I have often regretted my college experience. I picked the wrong school. I dove headfirst into an intense curriculum and grueling schedule without truly considering what I wanted to do with my life. After wasting 2 full-time years and 3 part-time years, I left without a degree.
Looking back, I think, “I could have become an engineer, a scientist, an academic or a mathematician.”
I had an aptitude for technology, hard sciences and logical, pragmatic problem solving that would have meshed well within of those educational and career tracks. Instead, I spent a decade doing manual labor before working my way into a tech sales career.
You don’t need to play the world’s tiniest violin for me. I did OK. I was able to take care of my family, have a wonderful marriage, live a decent middle class life and eventually managed to retire early at 50.
Still, sometimes I wonder…what if I’d done things differently?
After reading Neil Degrass Tyson’s book last week, I thought it might be fun to learn more about science. Neil’s advice to some letter writers was to start with Physics. He emphasized learning the scientific method for experimentation, discovery and analysis.
I enjoyed Physics in high school. I was good at the academic part – especially applying mathematical formulas and principles to calculate expected results. I was not good with hands-on labs. Our instruments were crude. My attention to detail and patience were poor. And, my goal was to get 100% on all my lab work so I had no tolerance for making mistakes.
I got my A grade, but didn’t learn much that I couldn’t have read in a book.
In college, I took a Physics class and aced it. It was my last semester before I dropped out. I found the lectures to be of minimal value so I ended up skipping 90% of the class and teaching myself directly from the book. Everything made so much sense to me I found it to be easy.
So now, 40 years later, I’m going to dive into Physics again. I haven’t signed up for any college courses. I’ll start instead with working my way through a basic Physics book to see where it leads me.
I don’t care about earning a degree. I want to explore, to learn and to be challenged. I have no intention of embarking on a new career, making an important discovery or changing the world.
But maybe, I’ll discover something that will change my world.