Have You Discovered That You Are Good at Something That You Thought You Weren't?

What I am capable of.... that I thought I couldn't???
- being a Mom.

I still can't believe I am a Mom sometimes.
I was one, who prior, was SO independent and a Lone-Ranger type, and did not want children, and put it off for a long time. Meanwhile, my Hubby did want children. He was patient. We had and have children.
I, did not think of myself as a "Mom" beforehand.
I didn't think, I had it in me.
But I think... and per my kids, that I am the best Mommy that I can be.
;0

As far as education and majors and doing well and potential and interest.
Well, I was a bad student before. Because I hated school.
In college I hit my stride. I aced my classes. Because, I studied what interested me and what I knew I was good at.
I have, several degrees and double majored too.

I think you can do anything you put your mind to. I also think that, as adults, we have a lot more riding on our success and so we are more willing to put forth the effort required to get it. Our minds are more developed as adults, too, and we can see the bigger picture and think things through to the end better. So, I say if you want to explore an area of study that interests you, then don't let your past experiences hold you back. Maybe see if you can audit a few classes to see if it's really for you.

Also, I hope you are not offended by this, but I just have to mention that your tendency toward distraction and your inability to focus or complete everyday tasks could possibly be adult adhd, and is treatable. I don't know, maybe not, but you might want to bring it up at your next checkup if you think it's worth it.

Good luck!

I was terrible in math all throughout elementary, middle and high school. Like your mother I had a very unsupportive teacher early on in school (2nd grade) who made me feel like I would never be good at it, because I was a girl. I excelled in all other sciences but I could never warm up to math.

I am in my thirties now and back in school for a B.S. - I aced my calculus class a year ago... I wish I could have sent my transcript to my old teacher...

well i have always A. HATED math (numbers on paper never made sense to me), and B. been a shy introverted wall flower. i fell into a great job and lo and behold, got promoted due to my work ethic and taking the initiative when things needed to be done - and go figure, i use math ALL DAY (things like excel spreadsheets, projected production, staff needed if we need to do X amount of work, etc- it makes sense to me because i apply it to real life situations, something math classes never really did for me that much), and i am a pretty dang good leader! who knew?

i think that if you love something, you become good at it because you care and you WORK HARD. i firmly believe that hard work is the key. i also think that in my case, i definitely had talents that were lying dormant. i am so grateful for the chance to explore them.

Well you're an excellent writer and clearly a bright and inquisitive person so I'm surprised that you struggled in school. Then...I read your asterisked section and it just screams of AD/HD. Have you ever been evaluated for adult AD/HD? I'm normally not a proponent of medication, especially in children, but I have seen medication work wonders for the high school students I tutor and without it, they would not excel in school. Just something to consider...

OK now that that's out of the way...I'm better in math than I thought I was. I have degrees in Mass Communication and English yet work with data every day. I have never taken a single course in applied math (data, statistics, accounting, economics) but I work with those concepts professionally and have just learned on the job. When I tutor SAT prep, I find that I enjoy the math section the most and tackle those problems with gusto. While I never hated math or did that poorly in it, I definitely didn't have the confidence to tackle AP math in high school (yet I did take AP history and English) but I probably would have done well in it.

I was an amazing test taker, didn't have to study or anything, I actually lost that skill as an adult. The thing is it was replace by understanding why things stick in my brain. Math and science were the things that stuck but for the same reason everything sticks in your brain, I can understand how it is all interrelated. You must have had some really bad teachers. :(

Anyway grammar and the like, forget it! My mind has no place for rules that negate themselves but only when random criteria are met. Ya know i before e except after c but not when .... I found that when I look at the rules not as random happenings but as part of a flow chart I could remember them. I also did the same thing and memorized huge chunks of tax code.

Basically I learned to trick my brain into properly storing that which it wanted to reject.

