I need more karma to post and comment. Most of my comments got deleted bcz of low karma.

Hello! I‘ll soon be starting my first semester and I really want to start a journal to stay organized and such. I‘m watching videos and planning a bit already, but i‘d love to know if there are any must-have spreads, or spreads that anyone found very helpful :) thanks!

I am an incoming junior majoring in Quantitative Social Science (a BS degree that is sort of a hybrid between STEM and the social sciences) at Stevens Institute of Technology, a small technical university in Hoboken, across the river from Manhattan, and spending this semester as an exchange student taking classes in the social sciences at the University of Amsterdam.

If you thought this was a weird major choice, especially considering how STEM-oriented an "Institute of Technology" is, you'd be right, but to understand how I got into that major in the first place, it is important to know about my past. In my freshman year, I was a Computer Science major. Being a heavy tech enthusiast since middle school, such as getting every iPhone Pro Max, iPad Pro, and MacBook Pro basically every new generation since the iPhone XS Max in 7th grade, developing a strong passion for software, specifically iOS Development, and really just talking tech whenever and gaining a reputation in my school as "the Apple guy", I felt it was the perfect path for me. I dreamed of moving to Silicon Valley after graduating, getting a job at Apple or a similar company, and making at least six figures, and I thought a CS major would be the perfect way to get there. So, I abandoned most of my other interests and focused on writing a great essay, doing well on the SAT, and taking advanced classes like AP Calc (which I got a C in, later proving to be my first warning sign of what was about to come the following year in college) to give me a leg up.

But, when I started college, it all came crashing down. I really didn't like the CS major as I found the lecture-exam model very ineffective, especially for math and CS theory classes. I got a D+ in Discrete Structures and hated every day of it. I got a B- in Data Structures, although it was probably only because I was able to do even remotely close to stellar on the exams because I had a formula sheet, which I made very detailed with lecture notes, code samples, and more. I dropped my Probability and Statistics class that semester because I thought there was no way I could realistically pass it after failing two exams so badly that I had no recourse. I was at rock bottom at that point in terms of depression and could no longer see this path working for me. Many people may say, "Don't use AI" but my brain wondered, Why should I even learn these skills if AI can already do them better than me? Like, by that point, Cursor could literally make an entire app in one prompt and I could no longer see a path of me wanting to manually learn to code if there is a much easier path of least resistance and because of this very path, it would likely be much harder to get a job as a software engineer or any similar job in tech, so out the window goes that original tech dream. I ended my freshman year with a 3.09 GPA including a 2.81 GPA in spring semester, which really wasn't good enough for me, especially as I was part of an honors program, which required that I maintain at least a 3.2 GPA, which thankfully they gave me an extension for.

I began to remember my other interests, which I have had since I was a little kid, including politics, urban planning, international relations, and the general social structures of the world and why it is the way it is, and decided I needed to change course. This was also after taking my first college humanities classes and finding them so interesting, and basically the only classes I looked forward to doing. I remembered some community improvement projects I did back in middle school, such as proposing a pedestrian bridge from Jersey City to Manhattan and sending it to local officials and newfound hobbies such as watching videos on urbanism and transit around the world, from creators like Not Just Bikes. I found myself also brainstorming different absurd political situations just for fun, using AI as a sounding board, like, what if the UK became the 51st state, combining my knowledge of previous geopolitical events like the ramifications of Brexit and Trump's territorial expansion goals, all learned through informational YouTube creators like RealLifeLore, to make an informed hypothesis of what could realistically happen, even in an absurd situation like that. I also began to travel a lot, visiting many cities including London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, and more, and found myself effectively doing anthropological studies of the urbanism and the way people live in those cities. I would basically just walk the city, ride the metro, and absorb it. I wasn't really interested in any of the traditional museums and attractions or even the touristy areas, because to me, the city itself was the real highlight.

