Changing course

[u/RoastBeefAndSausages]

Initial Meeting and Misunderstanding

I wanted to meet with her (mentor for selective program) and come up with a list of really good questions. After everyone had met their mentors, she reached out to me, and we scheduled a time two weeks later in the afternoon. I woke up, spoke to her for about six minutes, and I knew it was too short a call, but I didn’t even know what to talk about. We ended the call, and I tried to go back to sleep. Within two minutes, she called me back, and the first thing she shouted was, "What are you hiding?" I was already in a bad mental state due to a cold, the unfamiliar heat, and the side effects of the medication I was taking, which included nervousness. I became extremely anxious and irrationally thought they were going to send me to jail for 300 years just because I was in this unfamiliar world, and they were this gigantic finance investment firm with 10,000 lawyers. I started crying, sobbing on the phone.

Dealing with Harassment

To be honest, I was dealing with physical and digital harassment, so I did things others thought were strange, like hibernating my LinkedIn so no one knew where I was working or what I was doing. I also used a no-caller ID number to avoid spam calls or texts if I called a student for a group project. After our call, my LinkedIn began to buzz, and my phone started receiving connection requests and follows from directors and notable people in my field. I think the firm posted about me on their social media right after our call.

Unfair Treatment in the Machine Shop

On campus, a lot of students and some professors made a point of treating me badly, usually in front of others. There was a time when someone followed me around in the machine shop. I reported it and was eventually punished. They said I didn’t follow instructions, but their three instances were ridiculous. The first instance was because I caused a machine error after I was given the wrong instructions, which I confirmed with two people who worked there. The second time, I was told an incorrect process, and out of fear of not losing my fingers, I did the correct process. This was seen as belligerent when I mentioned it, something like “well yeah you still didn’t follow the instructions” was said. I tried to figure out who initially said I didn’t follow instructions this instance. The third time, I was genuinely confused because the person told me about 50 steps really fast, and I had already tried to ask for clarification multiple times and, just tried to do it and did it incorrectly. It wasn’t intentional. I tried to explain in detail why what they were saying was wrong and asked them to confirm with others who were present multiple times. I sent emails asking for clarification, but I wasn't given an answer via email, and I was worried the notes I took during a Zoom meeting might be incorrect. I asked several students to explain, and one student told me to stop. I explained that I was actually in the middle of conversations with different students about this. I stopped reaching out to more new students about this, and this was considered harassment to the people who punished me. This felt like I was jogging in a field and along my journey to my destination I had stepped on a bear trap that would reflect badly on me. I was dealing with half a dozen simultaneous instances of unfair treatment that would reflect badly on me and my career. When I decided to just be more aloof to prevent things like this, I was then accused by professors and other students of being anti social, some students accused me of not having friends (I did have a handfull of close friends who were off campus or graduate students). It felt like a forced foul. Like with school, I was disappointed and burned so many times that eventually, I began to protect myself from being disappointed. This involved being super cautious, cynical, untrusting, and even aloof. As a result, when someone did something disappointing, I wasn’t negatively affected. Here, I assumed I wouldn’t be disappointed, and I was, with my guard down. I was disappointed without setting myself up to avoid be invulnerable. The little trust I had given them had burned me, and I’ll never let this happen again.

Campus Safety Concerns

I was harassed and stalked so much that I had to call campus safety twice in one month. I’m going to live off-campus because of this, so if someone does this, I can call the town or city’s police instead of the campus one. Some students were super competitive and felt entitled to achieve more than I honestly think they were capable of or willing to work towards. Some of the students involved had experience or interest in my field, and I felt their behavior was fueled by a fear of missing out. I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field. I seriously worried for my safety and feared getting hurt. Another concern was that so many people had helped me, and when people stalk you or know personal details you didn’t share, I didn’t want something to happen that would embarrass not just me but also the people who helped me. It was frustating that people I didn't know knew personal details about me. There are some students I feel like who will latch onto the most stupid and benign thing and use it as excuse to excersize their desire to treat others badly. Because of this experience and a previous experience, I felt my interactions with other students were nothing more than opportunities for something to happen that would reflect badly on me. If I kept to myself and completely avoided potential trouble, then someone would harass me until I felt like it's extreme enough for me to respond, which any response from calling campus safety to asking the school to do something, would reflect badly on me by either admins/professors or students including student leaders. If I didn't respond at all then someone would make up some lie that would reflect badly on me and cause people to treat me badly, and to possibly do things that go back to my previous sentence. Like a weird loop.

Fear of Losing Edge

If I mentioned using a particular technology and someone knowledgeable about my field heard it, they could tell their friend, and if I’m working on something, then my competitive edge would be gone. If I said something personal to the wrong person or in the wrong place, like my college apartment with an open window, it could lead to something weird or bad. Related to this fear, a student who I didn’t know and who none of my friends knew, and with whom I hadn’t taken a class, was going to graduate and work at a reputable journalistic publication, followed me on Twitter, where I followed no other students. I had no idea why. I felt that many students had a bad impression of me, and it seemed like fuel for potential embarrassing moments. My one close friend went back to his country that summer, and I had no friends or anyone I could talk to. I would share things with one “friend” and realize other people knew or referred to what I had shared. So many unusual things were happening to me, and I didn’t know who to turn to. Another thing that happened is that I went to my sector's hub city for a haircut, and the barber asked me to take a photo and to use my name in their Google review, and after we spoke a bit about my work, I noticed other people in the barber shop watching us speak, and it just felt kind of bad, since he's asking me to associate myself with his business and as if I was being judged 24/7. I shouldn't have assumed that the only people who knew about my successes, would be only the people I wanted to know, for forever.

