I dunno who needs to hear this but I got a D in Linux operating systems in college. If you’re passionate about something don’t let some institutional structure tell you that you’re not good at it
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@danirabbit you weren't good at it in the particular way they wanted you to be good at it. I come out of an experimental-science background and the tunnel vision of CS/EE academics is comical to us. If we just dismissed unexpected outcomes and always always always insisted on using the same methods we wouldn't discover anything.
@danirabbit you know it's exactly same at me?
@danirabbit D, more like Deliberately Excellent! At Uni we just say "Vier gewinnt" (four wins, aka. the German name for Connect Four) or "E for Excellent".
@danirabbit My first programming class (BASIC, in middle school!), the teacher told me "you aren't cut for programming, you should do something else", and yet I have spent a good chunk of my life writing software.
@ai6yr BASIC was my first programming language! I wish I still had the book I learned from
My first was QBasic on MS-DOS.
Being able to make the computer do whatever I could imagine…it was mind-blowing.
My first was QBasic on MS-DOS.
Being able to make the computer do whatever I could imagine…it was mind-blowing.
@danirabbit Two classes I didn't do well in were Linguistics 101 and Intro to the Web (granted, this was circa 1996)
I like to think I lived the rest of my life in defiance (BA in Linguistics, MLIS focusing on IA for web).
@danirabbit I got good grades, which is how I know I'm not good at anything
@danirabbit True! At university/college, I tended to partake in drinking beer and going to parties, which mistakenly took priority at inappropriate times. So I also had some bad marks for things where now I am paid as a leading consultant.
@danirabbit In 1986 I failed my one programming unit at university.
I'd already been programming for a few years by then and have continued programming all through my subsequent IT support and data analysis career. I know the value of the programs I write because I use them myself every day.
That failure, and of university in general, mainly taught me that passing courses is about conformity, not knowledge, skill, understanding or creativity.
@danirabbit Yeah, my college didn't even teach Linux -- their lame excuse was that Linus Torvalds was only 6 years old.
@danirabbit
1. I don’t believe this
2. I don’t see why you would lie about this
3. More young women need to hear this! As a co-organiser of @swiftpune I recently had a chance to meet under-grad students, and while most were highly motivated, some were extremely demoralised because of past grades.
Thank you for sharing this! Mind if I use a picture of your post in my slides with credit?
@nikhil please feel free to!
@danirabbit thank you so much! When I do use this, I’ll be sure to let you know ☺️