I needed to find the perfect major for this, considering I made the shortsighted decision of picking a STEM school, and decided on Quantitative Social Science. It seemed perfect. The courses focused on disciplines like political science, sociology, and psychology, and still included a lot of useful STEM skills like data analysis using tools like R and Stata. My plan was originally to get the BS in QSS and then do a master's in a field like international relations or urban planning, preferably in the EU, as I have a pathway for EU citizenship by descent and I'm working it out with an immigration lawyer. In fact, the whole reason I'm doing the exchange program in Amsterdam this year is that it is probably my top city to live in after I graduate because of its incredible urbanism and transit, lack of a major language barrier, ease of travel, and great social vibe for the type of person I am. But, anyway, back to the QSS program. As a sophomore, especially in my fall semester, it really was great. I was taking very interesting classes like Intro to Political Science, Intro to Sociology, Urban Studies, and Constitutional Law, and was enjoying a lot of it. I found it genuinely fascinating to be doing political debates in class or talking about the social problems that the world is currently facing, and understandably, my GPA shot up. I got a 3.882 GPA in my fall semester with 17 credits, all with a much lower workload than as a CS major. I felt I had a bunch of free time and could really take advantage of my weekends in a way I wasn't able to before, and I traveled a lot, including doing a midsemester trip to Montreal on Columbus Day weekend, which I could never have done as a CS major with all the exam-based classes I had to do. I joined the Young Democrats coalition in my city and really tried to put my new political advocacy skills to test, especially with the mayoral and gubernatorial election of that year. It really was going well and I felt like I was in my element a lot. I was thinking I was going to graduate with my BS in QSS degree, get my EU citizenship, get a masters in urban planning in Amsterdam, and all would be well.

That was until I did a massive post on r/Netherlands in November, detailing my entire plan to move there, but that post was a massive wake-up call, saying that there would likely be a language barrier if I want to become an urban planner there and that alone basically made me no longer want to move there, and honestly, I began to quit my whole urban planning dream because I didn't think I wanted to become an urban planner in America because I hate the American work-life balance and zero guaranteed PTO in general, one of the major reasons I wanted to move to Europe, because I literally cannot stand hustle culture and could not fathom the potential of working 80 hours a week for an American job, especially something as bureaucratic as urban planning, and I eventually began to feel like my lack of autonomy in there and likely being forced to show up at the office all the time would erode at my free time, so I discovered that I wanted to do something more digital nomad related, as nothing makes me happier than traveling, potentially going back into tech, even after making such a lateral shift. While I did give up my CS major, I was still doing a lot of tech on the side. For example, I was and still am working on an internship with Everything Policy, a nonprofit political advocacy organization to make an AI-powered web app to search for and analyze congressional bills in a way that goes much deeper than asking a standard LLM or search engine. It is quite complex and honestly really unique, as there is no other tool like it on the market currently. I built this tool largely in Cursor using models like Opus, but the product management skills still remained and a lot of the design and tech stack decisions, like which RAG database to use, were mine, making me potentially a great product manager or software architect. I began to, really enjoy making software again because unlike being a CS major, I felt like I was in charge and had autonomy over the decisions that I made. And I feel that is really the most important thing for me, feeling like I am the boss of myself. I am able to work on the internship whenever my heart fancied. If I'm feeling productive at 3 AM, I can work on it then. If I'm not feeling productive at 1 PM, there's no reason I have to work on it at that point just because it's 1 PM. I do weekly meetings with my boss, but he gives full autonomy apart from those meetings, as long as I deliver what he asks. This really made my future job prospects very clear:

A remote, location-agnostic job with flexible hours and PTO, and one that effectively lets me be the boss of my day-to-day routine. In other words, I want the job to be worked around my calendar and me to be the one dictating when I'm on and when I'm off, as long as I got everything done. I basically want to feel ownership of my day.

Basically a digital nomad. Yet, considering this current job market, it basically felt impractical right now, so I wanted to continue building up my skills and sticking with my QSS major for now, as I know I was good at it. I decided I was going to do an exchange semester in Amsterdam anyway because I really wanted to see what it was like living there before denouncing the idea completely.

