I do not advocate nor condone behaviors/actions/choices that impede on one's own progress or the progress of others.
That being said, I decided to drop out of school in the 7th grade. Went to an alternative drop out prevention school for a while. At this drop out prevention "school," doing classwork was not mandatory, and furthermore, work was hardly ever assigned in the first place. Smoking under the age of 18 on campus was allowed, attendance was never recorded and did not matter at all. You could walk off campus and come back as you pleased. That school was basically a business that said if you pay us 200 bucks per month, and show your face once in a while, we'll call you a student, give you an A on paper, and give you a diploma.
I went there for two years before realizing that an education might actually be a worthy pursuit. When I tried to get back into the public school system for high school, they wouldn't accept any "credits" from the "school" I had been attending (for good reason). So I had to do some accredited home schooling to get enough credits to enter high school. I did what I could and paid a friend to do most of the homeschooling work. So I started in 10th grade the following year at age 17. But I hadn't done any math since the first half of 7th grade, so high school math was literally heirglifics. So my rationale became if high school experience couldn't be about education, it should at least be about having some fun while I'm there. So I just skipped, went to the beach, parties and smoked weed everyday and copied my way through high school and just tried not to think about the poor decisions I had made in the past that lead me to fall so far behind that I didn't feel I could ever catch up. I graduated with a 1.9 gpa and upon graduation I accrude just under the maximum amount of absenses that would prevent me from graduating. You actually need a 2.0 to graduate, but the academic advisor wasn't going to hold me back for .1 gpa point.
As recently as 4 years ago I was content with the idea that I would never make a buck over minimum wage.
However, through a series of really uneventful events and a few proactive decisions, I found myself with an opportunity to change the course of my life.
As recently as 3 years ago, I wouldn't I didn't know y-y/x-x had anything to do with a slope of a line, or that y=mx+b was something that described a line, or that x^2+y^2=r^2 was a formula that could tell you the length of the longest side of certain types of triangles.
Fast forward to today, I am currently taking University level calculus and have a B average in the class.
So I'm not saying that you can make all the wrong choices and waste the first quarter century of your life and then suddenly pick up a book and simply catch up to where you would have been in a matter of a few years. What I'm saying is that if have been a good, sincere person, who has always followed the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated, then you are probably more likely to recognize or have more opportunities for improvement presented to you (even if you made poor decsions for yourself throughout your life that lead you completely in an undesirable direction).
So I can not identify with the word nuisance, because I was always considerate towards others' thoughts and feelings. I grew up in a tough area and when there was a beef to settle that could get.. rough, both parties knew what we were getting into and were of the same mindset. I could never tolerate a bully and always felt compelled to stand up for anyone being unfairly treated, whether physically or verbally. So a nuisance, if I'm understanding that word correctly, then no I wasn't a nuisance. I can however ascribe to the word screw up. Because I screwed up a lot.
I made a few wrong school decisions early on and before I knew it I was an adult without an education. The only advice I can give is to not drop out, or if you are a young kid who doesn't care for sitting in a class and hearing a teacher blab all day about things you are completely uninterested in, then if you decide to drop out, don't just hang out on the street s all day. Don't try to convince yourself that you can just sell drugs as a means to achieve finanical freedom or comfort. Don't fool yourself into thinking the odds of becoming the next big rapper or athlete are any slimmer than they actually are. Be realistic. If you feel compelled to drop out, do so with the intent of continuing your education as diligently (or more diligently) as you would if you were still in school.
If I could go back and do things differently, I would never have dropped out of school. As soon as I realized I had fallen behind in seventh grade (due to hanging out on the street everyday and never doing a lick of homework or studying), I would have got my ego in check and sought extra help within the school to catch up. It would not have been that difficult at all, but I was more interested in getting home so I could hang out on the streets all day and all night, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.
I'm very fortunate that I got what feels like a second chance to get an education. I'm spending almost every waking our studying and learning all things I probably would have known or could have known upon graduating high school had I never got off track.
Kids today are very fortunate. I think its absolutely wonderful that they have so many resources, like the vastness of the internet and smart phones, to keep them on track and learning in any environment or situation. I feel very optimistic about the future of humanity.
Now, I got to get back to learning these integrals if I'm ever to be a "nuisance" (or screw-up as I prefer) turned scientist. :)
