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Interest vs. aptitude

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I'm fascinated with bioengineering due to the amazing and all-important things it can potentially accomplish. The problem is that everything I know about myself suggests that I have no chance to succeed in the field. At 31, I have nothing in my history that points toward any talent for science or engineering. During my one year of college, I did not excel at math and science coursework. I took an aptitude test a year ago to provide career guidance and scored low in the faculties supposedly required for technical work. Do you think I should ignore my pattern and self-knowledge and take math and science courses at a community college to test the waters despite the fact that it would almost certainly be a complete waste of precious time and resources?

Edited by iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
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There is little risk to you from taking a class at a community college. I have known students who started with a class in basic arithmetic, advanced through calculus 3, transfered to a university and have achieved great success. Just don't overextend yourself by trying to work overtime and go to school carrying too many credit hours. You only have so much virtue to allocate. Do so in the way that achieves the greatest value to yourself.

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I'm fascinated with bioengineering due to the amazing and all-important things it can potentially accomplish. The problem is that everything I know about myself suggests that I have no chance to succeed in the field. At 31, I have nothing in my history that points toward any talent for science or engineering. During my one year of college, I did not excel at math and science coursework. I took an aptitude test a year ago to provide career guidance and scored low in the faculties supposedly required for technical work. Do you think I should ignore my pattern and self-knowledge and take math and science courses at a community college to test the waters despite the fact that it would almost certainly be a complete waste of precious time and resources?

Ooo nooo, 31! (I am also 31 :D) I have started so many new things so far in my life, that I've concluded I'll never stop doing so. 6 years old, 12, 18, 23, 30, 35, 52... It's all the same, I'm going to be learning whatever the hell I want to until I die. Sometimes I stop to wonder if I'm doing it "right." So I think, "Do I like this? Yes. Do I want to change? Maybe settle on a single industry or subject or something? ..Nnno." And then I keep doing what I want.

 

Your life is for you, and you should live it how you want. Planning ahead is good sometimes, to get longer-term things that you want. But the main thing to consider is what you want, not some "ideal" "non-wasted" life belonging to a nobody with no interests, or who to a "somebody" who possesses somehow the collective interests of the universe. Google is littered with stories of people who achieved "success" under all sorts of life circumstances and at all different ages. Jesus, done at 31! I'm not done until I'm dead.

 

By the way, take a walk along Science History Lane, and you will see it is made up of a bunch of crazies who were basically just moseying around, fiddling with things they found interesting.

Edited by JASKN
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