Older People Are Recalling The Very Important Things They Regret Not Learning Earlier

31.

“Learning styles are a thing, and having a different one isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

“I’m already neurodivergent and grew up during the ’00s, where it was basically ‘we accept you, but please, please be normal’ and just trying to fit a round peg (me) into a square hole. I did ok in high school, but man, I got fucked when I went to university. I wasn’t helped by personal circumstances/trauma derailing my life, but I really struggled.

It wasn’t until midway, and a lot of pain, that I was talking to an advisor about my academic path and what was next, that I realized a lot of my issues were test-based courses — if I could write or show my work (i.e., labs), I generally did really well, but I locked up and panicked during traditional testing. I switched from a testing-intensive course to a BA (and then BFA), where I was mainly doing projects versus quizzes, and my grades changed exponentially. I went from being pretty mediocre as a student to primarily As and Bs in like a term.

I really felt stupid for so long because I couldn’t translate my knowledge to results that reflected my strengths, and realizing that there were different avenues to show it was just like ‘oooooooh’ — I just didn’t even know I had that option, so I kept trying to cut myself down to fit vs try to find something I fit better.”

—u/sunshinenorcas