I was a C student because I would ace the exams, but barely do any homework or show up for class. I was poor and had to work a lot, so I only did enough school work to know that I understood the material. Most of my teachers loved me, because they knew I understood the material and would help explain it to other students who were struggling.
Now I work in software development. I only work for causes I believe in, and with people I like. I make decent money and am financially secure with no debt and with decent retirement savings.
I recently took six months off before the pandemic just to relax for a bit. I had planned for a year, but when the pandemic hit, I decided I should go back to work not knowing where the economy would be by the end of the year. I had a job offer the next day.
My grades in high school mattered a little. I got rejected to my college of choice and had to argue my way in. My grades in college didn’t matter at all. I got a job through my alumni network. After your first job, no one cares about your GPA. I never even finished my degree.
Graduated. Moved up fast working for Amazon. Got diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases. Pretty much do side jobs now for bank. So I’m doing okay.
Being a housewife now, lol.
I did very poorly in high school and dropped out of college.
I am now the Telecommunications Manager of a very successful company who specialize in Fiber Optic Engineering (Yes, I’m involved in 5G) and Electrical Engineering.
Essentially, I got EXTREMELY lucky. I was working in a machine shop doing manual labor all day everyday until a buddy of time who was going to school for drafting at the time started talking to me about how he got this job as a drafter. I was interested needless to say. I was on a bad path and wasn’t going anywhere in life. He trained me in the ways of mechanical drafting and engineering. Ended up picking it up quickly and getting the same job he did. Years later I quit and started as an AutoCAD drafter at a local Telecom company. Raised in the ranks to an executive level over there, left, and started a partnership with an electrical company to start their Telecom division.
Now here I am. All of this to say, you don’t HAVE to go to college to make good money and be successful. That term is subjective anyways, success is all about how you see it and what you value in life.
TL;DR: If you don’t like school, learn a trade and work hard at it.
Got tired of high school, so I quit and did different jobs. In my mid 20’s I started doing webdesign courses and found out I really loved it. Used all my savings (and got some help from my mom) to put life on hold for a few years and went to finish my high school degree, start college and get my degree to become a webdesigner. At 29 I got a permanent job at the place I interned and get to do design work and front end development in a small web agency and I love it ^^