[I don’t know you, so please feel free to completely ignore any of the following.]
I personally know three EAs who simply aren’t constituted to put up with the fake work and weak authoritarianism of college. I expect any of them to do great things. Two other brilliant ones are Chris Olah and Kelsey Piper. (I highly recommend Piper’s writingon the topicfor deeppractical insights and as a way of shifting the balance of responsibility partially off yourself and onto the ruinous rigid bureaucracy you are in. She had many of the same problems as you, and things changed enormously once she found a working environment that actually suited her. Actually just read the whole blog, she is one of the greats.)
In the UK a good number of professions have a non-college “apprenticeship” track, including software development and government! I don’t know about the US.
This is not to say that you should not do college, just that there are first-class precedents and alternatives.
More immediately: I highly recommend coworking as a solution to ugh. Here’s the best kind, Brauner-style, or here are nice group rooms on Focusmate or Complice.
You’re a good writer and extremely self-aware. This is a really good start.
If you’d like to speak to some other EAs in this situation (including one in the US), DM me.
Thank you for linking me to Kelsey Piper—I haven’t read Chris Olah’s essay yet, but I’m sure I’d’ve thanked you for linking him too had I only. I’m going to give Focusmate a go; I’ve been meaning to set it up but procrastinated doing so long enough to generate an ugh field about that. Thank you for that, too.
[I don’t know you, so please feel free to completely ignore any of the following.]
I personally know three EAs who simply aren’t constituted to put up with the fake work and weak authoritarianism of college. I expect any of them to do great things. Two other brilliant ones are Chris Olah and Kelsey Piper. (I highly recommend Piper’s writing on the topic for deep practical insights and as a way of shifting the balance of responsibility partially off yourself and onto the ruinous rigid bureaucracy you are in. She had many of the same problems as you, and things changed enormously once she found a working environment that actually suited her. Actually just read the whole blog, she is one of the greats.)
80k have some notes on effective alternatives to a degree. kbog also wrote a little guide.
In the UK a good number of professions have a non-college “apprenticeship” track, including software development and government! I don’t know about the US.
This is not to say that you should not do college, just that there are first-class precedents and alternatives.
More immediately: I highly recommend coworking as a solution to ugh. Here’s the best kind, Brauner-style, or here are nice group rooms on Focusmate or Complice.
You’re a good writer and extremely self-aware. This is a really good start.
If you’d like to speak to some other EAs in this situation (including one in the US), DM me.
Thank you for linking me to Kelsey Piper—I haven’t read Chris Olah’s essay yet, but I’m sure I’d’ve thanked you for linking him too had I only. I’m going to give Focusmate a go; I’ve been meaning to set it up but procrastinated doing so long enough to generate an ugh field about that. Thank you for that, too.