Well, I’ve survived my first two classes in my online university, and, barring any more apathy or massive server outages, I’ll Squeak by with a B in one class, and an A in the other. (that is if I get my final assignment in!)

They were definately more difficult than I thought. I was very exited about the classes at first, but as soon as week 4 hit (out of 9) apathy started to sink in. The beginning classes I’m forced to take aren’t all that interesting, to be honest. The hardest thing about them was trying not to make fun of the people who posted in the wrong newsgroups, or made massive spellign errors. Out of the 8-10 of us that started, I beleive there’s only 4 of us left. I’m proud of myself for sticking through it, and now I’ll get to move on to the next set of classes that start Monday.

The only problem with that is, I don’t have any books.

That’s right, I found out my grants/loans don’t cover books. And one of my books is $75. I found it used for $60 somewhere, but it comes with a CD, and I hate used CDs. The other book is a mere $25, but still more than I wanted to spend.

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you one of my assignments. Since I wrote it, I think I have the rights to post it wherever-the-fark-I-want. and that means here too.

The Essay question was: What obstacles might you encounter on the path to success? How will you overcome these obstacles?

My Answer:

Success is a funny word, and it has many different meanings to many different people about many different things. Success to me, as a broad generalization, would be getting a good job, making a few million dollars, and retiring at age 35. Now as you can see, there are quite a few flaws in my master plan to become successful. The first and foremost being how I would acquire a few million dollars within the next 8 years.

Now, I?m not above winning the lottery, but I recently ran into a roadblock that I hadn?t thought of. I discovered that you must actually purchase lottery ?tickets? in order to win. This threw a wrench in my plans, as these tickets cost money, and I don?t have any. I decided I?d have to move on to more realistic goals, and redefined my view on ?success.?

I now define success as, finishing college (with at least a Masters degree in IT, or a Doctorate in Computer Science); getting a good, high paying job (I?m not above groveling at the feet of ); and being able to generally enjoy my life with as little stress as possible.

I know, even when I trim back my plans, I still think big.

If we ignore the obvious flaws in what we?ll call ?Plan B,? It really starts with where I am now, and that?s School. If I don?t get myself a bit more organized, and find a way to pay for all my books, I?m never going to get past step 1, and without getting past step 1, I won?t get on to Steps 2, 3, 4, or 5.

So, the obstacles I?ll need to tackle first will be anything school related, organization and motivation primarily. I think once I get into some more advanced classes, the motivation will be there, as everything will be fairly fresh and interesting (No offence to whomever may be reading this). Once I get past, or at least near the end of those obstacles, I think I can look ahead and figure out what to do next.