Struggles with School

[CarLover]

The end of the 2010s looked very promising for me. I was in ZooCrew at the Philadelphia Zoo, my dream job essentially, and I got accepted to Delaware Valley University in November 2017. I was really excited for my future until I actually started going to DelVal. Right away, it was way harder than I expected. My academic advisor was an instructor for my zoo courses but I did not get along with them. I was enthusiastic about participating but I was often the only person raising my hand because no one else wanted to participate, and this person would say to me, "Put your hand down." Also, a lot of the prerequisites for my courses were impossible. Chemistry has destroyed me in school. Everyone at the university must take chemistry, but it is so hard, and many of the instructors are not good instructors. The pandemic has made things even worse.

Right now, I'm going through a death of a dream. Ever since I was a child, I always knew I wanted to work in a zoo, but that dream is disintegrating. There are also a lot of personal problems I have, such as personal relationships.

For any fellow ZooChatters with advice, please give it. If I can't make it in the scientific field, I could be an artist since I love to draw animals and I make my own encyclopedias.

 

[HungarianBison]

Sad to hear it. Based on this description, I'm similar to you, just younger than you with around 10 years. I hope I won't be in your shoes.
Try to be an artist. Go ahead, I hope you can do it.
(Sorry, I can't give you any specific advice)

 

[Zooplantman]

You do not need to be a star at chemistry; just pass it. Have you looked at getting tutored? Someone who can help you understand chemistry on your own terms could make all the difference. I had to take chem in a school mostly geared for pre-med students. So much blood chemistry! But eventually we got to photosynthesis and the sheer miraculous nature of it awed me. At that point it became worth it to have sat through all the rest. (My professor was the single worst professor I ever had... and that includes the one who, mid-semester and mid-lecture looked up staring at the back of the room, gathered up his things and marched out. We never saw nor heard of him again!)
As to personal relationship problems, some help and support may be useful there too.
All of us have loads to learn and have aspects of our personality that are weaker than we'd like. Don't let that determine your future. Get creative.

 

[CarLover]

You do not need to be a star at chemistry; just pass it. Have you looked at getting tutored? Someone who can help you understand chemistry on your own terms could make all the difference. I had to take chem in a school mostly geared for pre-med students. So much blood chemistry! But eventually we got to photosynthesis and the sheer miraculous nature of it awed me. At that point it became worth it to have sat through all the rest. (My professor was the single worst professor I ever had... and that includes the one who, mid-semester and mid-lecture looked up staring at the back of the room, gathered up his things and marched out. We never saw nor heard of him again!)
As to personal relationship problems, some help and support may be useful there too.
All of us have loads to learn and have aspects of our personality that are weaker than we'd like. Don't let that determine your future. Get creative.

Thank you. I have considered tutoring but most of it is virtual and I am unsure exactly how it all works. I've been told to try study groups.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

The end of the 2010s looked very promising for me. I was in ZooCrew at the Philadelphia Zoo, my dream job essentially, and I got accepted to Delaware Valley University in November 2017. I was really excited for my future until I actually started going to DelVal. Right away, it was way harder than I expected. My academic advisor was an instructor for my zoo courses but I did not get along with them. I was enthusiastic about participating but I was often the only person raising my hand because no one else wanted to participate, and this person would say to me, "Put your hand down." Also, a lot of the prerequisites for my courses were impossible. Chemistry has destroyed me in school. Everyone at the university must take chemistry, but it is so hard, and many of the instructors are not good instructors. The pandemic has made things even worse.

Right now, I'm going through a death of a dream. Ever since I was a child, I always knew I wanted to work in a zoo, but that dream is disintegrating. There are also a lot of personal problems I have, such as personal relationships.

For any fellow ZooChatters with advice, please give it. If I can't make it in the scientific field, I could be an artist since I love to draw animals and I make my own encyclopedias.

I feel you on this issue.

This is a big problem within higher education and one that needs to be systematically addressed.

Academics in teaching positions who are ostensibly meant to be educators overwhelmingly do not know how to teach or in fact want to.

Teaching takes a backseat to the all important research (which in the majority of cases actually isn't very important or useful at all) is referred to by pretentious professors who have rarely held down a real job in their lives as "teaching loads" as if they are overworked beasts of burden being driven through the Hindu Kush or Atlas mountains at whip point by a sadistic mule driver.

Alternatively they just put a socially challenged snotty nosed PhD student w****r in front of a class who wouldn't know how to teach to save their lives either.

Academics with the myopic and parochial mindset of a medieval guild sitting pretty in their ivory towers totally removed from reality but full of empty platitudes.

Perhaps tenure should be removed to inject a little more realism and ethics into things ?

The ones who pay for it both financially and in every other sense such as mental health are ultimately the students who have been falsely led to believe that getting a degree is an insurance and a step up the career ladder which it isn't.

As you mention many of fellow students are not there to think critically or for their own edification but just to party and get a piece of paper as a totally meaningless signalling device of supposed competence in a field which is probably the most ridiculous lie of all.

So what is higher education ? Is it an insurance policy or a bewildering mix of a medieval guild and a country club with a studio 54 night club and a cult thrown in ?

The truth is that I don't know either but one thing I do know is that it isn't a viable or workable system and you need to look beyond university and into obtaining practical real world experience that will bolster your chances of getting into any field of Conservation ( I can't speak solely about zoo keeping as I am not a keeper though I'm involved with zoos).

 

[Zooplantman]

Thank you. I have considered tutoring but most of it is virtual and I am unsure exactly how it all works. I've been told to try study groups.

We each have our own ways of learning. The right study group might do it for you. If not, then try a tutor. But I just want to encourage you not to reinvent your ambitions because of this challenge. There is a way

 

[CarLover]

I feel you on this issue.

