What college did for me.

Gather round' children, and local hobo! It's time for me to tell you what college did for me!

Question: What did college do for you Hotspot?

Answer: College allowed for me to go into financial debt at a young age, yay! :D


I started going to college in the summer of 2008, right after I graduated high school.

My college screwed me over  big time, and I'm not the only one.

• For starters, I graduated a year later because they screwed up, and wouldn't let me take more classes than I should have.

• Then after getting my associates in Graphic Design, I went to go for my bachelors. However, they wouldn't let me back in, unless I started paying them! If I am correct, you're not suppose to pay the college money, unless if you've been out of that school for 6 months!

I was stuck not being able to pay them, and they wouldn't let me go back until then. I couldn't get a paying job at the time because I didn't have any experience in my field, or work experience at all.

• I ended up getting two volunteer jobs for a year, and a quarter. 20+  interviews later, I ended up getting a job in retail. Which ironically, I never went on an interview with, they hired me on the spot, after an orientation with them.

• The loan company wants me to pay 400 a month. By the time I got a job in retail, I was only making about 20--150 a week. I had to pay for rent, and other expenses.

My Student Loans get higher and higher, as I cannot pay the amount they want. As I edit this in 2019, I've only ever been paid minimum wage, which is currently 12 an hr. When I started retail, minimum wage was 7.25 an hour. check out my hourly wage guide!

Ironically, almost 10 years later, and I've yet to get a job in my field "Graphic Design". The most of done, is for this blog, and for forums, back in the day.

Funny enough, I've learned more things on my own, and online, than I did at that school. The only good thing about my college experience, was the friends I made.

The staff did not care about you once you are not enrolled anymore, I called three different people at three different times, and NOT ONE ever got back to me, how is that customer service exactly?
My friend was also groped by a teacher on camera, and when the "staff", looked at the footage, the "footage", was conveniently gone. Another time, a male professor told one of the girl students to wear more clothing because "It's distracting". This college was honestly a disgrace.

Most of the teachers were cool, (except the creepy ones) the one admissions counselor was nice too! She bumped into me in retail once, and was glad that I found something to keep me up.

Luckily, the college closed down in 2018. They actually got sued back around 2015, I got a large sum of money to help pay my loans.

My Life: What is going on!?

I don't know about you, but when I was in high school I would think about what I wanted to do as a career.

At the tender age of 17, I was drawing characters, comics and making up stories. I figured that after I go to college, I can get a cool fun job in the gaming industry and become a video game creator like I have wanted to.

Boy was I wrong

My life started to spiral out of control when I was 21, my college wouldn't let me back in to go for my bachelors in Graphic Design unless I started paying them. I couldn't pay them because I didn't have a job, and even though I looked for a job while in college, I couldn't get a job because I didn't have experience. Since I didn't have experience, no one would hire me, even though you need a job for experience, and need experience for a job.....what.... Why do companies make no sense?!

I ended up graduating with my Associates in Graphic Design, which actually has been pretty useless, and out of 26 (52 as of 2018) interviews, only three interviews I went on were jobs graphic design related. I've honestly learned more about Graphic Design on my own, and through the internet, than in college.

When I was little, I wanted to be an artist!  

I ended up working voluntarily in a mail room for four months from May 2011 to September 2011, it was a 2 and a half hour bus ride. I became friends with the lady in the employment center, located in the same building. She hooked me up with a volunteer maintenance job that was much closer. It was terrible, so I left after a week, and went back to the mail room. This was also in August, so I had to walk 20 minutes from the bus stop, I'd arrive drenched in sweat. At least I didn't have to walk far for the mail room job, since it brought me to a government building. (As I re-edit this in 2019, the Mail room so far, out of the 4 and a half jobs I've had. By far, had THE COOLEST Cafe, it was HUGE! It was awesome, and they had lunch ladies sell cool stuff too.)

I then got another volunteer job in an office in October 2011, and I was with them until I got my first paying job in retail, in October 2012. It is sad because I got my first paying job at 22... That's sad. (Alexa, play despacito)

Now I am in this spiral of paying off a 40,000 dollar amount of student loan from my college, in which the degree has been mostly useless to me. So far, it just raises eyebrows on interviews. People will tell me how they like my Graphic Design experience, but never hire me in the long run anways..
While I work minimum wage barely making 100-150 dollars a week when the loan company wants over 400 a month....what...I have house related bills to pay too, are you serious?!