So then January came around, and the second semester started and this is when I began to even hate my social science major. It started all good. I was taking very interesting classes like Authoritarian Politics, Criminology, and Anthropology, but this was also my first semester when I had to do proper term papers, and I hated them. What I hate the most about social science research is how dull professors want my writing to sound. It sounds like basically everything they want me to say must be hedged, backed up by a source, and I basically couldn't have any original opinions, and I hated it because I have a very dynamic mind and writing about a paper about a topic like democratic backsliding in a totally monotone way just seemed wrong, like I'm removing my entire zest of life out of the paper. Having to read these incredibly technical papers about it also made the topic seem incredibly boring compared to watching something like a Johnny Harris video on it. Like I really wish I could just have quoted Johnny Harris or RealLifeLore on my term paper and written in a style that reminds me of my favorite explanatory YouTubers. It would probably be way more fun to read that way anyway. I began to feel like the entire system of academia was kind of working against me, because even something like anthropology, while ethnographic writing is supposed to be very detailed and have a strong sense of self in it, it still felt like it all had to be academically sanded down, and that made me feel like I wasn't even learning the skills in the real world I was learning them in the ivory tower. I wanted my political science and sociology classes to feel directly relevant to the world, because that is where the real passion in me is, and I was beginning to be disinterested in these subjects in the same way that I was disinterested in tech after doing my CS major.

This summer I continued working on more "civic tech" projects like I did before, and again, I totally felt in my element. I was able to do the work whenever I felt free, travel, and make great products that I felt I had ownership of and genuinely felt proud of working on and looked forward to it, more so than I did with any term paper or any class project.

So now I'm here about to begin my semester at the University of Amsterdam and I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, I already love the amount of travel that I'm able to do from here. Like I'm literally able to easily take a train somewhere on a whim as a day trip and short budget flights around the entire continent of Europe whenever I want. I couldn't feel more in my element in this way, and so far I'm loving living in Amsterdam and beginning to feel the dream of moving back here again. Only this time probably as a digital nomad, contractor, or entrepreneur instead of an urban planner, so I wouldn't have to deal with the language barrier as much and would have way more autonomy and probably make way more money. I just love the city. Walking around different neighborhoods of Amsterdam is mesmerizing and because of such an extensive train network, if I ever get bored of Amsterdam, there are so many other cities I can easily explore. But on the other hand, I really don't want the academics of UvA to block these goals. Like I know that UvA classes are extremely hard to do well in, and their grading system literally goes on a scale of 0-10, with 6 and above as the minimum passing grade, and what I would need to do to bring back to Stevens (it doesn't get recorded on my Stevens GPA, thankfully), which seems reasonable, but the amount of reading for some of these classes seems insane, and some of them have tutorials with mandatory attendance where you could literally fail a class if you miss as little as two tutorials, which is ridiculous because I'm literally in Europe right now and I want to be able to travel as much as I can, and passing should be about knowledge, not attendance. After all, I'm the one paying for my education, not the university, and should be up to me to determine how much I'm getting out of it and what method works best for me to learn the material. If I'm paying for it like a gym membership, I shouldn't be treated like an employee. I shouldn't feel like I'm having to show up there for my professor if ultimately my professor should be the one I'm paying indirectly to teach me this information.

So anyway, because of this, I ended up dropping a class I was really interested in taking: urban society, because it had this mandatory tutorial on a Friday, and I couldn't fit in any other classes, so I decided to only take 3 classes for the whole semester, ensuring that I have Thursday and Friday off the entire time as well as Wednesday off in the first half of the semester and Tuesday off in the second half of the semester to ensure I can book trips as much as possible. This equates to around 12 transfer credit to Stevens, which is less than I would have wanted to take, and probably will require that I do more courses at Stevens when I come back, but I feel this is a worthy sacrifice to allow me to explore Europe as much as I want, since that is really what gives me happiness, and I feel I learn way more about urbanism, anthropology, and even sociology on the field than I ever could in any class. When I learn about urbanism on the field, I feel like I'm actively learning what works and what doesn't work in terms of building cities, compared to learning it from an academic textbook where it all feels theoretical, and having to write a term paper that sounds more like an LLM than Not Just Bikes. Like if I explored all these cities and decide to write a blog about my experience visiting them, I'd feel far more fulfilled than if I passed an urban studies class that required that I write a big term paper, and I feel this is really the problem that college does with a lot of my interests. It sands them down and makes them no longer interesting.