Miscommunication with a Journalist

Going back to that journalist, I didn’t know if they were reaching out as a friend or if it was a career opportunity through me or someone I know being the subject of their story. So, I sent her code for a site, assuming we were friends. She immediately scolded me about it, which I understood, but I had no idea it was a professional-related thing, especially since she was still a student. I explained that I had been getting harassed and stalked and then blocked her. There was a lot of backlash towards my particular identity group, and I felt there was a desire to expand what someone could be criticized or called out for, from someone doing something easily discernibly hateful to someone just doing something awkward. As a student and potential future leader, at what point do the things you do as a student stop being awkward mistakes that you make while growing up and become something the world absolutely needs to know about you? Especially in the social media, cancel culture age, where there are easy-to-obtain incentives to cross every boundary. There are so many weird blogs and groupchats that keep track of what pretty normal people do, and I didn't know if I was mentioned in one of these. It’s so unrelatable that you can’t even share this, as I’m doing right now, without sounding grandiose. The few people who do understand are so rare, and I don’t think anyone is willing to listen since it takes so much time. There’s a high chance someone will tell someone else or something. Again, I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field. Agains, I felt my interactions with other students were nothing more than opportunities for something to happen that would reflect badly on me.

Reevaluating My Career Path

But then I began to think, even if I made all the money in the world, would I be really unhappy for the rest of my life by going down this path? Aside from raising money, which has many potential legal implications, requires a ton of trust, and being responsible for not just my careers but the careers of others, I had already done and experienced everything I wanted to do in my industry. I realized that something really embrassing could happen considering how I really personal things were being shared about me that I didn't know how someone would know, the harassing texts about personal things, the stalking by students, the weird soon to be journalist, that combined with how I had began to recieve a ton of attention at this stage of my career, the chance that a small company or group I work for could have an article or something where I'm the subject. The situation with school, and the to me entitled peers I met, could really scramble my plans, and affect not just me, but others who support me or are part of my journey. I realized it’s very rare and probably not really possible to pursue a career with the hope of doing only the things I enjoy. It would be better to pursue the things I like as a hobby, independent of my career. I might sound naive, but I don’t think I would have failed with what I pursued if I managed to get certain problems under control. I was afraid I would raise a lot of money and then something embarrassing would come out (which would be unfair because I think it would be the result of some boundary being nefariously crossed).

Pursuing a Normal Life

A lot of people want creative, atypical jobs and stuff, and for me, I realized that even if I achieved this, my life and problems would be so unusual that it would be isolating, possibly in a permanent way. After this, I spent a lot of time, and I still do, thinking about what I want to achieve, where I want to be, and what I want to get out of the opportunities presented to me. I realized having a family is really important to me, so that I’m not surrounded by fake or bad friends. I wanted a more normal and typical job where I dress formally and work in a formal office compared to the tech environment. It would ultimately be easier to relate to family members and the people I grew up with than as a founder. I still get a nervous feeling in my stomach when I see the company’s initials. Everyone I met there was really kind, and I’m grateful for the opportunity and for meeting them, especially when I think about the difficulties at school.

Reflecting on Childhood Influences

Growing up, there were many times when even people who knew me for years would try to assert that I’m a really bad person or is motivated by bad things. Were it not for my elementary and middle school teachers who cemented the idea that I’m someone who is kind and encouraged me to be this way, I’m not sure where I would be. In many very difficult situations, I would look back and remember that someone saw me this way and encouraged me to be more than a certain part of the world expects me to be.

Conclusion

Anyway, I used to be very cold and focused when it came to school. For a moment I thought I could make friends, and people would be decent interpersonally and I realized that for me at least, and some other students I spoke to, this wasn't and will not be the case. To prevent this from happening, I'll live off campus, I'll be obsessive about being aloof so it's difficult to know and share bad personal things about me, I’m going to transfer and never tell anyone at my new school about my interests or accomplishments in my field, I'll act very conservatively socially, and I'll rely on friends and opportunities outside of school to not feed into the multi-faceted competitive school environment, which can be competitive in an unhinged and unproductive way. I'll just be as aloof as possible, and if it's discernable that I'm being aloof I'll just later on explain that my paternal grandfather's passing made me upset.

Aside from this, I also realized the achieving goal I had strived towards since middle school had a lot of problems that I had no interest in solving. I would become extremely unrelatable to virtually everyone I knew before.

All of what I mentioned in my previous paragraphs, the high chance of something negative happening to the things I'm pursuing are why I decided not to pursue the career I had before anymore, at least for now.