Bad Student and Copy/Paste – By @blazve
By Blaz Verhnjak
Bad Student and Copy/Paste
I was never a good student. I hated primary and secondary school and I even planned burning my kindergarten using matches. I had average grades and I used to be the one who makes crazy things because he is bored and gets into trouble because of it. I refused doing homework, didn’t learn for exams and teachers didn’t know how to persuade me into performing better and they came up with idea that I have ADHD, which in their opinion, was the reason for my ignorant behaviour.
Parents talked with me a lot and luckily they understood that I just couldn’t stand people expecting from me to learn whatever in their opinion is a thing I should know. I had my own desires, interests and I became rebellious when somebody tried to force me to learn, explore things I didn’t find interesting and in my words expect me to copy/paste his way and his knowledge. That’s why I settled down with being a bad student.
In University I was discovered as most involved and successful when it came to projects. When it came to grades in the end of the year, I was still a bad student.
Being rebellious in public school system I looked forward to start at SCA which clearly is a school with different approach. When Marc on the telephone interview asked me, what are reason I’m interested into school, to be in the school with different approach was one of my top one. I saw this as an opportunity to get into things I care about, topics I want to explore and make myself a good student without sitting in front of the books all days and have a feeling that someone expects me to take the path he thinks is the best one.
But it looks like whole public school system left a mark on me.
With PB1 I realised that since I’m at SCA and listening to all the mentors I really respect, I’m trying hard to do everything just as they say, and I’m trying to tackle briefs and organise my life according to their experiences. Copy/Paste.
I’m sure that listening to great mentors we get to meet is a good thing to do but I got so overwhelmed over mentors and their stories that I wanted it to be my stories and my way to the promised land of Adland. I copy pasted. After I worked on techniques Marc shared with us I realised that I don’t know what I’m doing, because I wasn’t productive, but had fear of doing other way or find my own way.
And mentors opinion. I really like mentors opinion if you take it as opinion. With PB1 I did lots of mistakes, but one of them was that I constantly talked to mentors without six-hating on ideas before. And it resulted that I adapted their opinion and somehow forgot about my opinion and made feeling my guts impossible.
Note to myself:
I’m here because of who I am. Learn from others, observe, ask for opinion, find out what works for you and work hard. But don’t just copy/paste. You are not at the public school – you are at SCA.