My life has gone down the drain and not what I thought it would be like when I was 17.

Now I want to get a better job, preferably in an office since I cannot stand retail.

I sometimes don't know what to do, I never would have imagined my life to end up like this. But I still need to pursue my goals and figure out a way to make everything work out in the end.

EDIT: Now in 2018, I finally get an office job, but still making minimum wage (Which went up to 11 an hour)

Math: The root of all evils. Well for me anyway.

If you know me even a little bit, you'll probably know that I am incredibly terrible at math. I have a strong dislike for math, and I cannot do it to save my life. If my friends and I were kidnapped by some evil villain, and they said to me, "I'll let you, and your friends go, if you solve one math problem!" I would say "Well, it was nice knowing you guys!" and then we'd all die because I cannot do math to save my life!
I just cannot comprehend the subject, it will never make sense to me, and I don't really want to now either, just keep it away from me, and we're all good!

I can really only do basic math, counting, adding, subtracting and some multiplication, and even then, I can get stuck on certain things. One time I was helping a 7 year old with math homework, and I got the answer wrong.... Yep, I got the answer wrong on a 7 year old's math problem...

Interestingly enough, I actually cannot do division, as I forgot how to do it. It's kind of weird, because I was only taught it for a year or two, but then the curriculum skipped to Algebra, and long division I just wasn't able to catch up. I forgot how to do division, and never learned long division either. At some point, we also started using calculators, so for the most part, the calculators did most of the work anyway.

In the 5th grade, the teacher would actually make me work on long division by myself, outside of the classroom, while the rest of the class were doing other things. I always got it wrong, no matter how hard I tried, I just could not get it right. Eventually they passed me, even though I couldn't grasp the concept. Like if someone gave me a long division problem today, I would have no idea how to do it.

I can get puzzled on basic math too, I tend to use my fingers sometimes to count certain things. (Which I want to say, I'm probably not the only one.) Although as a cashier I don't usually have a problem, and being a cashier has made me better with counting money.
I will usually use a calculator for anything related to math though, I'll even ask my brother who is 10 years younger than me, math questions because he will know the answer! lol

Multiplication, I only learned a few of them, I get the gist of it, but I can only do certain one's in my head. Like multiples of 5 would be 5,10,15,20 etc... But I wasn't very good with Multiplication either, but better in it than division of any kind!

Out of all math, Algebra was the worst!! Screw division, and long division, Algebra made even less sense to me. I still don't understand why they had the need to add letters in math, keep it out of math! We don't need to know how many exes you had in the past "gurlfriend", it's what happens in the future that counts! (Get it? It's a double numbers joke.. no?)

I went to summer school three times, two of the times were because of Algebra. I also failed college math twice and passed by a hair the third time, and it was all because of the dreaded Algebra!!!

I had failed my math class in the 9th grade, when to summer school for it, still failed. So I had to take the same class again, in the 10th grade, and finally passed it. Which is interesting because I had the same math teacher for that class in 9th & 10th, and he was a stickler, I wasn't a fan of him.
Fortunately I got a cool teacher in the 11th grade and passed easily because the teacher was very helpful, and gave us easier projects to do.
What was even better was math was not required for me in the 12th grade, so I only ever took 2 math courses in high school, oddly enough.

In college, It was required to take a math course.  I went to school for Graphic Design, in a private college, which means you DON'T Have to take classes like gym, science.. etc.. For whatever reason, we had to take Math and English, the latter, I had no problem with, and took an extra course voluntarily. It's a known fact that artistic people, are usually, just not good with math. So why us Graphic Designers had to take a math class, is beyond me. It didn't make sense, why did we have to pay all of this money, to be forced to take a class we didn't want, that wouldn't have any value to us. Which really sucks too, in college I got A's and B's in all of my classes, EXCEPT the math class I had, which I failed twice. It messed up my GPA, and I was not the only one. A few of my other friends had failed/did poorly as well. Out of 30 of my friends, only two of them were decent at math to pass the class easily. One of my friends actually got kicked out of the school for failing so many times! It's not his fault he has math dyslexia, and had trouble with it.
One of my friends even got a math teacher that talked/wrote so fast, that by the time everyone started writing notes down, she'd erase everything. Only like 2 out of 30 people passed her class! That's a story for another day though. (That lady ended up getting fired because she was a bad teacher!)