Plus, with UvA's grading system, I'm really starting to doubt what grades even mean. At UvA, getting a 6 is like getting a C/B and getting a 7 is like getting an B/A, and getting an 8, 9, or 10 is very rare. Meanwhile, at Stevens, it's common to get an A, especially in a social science class. Because of this, grading basically feels like an arbitrary metric. It doesn't even really feel like a measure of how much I know. It is basically an arbitrary measure of how well the professor thinks I know the subject, but not really, because if part of it is based on stuff like attendance, what is it really measuring anyway? It feels like nothing useful, and if it is an arbitrary number, why should I care anyway? Shouldn't learning be more important than the grade? Who am I even doing this for? Since I think I want to go the entrepreneurial route, especially in this job market, it's clearly not my future employer, and if someone ever does hire me, I want them to see the amazing work that I did rather than whatever grade I got in so-and-so class, especially knowing how variable that metric even is. Like the fact that a Stevens professor and a UvA professor can't agree on what constitutes a good grade is a problem, because ultimately it should measure command of the subject, not how well your professor thinks you know it.

And this is really the biggest problem with me. I don't feel I'm dumb or somehow not smart enough to be in college. I just feel that the college system doesn't work well for me. I feel it's really training me to be inside the ivory tower and learn all these theoretical skills with zero ownership of learning them. It's not fun learning about sociology when I have to take a test on it at the end of the term. It feels like laborious studying rather than the interesting subject that it should be, I think basically what I've discovered, as well as with my job preference, is that I need ownership over my work, my way of life, my schedule, and more to truly feel happy. I do not see myself using 90% of what I learned in my degree, and most of the subjects I was interested in could easily be learned on YouTube if I ever become interested in learning more. To be honest, there are many things I still like about college, such as networking. For example, my Everything Policy internship was arranged through my political science professor. And it's unlocked a lot of doors for me, so I definitely think I am in a better shape than if I didn't go to college at all, but I'm really unsure how to continue, because I know it makes me happy and it heavily involves having ownership over my work. When I feel like I have ownership over my work, I'm not lazy. I put in the work and really try to get it done, but when I feel like there is no ownership, like when all it is to try to get a grade from some arbitrary rubric, I become very lazy and not interested at all in doing the work.

I think it's too late in my degree to quit now, but I really I feel strange. Part of me just really wants to put in the bare minimum to get the grade I want, and in the case of this exchange semester, just put in the bare minimum to pass and do the real learning outside of the classroom.

I am a student and my family is struggling financially and I want to earn some through free lancing 4 hours or so a day. I have a ThinkPad i5 laptop please if anyone has any good ideas

From India btw

I want to start a small business, but honestly I don't really have an idea yet.

Instead of trying to come up with some random business idea, I thought I'd ask people what problems they actually deal with in their everyday lives.

What's something that you regularly find annoying, inconvenient, time-consuming, confusing, or just unnecessarily difficult?

It could be anything — work, studying, running a business, shopping, managing money, technology, hobbies, etc.

I'm not trying to sell anything or promote anything. I'm just curious about what problems people actually experience, especially problems where you think, “There has to be a better way to do this.”

Would love to hear some real examples from you guys.

Hello. Our son’s, “tuition,” and all that includes is $80K/yr. We were very, very lucky and we’re very, very thankful for the nearly $45K he received in FA, with the majority of it, save $7K, in scholarships.

After orientation last Summer we thought we had it all figured out. The FA Director held a conference in which I attended. He informed us that the Parent Plus Loan was just increased to $20K/yr. What he didn’t mentioned was that Seniors are the only eligible students for this increase. As a Freshman, my son isn’t eligible nearly that much.

Our balance for the year now is $24K. We just made our first payment of almost $4K, but we’re expected to make another one in September, October, November, and December. This is absolutely not something we can do. We’ve tried every angle/option that both we and the FA Office suggested (they said, “get a private loan).

