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forestwater87 · 4 years ago

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How did you become a university Librarian? Did you do an English degree? Sorry if this is a weird question it just really interests me as I’m not sure what to do when I’m older

Eeee I got really excited about this question!

Okay, the fun thing about librarianship is that all roads can lead to it: as long as you get an ALA-approved (assuming you’re American; if you aren’t I cannot help you) graduate degree you can do just about anything for undergrad. English majors are extremely common, just by the nature of who’s into the job, but literally it doesn’t matter; in fact, weirder and more specialized degrees can actually help in certain jobs, because they give you a ton of background info and qualifications than most of your contemporaries have.

I fell into it because I worked at a library in high school and fell in love with the environment, and when I realized I’d rather die than work in publishing (my previous life’s goal) I gravitated toward library school. I knew from the beginning that I’d need a Master’s -- and a very specific one at that -- so mostly my undergrad was just “grab a foundational degree and have fun with it.” That was really freeing, honestly. I had a ton of fun in undergrad.

Now, if you, Anon, were interested in getting into librarianship I’d have a handful of recommendations. These are all based on my very American experience, and there are probably smarter people than me with better advice but I’m the only one on this blog so heeeeerrreeeee we goooooooooo!

Undergrad

You need a 4-year degree. Full-stop. It doesn’t matter what kind, but you gotta have one to get into grad school.

Like I said, you can do just about anything for an undergraduate degree. Most of the time English is the BA of choice, because librarians love them some books, but some far less common ones that I think would be hugely helpful to a hopeful librarian would be:

Computer Science: Oh my god you need at least a baseline competency in computers/technology please you don’t have to code but you need to be able to turn a computer on and navigate just about any website/office application on just about any device at the very least you need to know how to Google

Business/Marketing: Particularly if you want to work in public libraries, where a bunch of your funding comes from begging politicians and convincing taxpayers to donate/vote to give you money

Law: If you want to be a law librarian

Medical . . . whatever, I don’t know what fields of medicine there are: If you want to work in a hospital or other medical library

History or Art History: If you’re interested in archives or museum librarianship

Education: School librarians in my state require you to be a certified teacher, and no matter what kind of library you end up in, you’ll end up teaching someone something a decent amount of the time

Communications: You’ll be doing a lot of it. Public speaking, too

Spanish/ASL/any not-the-common language: Hey, you never know what your patrons speak

Literally fucking anything I promise it doesn’t matter what you major in you will use it in a library at some point

Just be aware that you will need more than an undergrad degree. You’ll need probably 2 years of postsecondary schooling (more for certain types of librarianship), so get yourself comfortable with the idea of college.

If you’re like me (please don’t be like me), you might toy with the idea of getting a minor or two/double majoring to round out your skill set. Honestly I’d encourage it if you’re comfortable with the workload and have the time or money; like I said, there are no skills or educational background that won’t come in handy at some point. I promise. We see it all.

Along those lines, a wide expanse of hobbies can be hugely helpful too! You never know when your encyclopedic knowledge of Minecraft will be useful to a patron, but it absolutely will be.

Graduate School

All right, you’ve got your lovely little Bachelor’s Degree, maybe in something weird and esoteric for the fun of it . . . now you’re off to do more school!

It’s a bit complicated, because there are a handful of different titles an appropriate degree could have; my school called it “a Master of Science in Information Science” (MSIS), but other schools might just go with “Master’s of Information Science” (MIS), “Master’s of Library Science” (MLS), “Master’s of Library and Information Science” (MLIS) . . . it’s a mess.

What you need to do is make sure the degree is approved by the American Library Association, who decides if a program is good enough to make you a librarian in the States. (Again, if you’re not American, good luck.)

Here’s a list of ALA-accredited programs and the schools that offer them.

The nice thing is accreditation has to be renewed at least every few years, so that means your program is always updated to make sure it’s in line with national standards. I’m not promising you’ll learn everything you need to be a librarian in grad school (oh my god you so won’t not even close hahahaha), but at least in theory you’ll be learning the most up-to-date information and methods.

(I’m curious to see how things have changed; when I was in school from 2015-17, the hot topics in library science were makerspaces (especially 3D printing), turning the library into the community’s “third space,” and learning how to incorporate video games into library cataloging and programming. No idea if those are still the main hot-button issues or if we’ve moved on to something else; I imagine information literacy and fake news are a pretty big one for current library students.)

