Well… it’s thirteen days into the new year, and I’ve already blown all of my money.
Actually, not really. I still have plenty of cash saved up that I don’t plan on touching anytime soon, and several Michael’s and Cabela’s gift cards to spend (but right now, I don't need anything so I'm saving them). But, I did spend all of my Amazon gift cards on one single item: my very own TI-84 calculator.
Why on God’s green earth would I spend an outrageous $115 of my own damn money on a brand new TI-84 calculator (which I don’t think has changed since it was invented in the 80s), instead of making my dad pay for it since he agreed to pay all of my college expenses? Because, when I buy something, especially something north of $50 bucks, I’m much more likely to feel driven to use that something. And when I feel like I need to use something, I’m more likely to seek things out that require me to use that thing.
In other words, I bought my own damn TI-84 calculator to further incentivize myself to take on increasingly difficult math and sciences classes, especially since I really haven’t enjoyed the majority of my liberal arts courses. That, and I'm going to college ultimately to get into a much more lucrative career. And the vast majority of the most lucrative careers out there require one to understand higher level math and science.
Sure, writing is important and art is fun to make, but both fields are highly competitive and ridiculously oversaturated. I certainly don’t think it’s worth it to get a degree in writing or art unless I have a very specific job in mind that requires such degrees. Plus, I don’t want to turn something I genuinely enjoy doing on my free time into something I have to rely on to meet my financial needs. Sure, if my art and writing do take off and become a massive source of passive income for me, then that’s cool. I’ll feel comfortable relying (or basically retiring) on that. But I’m not willing to live paycheck-to-paycheck off of something as financially unreliable as writing and art often are.
That said, I’m very aware of the fact that not every career in STEM automatically guarantees financial stability (or stability in general). I’m no longer pursuing a career in Computer Science or software tech in general, because of the fact that A) those jobs are severely oversaturated, and B) many of those jobs will probably be replaced by AI in the next five years, if not much sooner. I also don’t think pursuing a job in the healthcare industry is the greatest idea (unless it’s something entirely behind the scenes, such as building MRI machines or something like that), even though medical science has been progressing at an exponential rate and I’m probably gonna live a very long, healthy life. Aside from that, I’m not sure what else I don’t want to do. The possibilities and opportunities remain overwhelmingly endless.
So, I’m gonna take everyone’s advice and just focus on one semester at a time. This semester, I’ll be finishing up my prerequisite courses in human/social sciences and taking on a couple of elective courses. Most notably, I’m gonna grab PreCalc by the horns, which (according to several people I’ve talked to) is harder than Calculus One, but is a little less jam-packed than College Algebra. If someone told me just last year that I’d be taking on PreCalc in less than 365 days, I would’ve called total bullshit. Yet, here I am. And, I don’t feel nearly as under-confident about my ability to deal with college-level math as I once did.
Indeed, I’m starting to fully realize my ability to not only survive, but thrive in higher level math and science. College Algebra was far less painful for me than Literature was. Not because College Algebra was easy and Literature was not (quite the opposite, actually). But, because I just couldn’t stomach analyzing literature (even nonfiction literature) for the life of me.
Meanwhile, College Algebra was challenging, but I wasn’t too frustrated by it. I could sit down a couple hours a day and grind through it just fine. What frustrated me the most in College Algebra was how I struggled to learn it from others. Going to tutoring or office hours didn’t really do much (if anything) for me. However, when I worked on it alone at home, usually while listening to instrumental music, I always got an “ah-ha!” moment within fifteen or twenty minutes per topic. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, it’s just something I observed while going through College Algebra (and through Astronomy, to an extent).
I have a feeling the same will happen to me in PreCalc. I’m not sure I’ll exactly be awake at 8:00 in the morning to absorb two-and-a-half hours worth in material per day. But, I do know that so long as I put my mind to it, and take decent care of myself, I can figure out PreCalc enough to, at the very least, pass the class. C’s get degrees, after all!
However, I hope that by throwing over $100 bucks of my own money at a TI-84 calculator, I'll be much more likely to get a better-than-average grade. Not because I care about the letters on my transcript (frankly, I don't), but because I care about understanding PreCalc.
too be continued... as I find better words to say what I'm trying to say...
