Introduction

by JLH | 2021-08-31

This introduction will be covering reasons for doing stuff.

Reasons

If you are going to do something hard, you sure as hell need a reason for doing so. For something like “make a Neocities website”, the reason can literally just be “because I want to”, and that’s valid. But what happens when on some day, you don’t, strictly speaking, “want” to, you don’t “feel like it”, etc. etc. etc.? Maybe you default to some stronger reason, like “because I want to create something worthwhile, that other people will read, that expresses myself as a person, because I want to develop web design skills that I’ll be able to apply in the real world, because I really need to find some people online that have the same interests as me” etc. etc. etc.. Or maybe you just give up.

You need a reason! This here is just to list a bunch of reasons to persuade my future (and present) self that these exams are worth doing well in.

  1. Build good habits for university/life. This is the best reason, I think; the reason being that if I can figure out an approach that can force myself to do well in these exams or apply the discipline needed in this area, I can apply the same good habits/discipline to other areas of my life I actually want to excel in, like the subjects I’m interested in at uni and my own personal projects (e.g. programming, making music). Plus, apparently the scheduling at the uni I’m interested in going to is not very forgiving, so this may actually be necessary to succeed at all.
  2. Have a chance of getting a scholarship. Odds aren’t super good that I’ll get a scholarship, but it would certainly be nice to have one, and getting a good mark in these exams would help a great deal.
  3. Get a credential for tutoring work. I do like learning and find teaching interesting, and I could do with earning a little bit of cash, so offering tutoring to high schoolers etc. seems like a good option as a part-time uni job. Being able to advertise how well I did in these exams would be a pretty good draw.
  4. Working hard is it’s own reward? Hmm… I don’t really think there’s a real sense of accomplishment in particular for these exams like there would be for learning a new skill or accomplishing some project, since these exams are mostly an arbitrary combination of topic areas and marking guidelines set by boards and committees; my Physics teacher once said “Do you guys think we are learning science here? No, we are not.” The exams test my ability to do an exam, not necessarily how well I know the underlying principles of its subject, so doing well isn’t as intrinsically satisfying. However, there has to be something there, right? …I’ll chalk it up as a ‘maybe’.
  5. Don’t disappoint parents/teachers. My parents are actually pretty chill about this stuff. They’re happy when I do well, and cheer me up if I feel bad about how I did. But my teachers in particular have sunk a bunch of time into marking my work and, well, teaching, and even if they’re not all absolutely outstanding teachers, I’m pretty sure they all want me to do well, and I like making people happy.

I’ll add more reasons as I think of them!