Anyway! You pick a school, you might have to take a test or two to get in -- I had to take the GRE, which is like the SATs but longer -- almost certainly have to do all that annoying stuff like references and cover letters and all that, but assuming you’re in: now what?

There are a couple options depending on the school and the program, but I’m going to base my discussion around the way my school organized their program at the time, because that’s what I know dammit and I will share my outdated information because I want to.

My school broke the degree down into 5 specializations, which you chose upon application to the program:

Archives & Records Administration: For working in archives! I took some classes here when I was flirting with the idea, and it’s a lot of book preservation, organizing and caring for old documents and non-book media, and digitization. Dovetails nicely into museum work. It’s a very specific skillset, which means there will be jobs that absolutely need what you specifically can do but also means there aren’t as many of them. It makes you whatever the opposite of a “jack of all trades” is. You’re likely to be pretty isolated, so if you want to spend all your time with books this might be a good call; it’s actually one of the few library-related options that doesn’t require a significant amount of public-facing work.

Library & Information Services: For preparation to work in public or academic (college) libraries. Lots of focus on reference services, some cataloging, and general interacting-with-the-public. You have to like people to go into library services in general, heads up.

Information Management & Technology: Essentially meaningless, but you could in theory work as like a business consultant or otherwise do information-related things with corporations or other organizations.

Information Storage & Retrieval: Data analytics, database . . . stuff. I don’t really know. Computers or something. Numbers 3 and 4 really have nothing to do with libraries, but our school was attempting to branch out into more tech-friendly directions. That being said, both this and #3 could definitely be useful in a library! Libraries have a lot of tech, and in some ways business acumen could be helpful. All roads lead to libraries; remember that.

Library & Information Services / School Library Media Specialist: This was the big kahuna. To be a school librarian -- at least in my state -- you need to be both a certified librarian and a certified teacher, which means Master’s degrees in both fields. What our school did was basically smushed them together into a combined degree; you took a slightly expanded, insanely rigorous 2-2.5 years (instead of the traditional 1.5-2) and you came out of it with two degrees and two certifications, ready to throw your butt into an elementary, middle/junior high, or high school library. Lots of focus on education. I started here before realizing I don’t like kids at all, then panicked and left. Back in 2017 this was the best one for job security, because our state had just passed a law requiring all school librarians to be certified with a MSIS/MLS/whatever degree. So lots of people already in school libraries were desperately flinging themselves at this program, and every school was looking for someone that was qualified. No idea if that’s changed in time.

No matter what concentration you went in with, you automatically graduated with a state certification to be a librarian, which was neat. You didn’t automatically get civil service status, though; for some public libraries you need to be put on a civil service list, which means . . . something, I’m not entirely sure. It involves taking exams that are only available at certain times of the year and I gave up on it because it looked hard.

No one did more than 1 concentration, which is dumb because I wanted to do them all, but it takes a lot of time and money to take all the classes associated with all of them so I personally did #2, which was on the upper end of mid-tier popularity. School library and database services were far and away the most popular, and literally no one did the business one because it was basically useless, so library and archives were the middle children of which the library one was prettier.

THAT BEING SAID! Some forms of librarianship require a lot more education. A few of those are:

Law librarians: At least in my state, you gotta be a certified librarian and have a J.D. This is where the “big bucks” are -- though let’s be real, if you want to be a librarian you have zero interest in big bucks; reconcile yourself to being solidly middle-class and living paycheck-to-paycheck for the rest of your life or marrying rich -- which I guess is why it requires the most work.

School librarians: Like I mentioned, depending on the state you might need two degrees, and not all schools smush them into one. You might need to get a separate Master’s in education.

College librarians: Now, this depends on the college and the job; some colleges just need an all-access librarian, like mine. I didn’t need to specialize in anything, I just showed up with my degree and they took me. (Note: these sorts of entry-level positions tend to pay piss. Like, even more piss than most library gigs. Just a heads-up.) However, if you’re looking to get into a library of a higher-end university, you might be asked to have a second Master’s-level or higher degree just to prove you’re academic enough to party at their school. (Let’s be real, Harvard is almost certainly gonna want someone with a Ph.D. at the very least. That’s just how they roll.) Alternatively, the position might be for a specialty librarian, someone in charge of a field-specific library or field-specific reference services; if you’re being asked to head up the Science & Engineering Library at Masshole University, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll be bringing a degree in engineering or some sort of science to the table. Colleges have so many different needs that predicting what kind of experience/education you should get is a bit of a challenge. Good luck. Some schools will help you out a bit with this; my grad school had dual degree programs where you could share credits between the MSIS and either an English or History Master’s so you could graduate with both in less time. I . . . started this, and then panicked at the thought of more school/writing a thesis and bailed, but it’s great if you’re into that idea!

