Don’t Listen in Class

Let me tell you about this strange story on how I got my first job out of university. It goes against principles of being a good and attentive student and even though I wouldn’t recommend doing it, the impacts were positive overall. I don’t think it’s a scalable solution, but maybe it will inspire you or make you smile at least.

Fear of Being Overworked

When you’re a perfectionist, it’s easy to overload yourself. I was worried this technical course would be too much on top of everything else. I’m far in my recovery now, perfectionism doesn’t have the grip it had then.

It was technical, and I got concerned that it would be too much on top of my other course.

Our anecdote starts in university while I was working toward my undergrad degree. At some point, I decided to take a course a bit outside of my field. It was a yearly endeavour, and the second trimester, it was about learning a software. It was technical, centered around learning a software, and I got concerned that it would be too much on top of my other courses. To prepare and avoid feeling overwhelmed, I used the two-week break to download the software and read a 101-level PDF. In between obligations, I learned it quickly and efficiently at my own pace.

The Actual Class

When the actual course happened, I found out the WHOLE trimester course content was the PDF I worked through in less than 2 weeks… To be fair, it’s a course of many, most students never opened the software before and frankly they would only do it as little as it was needed to pass the exam.

The WHOLE trimester course content was the PDF I worked through in less than 2 weeks…

I was, therefore, instantly bored. So… I spent my time scrolling through Facebook on my laptop… Yeah, it was almost 10 years ago… I don’t regret it, as you’ll see it was instrumental to my future success.

The Magic that Ensued

Funnily enough, the teacher must’ve found the student pretty lost too, and my Newfound expertise came in handy. Little did I know, my professor wasn’t just teaching — he was scouting for talent. When he’d ask a question and no one in the class was able to answer, I would pop my head up and ask: What was your question again? He would repeat it and instantly give the right answer. Even on topics that weren’t covered in the 101 course, learning on my own, I’d gotten the essence.

Without thinking, I solved it in two words.

It made people crazy a bit, at some point, the teacher asked a trick question about a bug that a pro of the software, working at the company that makes it, faced in an international conference that it brought to a halt for 20 minutes. Without thinking, I solved it in two words, prompting my colleague sitting next to me to exclaim out loud: Va chier, man… It roughly translates to: Go to hell… (Don’t worry; it was said in a friendly way.)

Notes on Franglais

It’s a combination of French and English in a bit of a slang fashion. You can search for it if you are curious, but roughly it’s using english words in french sentence. I mention it because of the: Va chier man…

Va=Go, Chier=Defecate, Man=Dude (actually it’s sort of gender neutral). It’s not common in english to send people to poop therefore the closer cousin in: Go to hell. I also don’t think the Franglais version would be understood in France, but you can try it out in Canada and see what happens…

Why “Not Listening” in Class Worked for me

My actions could sound pretentious or rude, why did it work? My guess is that the teacher himself was a free spirit with a particular way of learning. For him, teaching was a stepping stone, and he was searching for high performers for his company.

If I had been a mister know it all, always attentive to the course and answering everything, everyone would hate me way more and it would disrupt the course. Me just being there distracted, was quite an involuntary power move.

Further Magic

We had many projects including optional ones. Since I knew the software inside out, I wanted to do all the technical parts of those projects, debugging, managing the team and interacting with external stakeholders. I totally neglected the creative side, actually not really but the raw material for the creative side came from others, and decided to learn everything technical. By then, I was even sometimes helping other teams with their technical problems.

Recognition

I passed this class successfully as you might’ve guessed. The first impact was getting a teacher’s assistant role for the following year. I actually also had one for another course, I heard it was rare for an undergrad at the time. Anyways, it was a fun experience.

Then, just as I was wrapping up my final month of university, the professor called me into his office with an unexpected offer — an internship at his company (sadly unpaid).

Sure I’m available all summer.

Actually, I need you now.

…

I have this cool project.

Sure, let’s do it.

Conclusion

From that moment on, my focus shifted from school to work. I wrapped up my degree as best as I could — but let’s be real, my future had already started. But hey, I scrolled my way into my career. That internship led to my first real job. But that’s a story for another time.