I think you could make a truly poignant display highlighting drumbums point regarding the lack of relevance between attendance and accomplishment by skipping any required court hearing. Any judge would certainly respect your sense of commitment to ideals and principle and reward you handsomely.
There's no reason to misconstrue what I said. I merely meant it as there's no reason to go to school when you can do everything you do there at home. There is also no reason to assume that, I do "what feels good" or get bad grades. You also shouldn't judge because I don't think you've been in high school for a good few years now. I can assume that because based on your other posts, your above the age of 21. I also never said teachers don't care about us, I simply meant it as it's not a big deal to miss a few days out of a semester. Now, with that being said, I also agree that excessive absences are not okay.
I've always sort of subscribed to the theory that if someone's working that hard at school, they're usually not that smart. Like some other posters, I didn't do much work my senior year of high school. I figured junior year was though enough, I deserved some time off, hah. I mean, and I did all right the first semester, but once I got my acceptance letters that was it for that. I know I missed or was late to WAY more than three days of school my senior year, though I'm sort of unfamiliar with the whole "truancy" concept (do all schools have that policy?). College has been more of the same. I mean, these are the best years of my life, why be on of those neurotic bio majors who spends seven hours a day in the library? I don't really see much of a difference between a 3.6 and 4.0 GPA (Unless I cared about getting little award certificates telling me how great I was, and I haven't since elementary school), so if there's some BS core class that I know I can skip most of the time and still get a B+ in, I'm really not going to lose any sleep over missing it. I don't know, I figure that High School and College are potentially the most enjoyable times of a person's life. Why drive yourself nuts trying to get great grade when you can take it easy, have a lot of fun, and still get good grades? Isn't that sort of losing perspective?
If you can goof around your entire life and make good grades, get a good job, and make good money. More power to you. Most people can't. And there is something to be said for, if you can do all that without trying, imagine what you can do for yourself and possibly the world if you did try.
If I had it all to do over again, I would definitely try to develop a strong work ethic in school at a young age. I was a lazy student who could do little work and get good grades. That actually worked all the way through high school, and even in college I wasn't the hardest worker. I've done pretty well for myself, but I do sometimes wonder if I could have done better.
I'm not sure if that was directed at me, but I guess I should assume it was. All I'm saying is that I don't have the sort of Type A personality that would cause me to lose sleep over not getting an A. I know people who are like that and if they're not miserable, they're certainly not enjoying their life as much as they could be (and are probably going to have some stress-related health problems down the line, but that's another thread). Maybe I'm alone in this, but I think that if you're busting your ass all the time trying to excel in school, in work, whatever, you tend to miss a lot along the way. I guess I'm the only one who's heard people lament that they wish they had more fun in school?
Nothing to the extreme is any good. That said, I know more people who would say they wished they paid more attention in school.
What's your line of work, sir? You seem to be very happy doing what you're doing, besides posting here, I mean. Everyone has fun posting. No one has fun lamenting. Everyone has fun poking fun at the guy who says "let's have fun at school" but isn't a CEO.
I'm having fun at school, actually. I've actually been interning over winter break, classes start back up monday. Make sense now why I would be advocating having fun at school? I'm working on my MBA (accounting) at the moment, if you are interested.
I think my point is, there are a few people who might be able to spend only a little amount of time at something, be good at it, and have plenty of free time to go have fun and do other things. If that's you then that is great. But it's like Allen Iverson telling some kid he shouldn't practice too much. Go out and have fun. Because look at him... he's successful. Of course I understand your point of extremes... don't bury your head in books and have no fun. But if I were to choose from the two extremes, I'd rather be studious than uneducated and unemployed when I grew up.
But that's not even what I'm advocating. I don't think we even disagree, at least on the point you're making. Basically, boiled down, my argument is this: Grades can be really dumb. For example, because the school I'm going to is Catholic, my freshman year I had a religion course that was required. If I know I'm going to at least get a decent grade in it, should I kill myself to try to get an A, just for the sake of getting an A? If in my senior year of High School I already know where I'm going to college, does it really make that much sense to be staying up all night studying for an exam to maintain my GPA? This isn't meant to be an AI "practice" rant. I just think that it's silly that getting a B in some (I hesitate to say "pointless", but...) required class is somehow a reflection of a student's general ability or work ethic. I guess it strikes a nerve with me personally because my parents are like that (and they're not even paying for me to go to school).
WTF. ^ ARE YOU SERIOUS, dude...? Don't make me laugh. This one's easy. Although I am not the best debater in the D&D (*because I don't go there enough, maybe), I have something for you. If I am looking for someone to do a specific job, with experience, well-rounded person, nice communication skills, etc., and you show up to my office with a resumé saying "c*m Laude", and another dude has the EXACT resumé saying "Magna c*m Laude" and another dude has the same everything, but a "Suma c*m Laude" on HIS resumé... I won't take YOU. Now do you understand? Good luck with your MBA, sir. I truly mean it without sarcasm.
I guess my only retort to this would be that that, to this point, I haven't had a problem. I got an internship with KPMG with good, not great grades, but some great recommendations and a lot of extracurriculars on my resume. My understanding (and experience) has been that grades are not the be-all, end-all, but if your experience has been different, that's fine. I certainly know some people who have been trying to get into I-banking and despite great grades and references haven't been able to get their foot in the door, so I'm sure it varies by profession.
