came from uni. I know what I know because I read passionately and widely.

So anyway, after they said I couldn't take 400 level classes immediately I still looked for a way. They said I could audit 400 level courses. So I did. My first semester I took a full load of regular classes and I audited two 400 level courses as well.

I treated the auditing the same as the regular courses I just wasn't allowed to take the tests. But I learned the material and there was no issue. I took careful notes. I asked questions. The teachers were impressed. They were so impressed they told me that the university would pay me for the notes I was taking in the classes to give to other students.

So I didn't just learn those classes. I was paid to take notes in them by the university.

It all went downhill later because as I attended uni I saw how worthless it is, but it was exciting times at the start. I worked my ass off and impressed the hell out of the stupid corrupt system. I was on the deans list for my first several semsters.

What happened later is a different story though.

The point of this post? Prerequisities are fucking stupid. Nevermind that uni overall is worthless. Of the dumb things about it prerequisities are one of the worst.