I got a scholarship to go, went and failed badly. Engineering was my dream... I simply wasnt smart enough in class.
I got my A&P license and work for an airline, I make over 100k a year, get to travel the world for next to nothing and found a perfect wife in India to be mine 16 years ago..
I think it worked out just fine... but i do miss not being smart enough to get that degree...
I wanted to major in medical lab technology but like you didn’t have the academic horsepower. I did however manage to get a liberal arts degree.
Worked various jobs over the years and have done ok. Finally 5 years ago I decided to take an algebra class to console myself having blamed my lack of math skills for not doing well 30 years earlier.
To date I have earned 39 undergrad credits at my community college and this semester I’m taking organic chemistry 1. Next semester ochem 2, then in the summer English comp 2 and finally in the fall semester I’m taking college trig. That will get me a Biology AS degree which is basically all of the pre-requsite classes I would need to do the medical lab internship.
I’m not going to do that but I just wanted to prove to myself that I could. It was a black cloud hanging over my head all those years.
“but i do miss not being smart enough to get that degree”
I earned two degrees in computer science 40 years ago, which now aren’t worth the paper they were written on then. They were a help then, but now they don’t even have any bragging rights. (I DO have LOTS of things to brag about since then, but the degrees are not one of them.)
there’s lots of different types of intelligences. the kinds needed to get a degree aren’t the only kind by a long shot. I’ve seen many degreed individuals whose common sense wouldn’t cover the surface of the end of a needle.
Academics aren’t for everyone, and I’ve seen many successful people in the trades who are really great at what they do, really happy doing it, and have made very successful and lucrative businesses for themselves doing it.
I’ve got a close friend in his 60’s who was a natural born entrepreneur and his a multi-millionaire. This guy is smart but does not have a degree. I’ve recently helped him discover the Internet and he’s dived into it and is learning all kinds of stuff. He’s become an instant expert on many kinds of firearms and is buying up deals at national auctions and reselling at local auctions for a profit.
I also once saw a guy in his 50’s go back to school to get his PhD, even though this guy was an extremely accomplished computer programmer and making really good money in a really good job. This guy had made it. We all just shook our heads at such a pointless exercise and could only speculate that it was solely because he felt his feeling of self-worth depended on proving to himself that he could it.
It sounds to me like you’ve made yourself a great, happy life WITHOUT a degree! So just forget about it and focus on those things you are great at! You really didn’t miss very much.
I’d love to learn A&P but the closest school is a couple hours away. If I were independently wealthy I do it. My uncle went there after the Army.
I doubt I could sell my wife on the idea.
Besides I’m partly color blind so I’m probably out of luck anyway as for a job. I would just like to learn.
If I can ever schedules to jive, I hope to go to some of those EAA workshops. It’s just one thing after another. Probably the closest I will get.
The local tech college offers nuclear power plant operator. I would take that just to take it so I can say I was good enough for nuclear power. My asvab was good but not enough high math and good ole color blindness.
Oh well.