hang in there...college LD folks

I’m a freshman in college LD student in the “honors” program at one of these less prestigious school, but i guess it’s amazing that I’m 20 years old and I got past high school after repeating a grade. I come across as incredibly bright, but I perform like crap in the classroom on certain multiple choice exams for my business classes here, especially ones that are based off lots of reading from textbooks. These “honors” students sometimes work as tutors for the LD/academic support group kids, so what am I to do? Teach myself?

“…Yeah this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me
I’d never amount to nothin’ …
and all my peoplez in the struggle you know what I’m sayin’?

Uh ha it’s all good baby bay-bee, uh”- Notorious BIG, JUicy

I’m a finance major. I think I’m interested in corporate finance because money is cool and helps you get stuff. Im very good with math and computers and i like wearing suits and driving BMWs. That’s about all I know. some may hate me for saying that but i keep these goal thoughts to myself and come across as a nice guy.

. I supposedly have 315.0 DSM-IV Reading Disorder, Written language disorder + auditory processing disorder, but not the regular dyslexia LD - just mainly slow processing speed.

i’d recommend the book ive read which helped me write this, as well as The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley. Few graduated at or near the top of their class. Most millionaires had 2.9 GPAs and ~1100 SATs, but were honest and worked harder than most people. They enter a niche where there are few competitors but profitable. A Reading disability is actually not unusual either. the point is that you use the fact that you’ve been told you don’t have the ability to have intense anger and motivation in your mind, and use it to work hard to make a mark of the world. prove everyone else wrong and some of those teachers who made you feel like you lack necessary abilities

“…50 inch screen, money green leather sofa
Got two rides, a limousine with a chauffeur
Phone bill about two G’s flat
No need to worry, my accountant handles that” -Notorious BIG, Juicy

“Stay far from timid
Only make moves when ya heart’s in it
And live the phrase Sky’s The Limit” Notorious BIG, sky’s the limit

Here’s an essay I wrote for my first college english class

[b]creativity vs. a restrictive lifestyle[/b]

Creativity is defined as “one who displays productive originality,” according to dictionary.com. It involves coming up with novel solutions to perceived problems. It may be the most underrated type of thinking. It’s what allowed Einstein to discover the theory of relativity despite every boy on the streets of Copenhagen understanding more about four-dimensional geometry than he did. Perhaps this is true because creativity is not something you can measure in the classroom or on a linear scale. “Some people are so deeply accustomed to a linear view of intelligence and potential that they find it almost impossible to believe that certain persons may find advanced subject matter quite easy while they find some elementary subject matter quite difficult” (12).

Einstein is a name that has come to be synonymous with genius. However, Einstein showed paradoxical traits throughout his conventional schooling years. Too many of us would like to over simplify things and try to measure intellect on a linear scale. One would be very surprised to learn that Einstein actually had much difficulty with the easier part of mathematics throughout life – the part that involved simple mathematical operations. His ‘disabilities’ are so real that even his very own parents thought he was a dullard. He made frequent mistakes even late in his life in his advanced work. So perhaps we should think twice before we try to judge intellect in the third grade based upon fast responses of multiplication tables.

The following quotation from a book titled In The Mind’s Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People with Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity sums this well:

The belief in unified and stratified intelligence runs deep. The cream always rises, we are led to believe. Yet when we look fairly at the stories of Einstein and others we can see that this is not always so. We need to be able to see that some who are best at looking into the heart of nature may not be very good at the demands of the conventional educational system or of managing a successful career….Let us not forget that Einstein did much of his most important early work while he was cutting lectures, intermittently unemployed, and working as an unknown junior bureaucrat – ‘patent clerk, third class.’ Indeed, when Einstein was sought out in those early days by one of the few who recognized the revolutionary nature of his initial work, he was amazed to find that Einstein was not a full professor at the university nor a high-ranking official with a big office; he was merely the ‘unimposing, shirt-sleeved employee whom [the visitor] at first gave scarcely a glance when he sought out Einstein at the Patent Office.

Today colleges will continue to make admissions decisions – trying to make a prediction on any individual applicant from a combination of the only items available to them - scholastic aptitude tests, high school grades, and teacher recommendations. US News and World Report as well as Princeton Review will continue making money off their annual college rankings, based upon many different subjects for ratings. This rating system should not play a vital role because the college does not make the person do well; the person must have been good or had something to offer to begin with. This development is almost analogous to of a quotation by the great Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike: “The athlete makes himself; the coach doesn’t make the athlete.” So it makes a whole lot more sense to take the time to learn more about yourself than to try and choose the most competitive school just so a student can adapt to their style.

Many entrepreneurs are able to think “out of the box.” They are also lucky because they get to set their own hours to break away from the restrictiveness that may hurt their own creative potential. 3M managers showed creativity when they invented “Post-Its.” However, when we think of creativity, we tend to think solely of the arts, and that creative people are those who can sing, perform, draw, and paint. But in reality creativity is essential to developing anything new. You see it time and time again with some of the most brilliant people – Einstein, Churchill, and Faraday, who are not artists.. Too often schools discourage creativity and focus too much on developing analytical intellect. It has been less of a problem in the past because those who are able to be creative were usually able to enter the workforce at an earlier age and find their niche through that. Amazing inventors such as the Wright brothers never went through the conventional schooling system, despite the Wright parents being college-educated.

In addition, 3M gives their employees a certain number of hours at the end of their work weeks to just day dream about inventions. This sounds like a good idea. We all know of the students who sit in class and day dream. My parents had been told by my fourth grade teacher that I “watch movies” during class and do not follow directions. The more and more we get into the daily routine of the outside world with an unhealthful lifestyle -working rigorously hard routines with little sleep, the harder it becomes to work on developing something new.

Yet it is interesting to note that creativity’s origins evolve from borrowing and perhaps ‘stealing’ ideas. Artists talk about how they are inspired by work they see. Some have tried to distinguish artistic theft from inspiration. This may not be an easy thing to do because it can be a fine line. For example, I read in a book called MTIV: Process, Inspiration, and Practice for the New Media Designer that a look into the life of Picasso revealed he had been studying African masks years before he became famous and one can see from viewing his work that it really influenced his unique style.

We should not think of creativity as artists generating ideas out of nowhere while sitting on a pedestal. They have to come from somewhere stored in memory in the brain. The change that goes on inside the brain from something you take in and then put out is inspiration. This input and output may be thought of as ‘stealing,’ but there is a fine line between replication and invention. Some may interpret the art as copying styles; others may not be aware.

But one thing is clear. We have to open our mind to the outside world and take in what we can. We may want to focus more energy on allowing ourselves further opportunities to do something new rather than allowing the schooling systems to restrict creativity by making students follow the restrictive, inflexible daily routines. It seems to be why after scanning the history of the most brilliant inventors in all fields, it has been at the very least a bumpy road through any kind of given restrictive day to day lifestyle.

Works Cited:

West, Thomas G. In The Mind’s Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People with Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity. New York: Prometheus Books, 1997.

good luck to you all