Hm, alot of people here with alot of college stuff.
Not really like that myself. I do have a degree, associates in computer science, but the whole thing was an utter waste of time. The idea at the time was to get me into a career in computer stuff, with the eventual goal of doing game development, a long-time dream of mine. But no employer cares one bit about a mere associates degree. And on top of that, those years in college taught me... nothing. Nothing at all. I already knew all that crap.
And not from being taught in school. I do best learning on my own, but I dont study traditionally. Like, back when I was a kid, I learned to use computers. This was back in the DOS era... the idea of a "user friendly" interface was non-existent. Nobody instructed me on how to do it, I simply figured it all out on my own. It wasnt long before I was considered the tech-savvy one in the family, despite still being a kid. I learned Basic programming and other stuff.
School, on the other hand, didnt really do anything. My grades were awful, and remained awful until graduation. I remember, I always used to argue with my parents about it... my view was that none of what they were teaching would ACTUALLY be necessary for me, or even remotely useful. Years later, I turned out to be correct... mostly. The ONE thing I learned from my school days was how to type on a keyboard. For that alone... I am grateful. But other than that? School was mostly teachers trying to jam things I didnt care about into my head. Homework was usually forgotten and schoolbooks were mostly unused. Rarely paid attention in class.
Now, the one problem with the "learn on my own" technique is that, while I know alot of stuff, my knowledge tends to be filled with random holes. Like, fixing computer problems for instance. If you take a messed up PC to a professional, you get an efficient, elegant solution. If you take it to me, you get the equivalent of duct-taping a car back together. Good example: A friend of mine was once having major problems with their PC, a few years ago. These werent easily defeated problems. It required going deep. Had to enter the BIOS and do all sorts of funky things and go even deeper than that. It was complicated. Afterwards, I got lots of praise for fixing it. But in reality, I'd never seen any of those bits before. I confusedly smashed my way through various parts of the internal stuff, and simply did whatever seemed like a good, logical idea at the time. I sure as hell never let my friends know that, though. Made sure to look like I'd done it before. And you know what? It really did work. Which is how it usually goes. My fixes are screwy... but they do the job.
This kept up constantly. While I never got a career as a game developer... and in fact, do not work actual "jobs" anymore (havent done that in like 10 years), a couple of years ago I was offered a development contract by an indie dev that I'd gotten to know. In THAT case, I did make sure to warn him about my various problems, and the bizarre way I was likely to approach any content I decided to add. Not only was he fine with that, but I was given alot of authority over the project. Working with an indie dev isnt the same as working for a professional company. They cared only about the results... they didnt care how I got those results. And indeed, the stuff I made was all sorts of weird, when it came to the underlying code. There's one particular boss fight where I completely made it from scratch, and afterwards... had no bloody clue how it worked. Oh, it DOES work. But I dont know how. I could stare at that twisted mass of code all day and not figure it out. That happens for me sometimes. In the end, the whole project came out very well. The whole time though, I kept thinking "I'm going to screw this up, arent I".
So yeah, that's how I learn and "study", and the sorts of often-funky results it produces. I know ALOT of stuff from learning on my own, but I'm not "professional' at all in the results of putting that knowledge to use. What does make it really work is that I'm really good at logic, and *really* good at extrapolation. It makes up for that lack of professional efficiency and keeps that duct tape from falling off.
And really I'm totally fine with that. I *hated* school, and hated every job I ever had. And with what the gaming industry has become.... working for a big company making games would have been the worst of all. I feel like I dodged a bullet there. No... a hailstorm of cannonballs. It's THAT bad. I'm so, SO glad I didnt end up doing that.
There, I'm done ranting. Sorry, I always make long annoying posts. It's what I do.
I know how that feels. I have studied, and even teached quite alot of storytelling... but am more of a list guy. Sure I can come up with a script or skilled story, but that is not my passion.
thank you for reply. Not looking good for dear Tellus I guess?
