Being a B student bringing me down... | Hacker News Reader

Being a B student bringing me down...

5 pointszxcvvcxz2 comments

Hey

As the title suggests, being a B student throughout university has really been killing my confidence. I think to myself, if I can't do school right, how can I ever do a startup? Or even contribute at a successful company? I remember while reading Steve Jobs' biography his insistence on keeping B players out... And for good reason I figure.

My history is as such: deemed "smart" in high school, I decided to do engineering, not really knowing what it was. At least I've come to very much like it over the years. My first year completely took me by surprise, I didn't really try (that oh-so-useless self excuse) and ended up with Bs. Second year came around, and I really did start trying, but still, same result... Third year, same thing. Due to my marks I was never able to get good summer research opportunities (why not choose the A students?) which I feel is really closing doors for grad school for me.

But I don't even care so much about that as it really drains on me mentally. I need to drastically reframe this somehow, and come up with a plan of action to get myself going. This summer I'm trying to work on a side project at least, but I'm also tied up between trying to pre-study for other courses I could take in my last year to try and raise my grades. I honestly can't decide what the right course of action might be.

Yeah there's kids who don't get to go to college and kids who are starving and all that... But if anyone were to try and give me some other perspective I'd be very appreciative.

Cheers

I was deemed "smart" in high school (I was regularly teased and mockingly called "Professor"), but lazy enough about things like homework that I stayed on the "B" honor roll all of the way through.

I went on to do very similar in college, getting a "B" average and graduating with a "useless" BA in English.

I had always enjoyed playing with computers and, in a desperate attempt to find a "real job" after I graduated, I took a job as a tech writer for $32K a year. I hated it.

Thinking it was the job, I switched to another tech writing job, which I hated more than the first. Turns out, I hated the profession.

At that point, I decided that what I saw the software developers doing around me was really what I wanted to do, so I spent the next couple of years working my ass off to become qualified to get hired as a software dev. I took writing gigs that were largely web-related and started building stuff in my evenings and weekends to have something to show people when applying for jobs.

A year later, I was working as a web developer at a consulting company, building database-driven web apps for 3M and Wells Fargo.

A year later, I quit full-time employment and became an independent software developer.

I have done so for 9 years. For the last 2 years running, I made $170K (in Minneapolis, MN, equiv to $235K in San Francisco).

I'm working on a product/platform to branch out from consulting revenue.

Am I retiring because I built a startup that went from 0 to $50 million in a year? No. However, I do have a comfortable life, love what I do and not a single soul has asked me about my college or high school transcript in 15 years.

What they HAVE asked me about is what I've built, what I've accomplished, etc. That's all stuff entirely within my control. I work hard to build stuff and, in doing so, get opportunities to build more interesting stuff.

Hey thanks a lot for the reply, really means a lot. It's good perspective because you've accomplished so much in tech and I guess I have a head start in that regard.

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