Christmas of 2024 blog
Reflecting on my life & world events.
Summary
From January until early May I was still an exchange student in Ireland. It was a difficult time for me mentally and health-wise, but I got through it, I perservered and ended up with excellent results with First Class Honours across the board.
In the 2nd week of May I returned back to Slovenia, but the realization that I am now back in the inferior University system depressed me quite heavily. The sheer difference in the usefulness of the information that I was taught in Ireland and here in Slovenia is shocking. Not only that, the grading of final exams in Slovenia, at our Faculty in particular is horrendeous. Exams are designed to filter people on an arbitrary basis and catch you on the dumbest and most unrealistic edge-case scenarios that would never occur in reality. They aren’t looking for knowledge, you are forced to study the specific methods and their ways of solving problems to be able to pass the exams, any different solution is frowned upon and you will get scolded for it. This is also reflected in the pass rates, last year the Faculty hit an all-time low passing rate of 33%1 at one of the two biggest study programmes, with the other one, the one I am in, having a passrate of only 47%1. What an embarrassment, I don’t know how these people aren’t ashamed of themselves. But these are the cards I need to play with, no one tells you the miserable pass rates before you join the University, they do a very good job at hiding it :) The Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Sciences next door to us had a similar issue years prior, but now they have astonishing passrates of 97,5%2 (Biochemistry) and 90,9%2 (Chemistry) for the two main study programmes. Only years prior, Chemistry had an abysmal passrate ranging between 21%2 and 36%2. But at our Faculty, FRI, nothing ever changes, an awful pattern of stagnation despite the poor conditions for students, year after year. Instead of learning how FKKT improved their passrates, the staff elects to do absolutely nothing.
I am keeping my head above water, but It will take me 4-5 years (expected graduation 2025/2026) to complete a “3” year BSc study programme. I think that advertising a programme with an average time to graduation of 4.31 years (BSc), 4.61 years (BASc), and 3.21 years (MSc) as 3, 3 and 2 year programmes is some kind of fraud and deception, but I don’t believe anyone at FRI will ever be held accountable for it.
Professional study programme (BASc) being advertised as a 3 year programme, with no signs, acknowledgement or warning of the 4.3 year average completion time. Screenshot captured 26.12.2024.
Academic study programme (BSc) being advertised as a 3 year programme, with no signs, acknowledgement or warning of the 4.6 year average completion time. Screenshot captured 26.12.2024.
Main Masters study programme (MSc) being advertised as a 2 year programme, with no signs, acknowledgement or warning of the 3.2 year average completion time. Screenshot captured 26.12.2024.
I got a bit carried away, but this studying thing has been the main part of my life since 2021 so I feel like I needed to explain my situation in a bit more detail. All in all, the first 5 months of the year were good, the next 5 awful and the last 2 have also been good. A decent year overall.
Artificial Intelligence
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a term that has been everywhere for the past two years, since the initial success of ChatGPT when it launched in late November of 2022.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid of new AI developments closing job opportunities for me in the future. I am a current Bachelor of Science student in Computer Science.
While I know, that I will still be able to find a job, I fear that the compensation will not be anywhere nearly as high as it is for current engineers that graduated in the pre-AI timeline. I feel as if someone is not only closing the door for me, but bolting it shut. And now it is my job, to somehow bust this door wide open, one way or another.
I can complain for days and weeks about how this is unfair, how the engineers of prior generations had it so easy, how they were compensated so much better than I will be, how their job market was fantastic, how easy it was to get a job without needing to go through 7 rounds of interviews, how everyone told me that this study path was a guaranteed secure financial future and much more, but that would be a waste of my time. In life we are given a deck of cards to play with, and it is up to us to decide, whether we want to play the cards to the best of our ability, or spend our entire life complaining how bad of a hand we have been given. No matter how bad of a hand we are dealt with, and no matter how much worse our hand of cards becomes over the course of our life, it is still up to us to play the cards. We are in control of our destiny, I chose this study path and I take full accountability for this decision. It doesn’t matter what everyone else told me. When I finished High School, I looked at all the options and decided this was the best idea. Me, myself, and I, no one else. So I will deal with this in the best way that I can, if I need to divert my career path to another field then so be it. I played the card of choosing this University, this study programme and this future, so I will now play the remaining deck of cards to the best of my ability.
