For a long time, I was a middling student. 65-75% grades, with the occasional 80 in something I was interested in. It’s unbelievable how much that limits you when you want to go further, or apply for a bursary or the like.

Part of it for me, was that I was slotted in the lower stream/special needs stream during high school. This was largely because I was bored to tears in school, had a ton of home drama going on at that time.

I did a pile of upgrading, and ended up graduating with 150 of the 100 credits needed. I managed to get accepted into a smaller collage, transfer to the university, I wasn’t exceptional at really anything until my 4th year of B.Sc., where the specialized topics came in and I could fill my boots. I worked hard, though, which was all I really had going for me.

I pulled up my socks enough to get into grad school, and welp, here I am 10 years later (15 years experience in my field) doing what I set out to do.