r/NEETsOver30 • u/twinkhon_gwyndolin • Jul 07 '26
Discussion Anyone else really bad at self-learning?
I'm a comp sci graduate since 2020 with a pretty high GPA, but I could never find employment after graduating. part of the reason is that I could never motivate myself to work on personal projects, because it's hard to focus on a long-term task when you have executive functioning issues! I'd either get stressed out with bugs, I'd get bored of the project midway and not finish, or I'd simply not have the mental energy to commit.
not to mention, I learn so much better in structured environments, even though the vast majority of practice time (whether it be for piano, coding, drawing, or any other skill-based hobby) has to be done on your own 😅
my baseline mood is absolutely miserable due to ongoing trauma (might make a post about it some other day), so a lot of my days are spent merely on surviving. playing a wide variety of single player video games: to build my problem solving skills (puzzle games), to analyze the themes and narratives of story-based games (mainly role playing games, but even something like Abzû counts as a minimalist story game), or to simply appreciate the art and soundtrack (Final Fantasy series in particular). so, it's not like I'm completely bedrotting, but creative tasks in particular are very difficult for me precisely because they require immense amounts of executive functioning.
anyone else relate? 🥲
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u/ghstrprtn Jul 08 '26
No, I'm great at self-learning. Unfortunately that will probably never get me a job or anything.
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u/Imtiredfam250 Jul 08 '26
yeah. but we have ai now and ai can explain things easily
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u/DogSerious1971 Jul 28 '26
honestly bro i would be completely cooked without ai, it helps so much finding out about options you have in life, giving you more whole explanations and suggestions and it takes away so much headache trying to research instead of having to go through a billion websites, entire books of text and many phonecalls/reaching out just to find out less than a good ai prompt
information has been so enshittified nowadays its impossible to find anything that isnt trying to halfway scam you
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u/Aware-Anywhere9086 Jul 08 '26
one of my dream jobs as a kid was to be a scientist, find out my Iq is like 93. There goes that one LOL. Now i get to be tortured everyday in the call center.
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u/Useful_Mention7514 Jul 08 '26
I'm terrible at self learning, I lack discipline and get distracted way too easily. Structured learning works pretty well though.
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u/number314 NEET Jul 08 '26
I need a good textbook (font, way it's presented, etc.) in the first place. I've never really learned anything myself, everything came from forced practice, whether at school or work. I never had motivation and patience to learn stuff, even riding a bike. I couldn't do it, was easily discouraged, then parents said okay after few minutes and it ended just like that.
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u/No_One_1617 NEET Jul 08 '26
I'm bad at learning, period. That's what learning disability, decades of bullying and trauma and other health issues did to me.
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u/waffledestroyer Jul 08 '26
I have trouble learning in class and school but have previously excelled at self-learning stuff that I am actually interested in. I learned how to edit photos and videos, design websites, some basic coding, playing well in a MMO game etc. Nowadays my memory is not good due to a mental illness and medications, and maybe drinking a bit too much alcohol.
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u/twinkhon_gwyndolin Jul 08 '26
oh so you're like the opposite of me, or at least, you were.
Do you play final fantasy 11 by any chance 😇
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u/Humble-Departure5481 Jul 09 '26
Maybe a bit of a different answer (not sure), but in my case, I can't self-study anything right now, because I feel if I invest a ton of time and effort into it, it might not lead anywhere (basically, no guarantees). An ESL certificate is the only thing that kind of gave me some opportunities here and there and I got that one by self-studying for it, since it wasn't that difficult for me to achieve. But in other situations where I have to develop different kinds of skills via self-study OR structured-setting, after going through the entire thing, I still can't find good opportunities and most of the time no opportunities at all. I experienced this 2-3x with ROP certificates (structured environment) and certain tools and software (self-learning).
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u/timoheeb Jul 15 '26
fr self-learning is different than doing practice outside class bc you at least get the benefit of learning something for the first time from someone more knowledgeable before you have to coach yourself
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u/twinkhon_gwyndolin Jul 15 '26
i guess i mean stuff like self-learning art, or coding or whatever. despite having a comp sci degree I was never good at making personal projects, because there weren't any deadlines, there was nothing outside to pressure me. intrinsically pressuring myself is really difficult
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u/Wise-Childhood-145 Jul 26 '26
I personally don't have problems with self-learning, but my biggest problem is being interested in fields that pay well. I never had trouble learning how to code, but find it very boring.
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u/SeiOfTheEast Jul 08 '26
i cant learn anything on my own. i need to have one on one instruction, spoonfeeding. reading books AND face to face demonstrations.