When I was seeing my (awesome) therapist, she at one point asked how I had done in school. I told her I was terrible at it. I never did my work, I slept a lot, and I flunked a good number of classes. She mentioned how this is a common thread for trans people.
So with that, who here did terribly in school? Who was good at it? Did you have behavior issues and get good grades? Were you "well-behaved," yet failed classes? Both? Neither? Discuss!
I did terrible as frack. I'm a huge procrastinator. I had to take several remedial classes and barely got by, and I postponed college because I knew I would just do the same thing. Especially in English; I refused to write papers about anything that had to do with my personal life. (my vacation, etc.)
And yes I was well-behaved. I rarely got in trouble.
I was an average student and rarely got into trouble. Bullied, yes. Trouble, no.
Mentioned it in the unhappy thread. After one semester, my GPA is in the toilet, and the two classes I needed for my degree I failed. My dad is not happy.
I don't think I was very well behaved either. I got suspended several times, and I have to say that I blame testosterone getting the better of me was the cause for all of the times.
I had very few friends and in grade school I think there was 4 years straight when I had no friends. I daydreamed a lot and was held back. I was very introverted and did not speak much. I tried very hard in grade school but somehow I did not do very well. I was put into 4th track in high school ( lowest track). I tried so hard but reading was difficult, math was a little out of reach and my writing ability was poor.
I had few friends in high school and I studied, a lot. I graduated on stage and in 1st track. I was conditionally accepted to engineering school provided I pass a remedial reading and math class. I spent 3 years cloistered in study and relaxed in my 4th and 5th year. I took my fundamentals in engineering exam 3 times and PE test 3 times. I am a PE.
I used alcohol, drugs and smoked from 7th grade till my mid 30's for alcohol and drugs and 45 for smoking. I only stopped drinking and drugs because I was given about 3 months before my feet were estimated to be removed due to bad circulation. I had out of control diabetes and I did not care. Presto a child and I stopped for her.
I work a lot and long hours ( I sell back my vacation). I love what I do and the people I work with.
My grades in elementary school were good. Middle-school, started to slip in math but everything else I did alright. High school? Pfffft! It was a mixed bag. Some classes I straight up failed, and I never passed a single math class up to my senior year. I tested well, and did good on essays, so I passed most of the time. But I was a terrible student. :laugh: Of course now I regret that to some degree, but I did have a lot of fun testing my limits, annoying teachers, and making my time there comfortable. But then I moved just before senior year, there were credit issues, etc. etc. Long story short, I ended up getting my GED, which I scored very well on. Now, a decade later, I'm in my second year of college and I'm actually doing well. My work ethic is totally different now. But, since starting HRT, it's been hard to concentrate, so I'm struggling with that. >_<
Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on December 19, 2013, 07:45:15 PM
I did terrible as frack. I'm a huge procrastinator. I had to take several remedial classes and barely got by, and I postponed college because I knew I would just do the same thing. Especially in English; I refused to write papers about anything that had to do with my personal life. (my vacation, etc.)
This. I could never stand writing about myself in any class, and any assignment that forced me to do so typically resulted in severe procrastination, if I even did the assignment at all.
In general, I did well in school until around middle school, when my grades took a nose dive. Probably not a coincidence that's around the time I started puberty. I always did well in standardized tests (99th percentile), but when it came to doing my school work I had no motivation whatsoever. I would always put assignments off until the last possible minute, and end up doing a much worse job that I could have had I actually been willing to put in the effort. I constantly disappointed my parents with my poor performance in school, and I barely even graduated high school at all. It also had something to do with my chronic sleep problems, but even so, I didn't have any motivation to try and work through them. When I finally got into college (based purely on my ACT scores), it was a nightmare socially, and I flunked out after one semester.
Pfff my grades especially in highschool were really high,,,
I though that if I concetrate on school and get to a nice university maybe Ill forget about the whole gender thing...HA :-\
I was/am on both extremes in school. My class participation was typically excellent, and I loved interesting conversation, but I was not always good about doing the work. This is especially the case when writing is involved (Academia prizes formal writing above all else, and won't accommodate writing disabilities the way it will other subjects. I have severe hang-ups when it comes to writing, so this has been a real problem). I'm also a pretty bad procrastinator, and I'm an atrocious perfectionist. I also have a home environment where it's difficult to work and I'm easily distracted. Put all this together and it's not uncommon for me to get a mixture of As and D/Fs.