The first time I had college math, I did not take it as seriously as I should have, and got an F.
My second time taking college math, I did actually try but I didn't do well at all. The cool thing though, was the professor was cool about it all and understood that not everyone is good with math.
She also said that taking statistics, is better for people who don't have a math brain.
Since I was bad at math, I would start writing comments on my tests like "Why can't math solve it's own problems?"
We had four tests in total, and the first three of my tests equaled an 86. I got a 25 on the first one, a 44 on the second, 17 on the third and a 28 on the final test. I emailed the teacher asking if I could just get the grade that the first three tests made together...which did not work (Obviously). That is just how bad I was at math.

Even though I failed the first two classes of college math, I got the same teacher again for my third time, and this time I tried even harder. I would go to the teachers lounge, and get extra help in math with the teacher. When it was one on one with her, things made a whole lot more sense than when in a classroom.
For the third time, I got two 60's and two 40's. Homework was a big part of the class, so I did finally pass and the teacher knew I tried my best. I passed by a hair, and I was really happy about passing finally. Later, I found out that if I had failed for a third time, I would have been kicked out, just like my friend. They also changed the rules, after that semester, if you failed a class twice, you got kicked out of the college, which is unfair, considering you're paying for it. Maybe that's why the school went out of business! (Edit from me in 2018)

I've had a hard long war with math, I beat it's butt (sort of), but it is still far too complicated, and confusing to me to really comprehend.

I do not like it one bit and I am really happy I don't have to really worry about it anymore.

I also don't get why some people do not understand, that some people just cannot do math. All because you're good at something, doesn't mean everyone else will be good at it. There will always be someone who is bad at something, and for me it's math. I just cannot do it. I dislike people who think that everyone can do math, and that they just haven't had the "right person" to teach them. I say that it is not always possible to learn something, sometimes it just doesn't work out. Like I like to draw, but you don't see me going around telling people that they can draw, if they try hard enough! It doesn't work like that.
If you have grown to dislike math like I have, you do not want it anywhere near you, especially if you don't need it anymore. I don't like math one bit, and I never want to do any of the complicated stuff ever again, it is just not for me. Sometimes, I wish math would solve it's own problems, and leave it's exes alone!

School Stories: Forgot homework, let's take pictures of birds.

I had a strange teacher in the 6th grade...

When I was in the 6th grade, I had moved, and transferred from another school during the ending months of the school year around April. The old school I previously went to, didn't use lockers
I had an ongoing war with the lockers since everyone else knew how to use them already,but I didn't since I was new to them. They never wanted to open for me, and I could never remember my combination!

I had this one teacher, let's call him "Mr. Baldo". Everyone liked him except for me, he was always rude to me.

• This one particular day, I had forgotten my homework in my locker. Mr. Baldo saw a bird at the window and decided that he needed to jump out that same window, to fetch his camera from his car, so he could take a picture of it. (This was the early 2000's before smart phones.)
My friend told me, I should go get my homework out of the locker quickly!

I ran to the lockers, but since I was new to lockers, it took me forever to get it open! So of course, as I coming back, he had already returned, teaching the class. I walk in, and he asked where I was, I told him that I forgot my homework, so I went to get it out of my locker. As you could guess, he was angry at me about it. Was I wrong to just run to the lockers to get my homework? I'm not actually sure. Was it a dumb thing to do, definitely, I could have just asked him to grab the homework from my locker instead of sneaking away.

• Another time, he got mad at me for doing my homework on my lunch period. Even though everyone does their homework at lunch, so it's kind of weird he'd get all upset over it! I swear, he had it out for me!

My friend would always ask me if I liked Mr. Baldo as a teacher, I told him yes, to make him happy, but I really didn't like him!