This is a big problem within higher education and one that needs to be systematically addressed.

Academics in teaching positions who are ostensibly meant to be educators overwhelmingly do not know how to teach or in fact want to.

Teaching takes a backseat to the all important research (which in the majority of cases actually isn't very important or useful at all) is referred to by pretentious professors who have rarely held down a real job in their lives as "teaching loads" as if they are overworked beasts of burden being driven through the Hindu Kush or Atlas mountains at whip point by a sadistic mule driver.

Alternatively they just put a socially challenged snotty nosed PhD student w****r in front of a class who wouldn't know how to teach to save their lives either.

Academics with the myopic and parochial mindset of a medieval guild sitting pretty in their ivory towers totally removed from reality but full of empty platitudes.

Perhaps tenure should be removed to inject a little more realism and ethics into things ?

The ones who pay for it both financially and in every other sense such as mental health are ultimately the students who have been falsely led to believe that getting a degree is an insurance and a step up the career ladder which it isn't.

As you mention many of fellow students are not there to think critically or for their own edification but just to party and get a piece of paper as a totally meaningless signalling device of supposed competence in a field which is probably the most ridiculous lie of all.

So what is higher education ? Is it an insurance policy or a bewildering mix of a medieval guild and a country club with a studio 54 night club and a cult thrown in ?

The truth is that I don't know either but one thing I do know is that it isn't a viable or workable system and you need to look beyond university and into obtaining practical real world experience that will bolster your chances of getting into any field of Conservation ( I can't speak solely about zoo keeping as I am not a keeper though I'm involved with zoos).

I completely agree with you. I have had instructors who could barely speak English and others who are just jerks. A big problem I have had in school is that I tend to do worse in classes in which I do not like the instructor. I took a Macroeconomics class this year and although the instructor taught us some valuable things, he was very rude to us and would call out individual people in class on assingments.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

I completely agree with you. I have had instructors who could barely speak English and others who are just jerks. A big problem I have had in school is that I tend to do worse in classes in which I do not like the instructor. I took a Macroeconomics class this year and although the instructor taught us some valuable things, he was very rude to us and would call out individual people in class on assingments.

Yeah that was pretty much my experience so I totally empathize with your situation.

The problem is that a toxic environment like that is not conductive to learning or getting the "all important" good grades which actually mean jack **** in the real world.

They don't like being challenged on their ineptitude and will make life unbearable for people who speak out which only makes things much worse.

What I encourage you to do is to be mindful of the fact that everything you learn outside the classroom is your real education and university is just paperwork.

To that end you need to look at gaining practical field and work experience because trust me grades do not count for much in this field and particularly now that everyone has a degree.

 

[devilfish]

Sorry to read that things are a struggle right now.

I agree with @Zooplantman - finding a way to get through the chemistry, at least enough to pass, is key. No course lasts forever, so the amount of work you need to pass will be finite.

@O.c. is right too, in that the style of teaching in higher education is very different to what you might be used to. Examiners are also often far removed from the teaching/lecturing process.

 

[UngulateNerd92]

The end of the 2010s looked very promising for me. I was in ZooCrew at the Philadelphia Zoo, my dream job essentially, and I got accepted to Delaware Valley University in November 2017. I was really excited for my future until I actually started going to DelVal. Right away, it was way harder than I expected. My academic advisor was an instructor for my zoo courses but I did not get along with them. I was enthusiastic about participating but I was often the only person raising my hand because no one else wanted to participate, and this person would say to me, "Put your hand down." Also, a lot of the prerequisites for my courses were impossible. Chemistry has destroyed me in school. Everyone at the university must take chemistry, but it is so hard, and many of the instructors are not good instructors. The pandemic has made things even worse.

Right now, I'm going through a death of a dream. Ever since I was a child, I always knew I wanted to work in a zoo, but that dream is disintegrating. There are also a lot of personal problems I have, such as personal relationships.

For any fellow ZooChatters with advice, please give it. If I can't make it in the scientific field, I could be an artist since I love to draw animals and I make my own encyclopedias.

@CarLover Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

I can personally relate to most of what you are saying, verbatim.

I am 28, and I haven't finished out a full semester of college since I was 19 or 20, thus I have no formal degree. There are a number of reasons, including not having the most pleasant experiences in grade school and high school. At the ages of 26 and 27, I did attend Pima Community College here in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, however I was unable to finish out either semester. The classes I have taken included General Zoology, Island Ecology, North American Wildlife, Basic Design, Anthropology & Human Prehistory, Writing, Philosophy, and Physical Geology.

I can relate to having felt ostracized by some of my instructors and classmates for being what they probably perceived as being overly enthusiastic and inquisitive, and was even ridiculed and mocked by one instructor and this was in the class pertaining my favorite subject. It felt humiliating, so do I can relate to having mediocre to sub-par professors. My school related anxieties really effected my physiology and nervous system to the point that it effected my processing, cognition, and ability to stay organized. Though looking back, I did have some positive experiences during my college days and appreciate the information I was able to learn and the people I was able to meet and formulate relationships with, it did all get to a point where it felt unmanageable to continue... During that time, my doctor had me take a few saliva samples for testing, and it turned out that my cortisol levels were off the charts high, which was unsurprising which in turn decreased my testosterone levels. I am not planning to fully give up on my higher education and earning a degree, but I am just on hiatus for the time being.

School-wise and social-life wise, Covid-19 also made things worse for me... I can totally relate to you and empathize with you. If you are willing or interested, feel free to private message me. I have more detailed stories to share with you that may be of help. We are in this together! I support you!