If I fail then I want to make sure I fail on my own terms. I can’t affect many things, but I can always play the cards I’ve been dealt with to the best of my ability. I can’t affect how my professor grades my exam, but I can study past exam papers and the study material to the best of my ability to raise my chance of success to the highest percentage possible. I can’t affect if an interviewer will offer me a job after the interview, but I can do my damn best to prepare for the interview and set my chances of getting the job as high as possible. This is what I mean by failing on my own terms, I may not pass that exam or get that interview, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t give it my very fucking best.
Dating
I’m going to keep this one short, it was a disaster, a total failure. I take responsibility for not filtering people better and for not enforcing boundaries that are clearly crucial to me, most important one of which is communication.
Communication sounds very simple, but in reality very few people communicate to a level that I consider acceptable in dating. Most people leave you wondering, guessing, and anxious, as they don’t reply for extended periods of time or give you the silent treatment, and other variations of poor communication. None of which I have high tolerance for in the early stages of dating, as it indicates either a lack of interest or the fact that they are talking to other people romantically.
I made a lot of decisions that I am not happy with in regards to dating this year, I’m not wasting any more of my energy and happiness on this for the time being and focusing on my health and education. The harsh reality is, that I know I do not have the looks for anyone to approach me, therefore as I enter this passive approach to dating, I realize that until I start actively seeking a potential partner, nothing will happen.
Despite the total failure, I’ve learned some invaluable lessons and most importantly, the fact that loosening boundaries in dating is a privilege that I should only give to people that deserve it. An example of this would be, that if a person has communicated excellently with me for some period of time, I will give them the benefit of the doubt if they don’t message me for an extended period of time, as they have a proven track record of communicating well prior to this occurrence.
Grief
After I finished my exams in Ireland, I got back to my room over there and immediately video called my family to talk to them. The first thing they told me when they picked up is that my grandmother on my father’s side of the family had passed away. This was a shocker, getting home all happy just to find out that someone in your inner family circle is now gone forever. We weren’t even that close, as a matter of fact, my mother said that if we buried her next to my dad’s mom she would be forever rolling in her grave, so I think that says enough. But still, my dad lost his mom, even if she wasn’t the best human being, she was still his mother.
Now, my fear of flying was already bad enough, and I realize that the odds of dying in an airplane crash are extremely low, but the fact that if an airplane goes down there are likely no surviving occupants is just terrifying no matter how low the odds, and this event, one of my grandmothers dying, had amplified my fear slightly. But I got on that plane and am now happily and safely back in Slovenia.
Death is an awful and cruel event with one hundred percent odds of occurr ence at some point in your life, every person must face it. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change that, so I believe it is of crucial importance to enjoy each and every moment of joy in life, as nothing is permanent, no matter how much we’d like it to be. Treasure your most precious moments with your loved ones.
There are also a few persons with whom I ended on questionable or bad terms, that I’d like to talk things out with and reconcile, but no longer have any contact with them to do so. Hopefully in the future I get the chance to do this.
One last thing I’d like to remind you of in this section, always remember:
The late Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society (1989)
Goals for 2025
I have one very simple goal in mind for 2025; I don’t want to wake up one day in the future wishing I had done more.
Oh, and also to stay true to myself. As simple as this sounds, it is far more difficult to execute in practice.
Xmas Music
All rights of the music belong to the original copyright owners. This content is shared for educational purposes only, you can support the artist directly by buying the song on your platform of choice by clicking the buttons next to the song.
I’ve only been listening to two specific songs this christmas, I hope you enjoy them as well.
One of the best modern musical pieces