I guess that made it unnecessary to be good at taking tests without studying because I actually knew the answers. Wait, that means I still didn't study. :p

Amy's post reminded me of my favorite quote from school. It was our third calculus exam or the one that made or broke you. There were guys out in the hall on break that failed the class for the fourth, some fifth time. They were crying. I came back in the classroom after break and said I want to be a calculus teacher so I can make kids cry. The professor laughed and said they are crying, really? Yup.

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Sounds like ADD or ADHD if you are hyper as well. Right brained people need to understand WHY before they can be interested in HOW. ADD/ADHD/Dyslexia are types who use the right side of the brain. This type of brain needs to start with the answer. It sees the big picture first, not the details. If you are right-brained, you may have difficulty following a lecture unless you are given the big picture first. Left brained folks learn from part to whole. It takes pieces, lines them up, and arranges them in a logical order; then it draws conclusions. Read more about left vs right brain here: http://web-us.com/brain/lrbrain.html
Schools tend to use left brain methods - repeat lots of little things until the big picture becomes clear. For many right brainers this is BORING and USELESS. Now that you are more mature, when you go back to school you first of all know WHY you want to take the classes you take, and you also know more about yourself and how you learn. So read up on the different learning styles, figure out what method works best for you (I would ask professors for lecture notes so you can simply really LISTEN when they explain stuff), and then back up your studies with back ground searches on the web or at the library or by talking to people who do what you want to study and who can explain to you why all those course are important.
And pat yourself on the back for figuring all this out about yourself!

Part of my problem was (and still is something I battle everyday) lack of confidence. Not because my family or teachers didn't believe in me, but because I didn't believe in myself. Couple that with a strong desire to do things right (not just 'good enough') the first time and you get a neurotic mess like me, LOL.

I don't enjoy math, didn't pull As or Bs in school, but when I took Accounting Principles in college, I excelled. On my Final, I finished the test within 20 minutes. I am a terrible test taker, you know the kind that freaks and blanks on the first question. It usually takes me a few minutes before I remember the same answer for every single test: "oh right, my name is D.".

I was positive I messed up, how else could I finish before everyone else? I spent the rest of the time going over every darn question. I had tears dripping on my paper because I couldn't find where I went wrong. I turned in the test when time was up, and then sat in my car and cried. I received a 100 on that test.

I would make a fine accountant, but I hate working with numbers. I love words, but I'm not the best writer. However, writing brings me joy.

My high school and college English courses I always exceeded in. But the heck if I understand prepositional phrases.

I didn't go to college until my mid-twenties, and I believe that helped my retention quite a bit. I believe you'll do very well! Good luck, I've really enjoyed the comments.

Sorry this post is a little scattered.

Have a great day!

There is a lot of people who flunked out of school or didn't do so well. Einstein being one of them. Go for it and have a good time and don't be scared of anything. But tell the curses (and "yes" if people tell your mom or girlfriend or even you that you are not smart those are curses) to go away. Talk positive, think positive and you will go places in this lifetime. Example: A kid does nasty things tell him that he is such a good kid (child) that you don't understand why he is acting badly because that is just not like him. Keep reinforcing good behavior and you get good behavior. OR You are such a good helper and I know you love helping mommy. Works for my grandson and he is a really good boy because his mom and dad tell him he is good all the time.

Or and if you want to know about brains Carolyn Leaf is excellent as Dr. Amen.

I don't think I answered your questions but this is food for thought anyway.

N.