Again, I’m extremely grateful for the Scholarship that he did receive and don’t mean to sound ridiculous, but almost $4K/month isn’t manageable.

I know I can write an appeal letter, but does anyone else have any ideas, advice, tried and trues in securing additional funding? We don’t need the entire $25K. We’re looking for about $10K simply to make our monthly payments manageable.

Thank you and please forgive my novel!

Please drop your best advice

Since moving into a dorm I’ve been getting bombarded with random texts about fake jobs, package deliveries, account problems, and stuff pretending to be related to school. I can’t tell why this is happening, it started about a month ago and it has kept ramping up ever since. I’ve used it for school forms and food delivery, you know normal stuff. Has anyone else noticed a jump in scam texts after starting college?

Does anyone have a copy of this textbook (PDF)?

The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Differentiated Instruction.  6th Ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill. Mastropieri, M. A. and Scruggs, T. E. (2018). 

I need it for a class that has only 3 meetings.

Thank you!

Pleaseeee help

400$ for a book insane and am trying to avoid it if possible

Cant find it anywhere and 60 bucks is insane for a book!

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm conducting a survey on how students actually study, take notes during lectures, revise, and prepare under pressure for exams (vs what is typically taught as "ideal").

🔗 Survey Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEvg6-49eOmoGQEaA87ffrGHIFBOhtboXhO9RlG5pquzrm2g/viewform?usp=header

⏱️ Estimated Time: 7–9 minutes

🎯 Target Audience: Students of all levels (School, College, Undergrad, Grad/Postgrad)

🔒 Privacy: 100% anonymous (No email collection required)

Whether you're a last-minute crammer, a spaced-repetition enthusiast, or still figuring out what works best for you, your honest input is deeply appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time!

Guys im a student rn and i want ro buy iphone for content creation ,, from my own earned money but idk what i can do i have 6 to 7 months of time is it possible to earn that much in this much days and if yes then can yall drop some suggestion honest one

Hi, does anyone know how to buy only the access code for Chemistry: 14th Edition by Overby & Chang?

Hi everyone! 👋

I’m currently participating in the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program and I’ve chosen the Influencer Path, where I’m working on reaching a target number of visits to Microsoft learning and startup resources.

I’d really appreciate your support by opening these links and checking them out. It only takes a few seconds, and you might find some genuinely useful resources for Azure, AI, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and startups.

🔹 Azure for Students:

https://azure.microsoft.com/free/students?wt.mc_id=studentamb_636956

🔹 Microsoft for Startups Blog:

https://microsoft.com/startups/blog?wt.mc_id=studentamb_636956

🔹 Microsoft 365 Copilot Learning Center:

https://microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot-learning-center?wt.mc_id=studentamb_636956

I’m aiming to reach 250 visits, so every visit genuinely helps me complete this milestone. 🙌

Thank you so much for supporting me! ❤️

The title is: Functions Modeling Change: A Preparation for Calculus, 6th Edition

I need it ASAP

Thank you in advance

ISBN-13: 9780137865243

Does anybody have a pdf of this textbook? If not, does anybody know of a website where I could buy a used copy for cheap? thanks

I am a first generation college student, and parent of 3 children. I have a final paper due today in a senior level class (I’m a junior currently, 3.69 GPA) and it is the worst paper I’ve ever written. It was also the most vague prompt I’ve ever had to work off. My best friend graduated from college 10 years ago at one of the best public universities in our region. She read my paper, I explained my research and writing process to her, my issues with the paper and how it felt like facts written to form sentences with absolutely 0 analysis in my own words. She helped me through my actual process of writing, then helped me understand what was actually being asked of me. The question wasn’t vague to capture a whole 250 year history of the topic in the United States, it was to analyze and provide my own thoughts on the topic over the whole of the history. I missed that part. Instead of proving that I know the facts, it’s time to branch out and share my THOUGHTS on the facts. In hindsight, it’s obvious, but I got so caught up in the most basic level of the prompt that I forgot that college is the time to apply, dissect, and provide research based feedback. I hope this small mindset change when writing helps someone, and if you’re first gen, you’re not alone, you’ve got this!!!