I'm well behaved, but given how much I was bullied in middle and high school, I can't say I entirely trust my peers. I'm somewhat aloof as a result.
Anyway, I was doing very well after going back to college until this whole transgender realization thing hit. I've been on very shaky footing ever since.
On a side note, I really wish they taught you why you need to know math before attempting to drill it into your head. I hated rote mathematics, and put up as much resistance as I could. Now that I'm an adult, and math is actually useful, I wish I knew it better than I do. I'm fine with mathematical logic, but I suck at computation.
I'm holding out on C's for the last two semesters but.. I've had to repeat my math class twice now and will have to next semester as well. Part of it was lack of... interest I guess.. Not in what I was doing but just in everything.
Hoping that once I start my transition (which hopefully will be soon) that things will get better.
Never failed a class. Tests were preferred and a breeze to pass. Never studied as it wasn't allowed at home. This also meant I didn't do much homework. I loved school, hate people, including ( or perhaps especially) other students.
I went from 6th in class at junior school to 26th in grammar school.Poor to average results in most subjects,I was introverted with no self esteem,few friends(until they found out I could get served with alcohol), bullied and rarely out of trouble and had at least one fight a week with other kids.I first got drunk at 13 and found it took the edge off as did cutting and skipping meals.I was a brat who went through school with a f*** you attitude,I didn't care if I got beat in a fight or caned by a teacher that took the pain away.It's no coincidence my school work went to hell when puberty came.I saw my dream of being a girl slip further away each day.
Always had ups and downs. Generally passed, but ended up going to a therapeutic school for my last two years of highschool.
For the most part, school sucked.
And now the kicker; I've been doing so badly I'm now on academic probation. That's just great. My father will be absolutely thrilled.
Maybe my AP chem teacher was right, a year at community college or a tour with the military may have done me some good.
On the form that allows me to at least have some reprieve, they need a reason why I did so bad. I just have a terrible gut feeling that they won't take being transgender as a good reason.
I got good grades more by luck than anything else - I was always good at test-taking; less so on concentrating or applying myself. I remember at one point I wrote an entire term paper the night before it was due (got a 90%)
A couple random 'memorize these things' classes I almost failed, though. And then there was Calculus 1. Only class I ever got a D in, and my dad was rather angry about it.
I was good at school, but only because I had a good memory and kind of a natural knack for "book learnin'" :P tbh though, I've never really truly applied myself, and had I not had a natural skill for it...I'd have failed. No doubt. Too many other things on my mind.
I thought I wasn't doing so well this semester, and hoped I would pass, and now I somehow ended up on the Dean's Honor List. :laugh:
Quote from: Ashey on December 20, 2013, 03:13:01 PMI thought I wasn't doing so well this semester, and hoped I would pass, and now I somehow ended up on the Dean's Honor List. :laugh:
I was the opposite, I thought I was going to pass, and my dad expected me to make the dean's list, instead I ended up failing.
Funny how things are the same, but different, between us.
Consequences can be a big motivator for me. In this case, even though it's been hard to focus on school stuff since starting HRT, I knew if I failed a course I would have lost my financial aid and that would have started a devestating chain-reaction of consequences... so fear made me pass lol. In high school though, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I'd probably have said 'f**k it' and faced the consequences. I was such a lil s**t back then. :laugh:
I tried hard and sincerely thought I'd pass at least 3 of my classes. Dysphoria and not being able to get out of bed in the morning killed me. I'd spend hours just moping around because I feel terrible, or worse, overeating in the caf.
Yeah... this was seriously one of the banes of my existence.
I was always excellent in terms of actually learning the material, and in getting good grades on tests. They came so easily to me that it was a joke. I seriously would have had to put only the minimalist of effort into school and could have gotten straight-A's.
The problem? I put ZERO effort into it. I constantly felt like s***. And so in classes that I had no business getting anything less than an A in, I ended up failing. I got a "C" in algebra II despite winning 11th place in the entire state of Florida in it at a state math competition a year before I had even taken the class. I failed Physical Science twice. I failed Personal Fitness, the easiest class in the world, twice. I got a "D" in English. I spent the entire first year of college completely incapacitated, laying in bed all day feeling sorry for myself, without even the simple energy to get out of bed and show up for class. I failed out of that first college, and was within one semester of failing out of my second one before my girlfriend and Christianity finally gave me an impetus to at least try.
So yeah, a lack of academic success has plagued me my entire life. I've always felt awful about it.