Hi Ephie,
I wanted to share a little about my husband's experience going back to school as an adult. We both decided to do this a couple years ago, but the difference between us is that I have always been a good student, while he has definitely struggled. I want to tell you that there is a BIG difference between High School and College, and it's not necessarily harder. He did have to work hard as he was getting back into it, but it makes a big difference when you have a goal in mind and you actually want to be there. One important strategy is to research who the good teachers are (sometimes it really pays off to take the really hard classes from an "easy" teacher). My husband found that there were certain study strategies that really helped him, too. He's a verbal learner. He needs to speak the information alloud to remember it. Some people need to move while they study (treadmill?). Figure out what works best for you and use it to your advantage. If figuring all this out is daunting, there are study skills centers on college campuses to help us. Use the resources available. It took my husband a while (he actually had to retake 2 especially hard classes), but he was committed to making it through and is getting As and Bs in his classes now. It can be hard work, but you can do it!
On a side note, don't wait until you file your taxes to file your FAFSA! I speak from experience. If you wait just a few weeks into the year you can miss out on Federal and State aid because there is record enrollment and not enough money to meet the needs of students. What you need to do is file your Fafsa as close to January 1st as possible. You don't have to know your income information to file initially. Just estimate. When you do file your taxes, you just go back and make an adjustment to the info. The FAFSA actually expects that people will do this, and includes a field for tax info that allows you to choose that you "will" file your taxes at a future date. By filing your FAFSA early, you lock in aid that you will be awarded.

Good Luck!!!

I have a touch of the ADHD as well FOR SURE (big touch). Luckily, I'm a painter, and when I was a fashion designer, it didn't matter, you could be a scatter brain weirdo as long as you put in enough hours to get to your end result. I always STUNK at math and science and was gifted in reading writing and art.

HOWEVER, a few thoughts for your questions. I've been plugging through the Well Trained Mind, Guide to Classical Education, and the trivium style of learning (which is not taught in schools today and I did not learn in that style). To be honest, reading it, I felt if I HAD been given the systematic layers of those subjects (science, math) as described in the trivium approach, I may have actually absorbed those subjects. In other words, rather than being COMPLETELY unable to retain ANY history, science or math, I may have had more capacity to tackle those than I thought. The system is such that for a child's first four years of school, they are exposed to all of those areas of study in progression through history at an age appropriate level in their basic reading and writing. THEN in fourth grade, the sequence starts AGAIN, and you go through all the subjects through historical eras again, on a more complex level, but since you have been exposed once already to the basics of each, it all sinks in much better. Last 4 years, you hit it all AGAIN, but at more advanced levels and for your own expression, ideas and arguments. Math of course progresses steadily, not in repetetive rounds, but science and hstory intertwine with other subjects, and are very hard to retain by randomly learning everything "once" as we were taught in school.

Also, when I have gone back as an adult to take classes, HECK YEAH! I'm SUDDENLY and awesome student. And I never was in school. I didn't really like school. But now if I want and need to know something, I CAN learn it, and I get perfect scores even with no college credit available whatsoever, I just need the knowledge, so I learn it.

So I think, YES, you can approach science with determination and focus as an adult and "get it" regardless of your history. And if not, you'll know it. But I really think you can, and there is a reason you are feeling inspired to do this. It helps to be gifted of course, but it is concrete information you can find, not arbitrary and talent based like art. I'm guessing you will be narrowing your focus and specializing too, which should be doable if you have a passion for it. In other words...GO FOR IT!

My husband was told his whole life he couldn't do math; that was his sister's talent, not his (by his mom). He believed it. When we met, he was flunking a college calculus course. He was going to just give up, but I convinced him to finish the class (failing grade and all) and retake it. He's a very intelligent person, but he gets easily frustrated by things that don't come easily AND he believed that his mom was right. He failed almost all of his college level math courses once, not because he couldn't master the material but because he would lose confidence. But I think by the time he was there for the second round, he lost his fear of it, and he'd end up making an A. It was not at all an inability on his part to do the math; he's actually quite good at it--though it's true, he's not at the same level as his sister. However, here we are 16 years later, and he's a very successful engineer. He relies heavily on math to do his job, and interestingly, is best at some of the subjects he struggled with the most. Hope this helps!

(By the way, his "four year" degree took him 13 years to finish, so even if it takes you an unusually long time to finish, don't think that it's beyond your grasp.)