What’s the point of the Information/Library Science degree?

You have to have the degree. If you don’t have the degree, you don’t get the job and you don’t make-a the money. Resign yourself to getting a Master’s degree or you’re gonna be bummed out and unemployed.

In terms of what you learn? Well, obviously it depends on the program, but I found that a lot of what I learned was only theoretically related to what I do on a daily basis. My instructors were lovely (well, the adjuncts anyway; the full-timers really didn’t want to be there and wanted to be off doing research and shit), but every library is so idiosyncratic and there’s such a massive umbrella of jobs you could get in one -- god, I didn’t even get into things like metadata services, which I learned basically nothing about in grad school but are super important to some positions -- that it’s hard to learn anything practical in a classroom.

However, besides the piece of paper that lets you make-a the money, there are two important things you should get from your grad school education:

Research skills: My god, you’re going to be doing so much research. If you’re a public librarian, you need to know how to Google just about anything. And if you’re a college librarian, being able to navigate a library database and find, evaluate, and cite sources . . . I mean, you’re going to be doing so much of that, showing students how to do that. Like a ridiculous amount of my day is showing students how to find articles in the virtual library. Get good at finding things, because much like Hufflepuffs, librarians need to be great finders.

Internship(s): Just about every library program will require an internship -- usually but not always in replacement of a thesis -- and if the one you’re looking at doesn’t, dump it like James Marsden in a romantic comedy. Internships are hugely important not only because they look good on a resume and give you some of those delicious, delicious references, but they are a snapshot of what your job is going to look like on a day-in, day-out basis; if nothing else, you’ll learn really fast what does and doesn’t appeal to you. As I mentioned, I wanted to be a school librarian for about half a semester. You know what changed my mind? My class required like 40 hours of interning at schools of each level. Being plopped into that environment like a play you’re suddenly acting in? Super helpful in determining whether or not this shit is for you.

What else should I learn, then?

Besides how to research basically anything? Here are some useful skills in just about any library:

Copyright law. Holy shit, do yourself a favor and learn about publishing/distribution laws in your state. Do you wanna show a movie as a fun program? You need to buy a license and follow super specific rules or it’s illegal! Does an instructor want to make copies of their textbook to give to the students? Make sure you know how much they can copy before it’s no longer fair use! Everything in my life would be easier if I’d taken the time to learn anything about copyright. I did not, and now I’m sad. (I lost out on a job opportunity because they wanted the librarian to be particularly knowledgeable in that kinda thing, and I was very not.)

Metadata and cataloging. In theory, you should learn this in grad school, but I was only given the bare basics and it wasn’t enough. Dublin Core, MARC-21, RDF -- there are so many different kinds of metadata schema, and I took a 6-week class in this and still don’t understand any of the words I just used in this sentence. But basically, to add items to a library catalog you often need to know how to input them into your library’s system; to an extent that’ll be idiosyncratic to your library’s software, but some of it will be based on a larger cataloging framework, so familiarity with those is very useful.

Public speaking and education. You’re gonna do a lot of it. Learn how to deal.

General tech savviness. Again, we’re not talking about coding but if you can navigate a WordPress website? If you know how to troubleshoot just about any issue with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc.? If you can unjam printers and install software and use social media you’re going to be a much happier person. At the very least, know how to google tutorials and fake your way through; your IT person can only do so much, and a lot of it is probably going to fall on you.

Social work, diplomacy, general human relations kinda stuff. You’re going to be dealing with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, with every political view, personal problem, and life experience under the sun. You need to get very good at being respectful of diversity -- even diversity you don’t like* -- and besides separating your own personal views and biases from your work, you’ll be much better equipped to roll with the punches if you have, for example, conflict resolution training. Shit’s gonna get weird sometimes, I promise. (Once a student came in swinging around butterfly knives and making ninja noises. You know who knew how to deal with that? Not me!)

Standard English writing and mechanics. It’s not fair, but in general librarians are expected to have a competent grasp on the Standard English dialect, and others are less likely to be appreciated by the general populace. Obviously this differs based on your community and environment, and colloquialisms are sometimes useful or even necessary, but as a rule of thumb it’s a good call to be able to write “properly,” even if that concept is imperialist bullshit.

*I don’t mean Nazis. Obviously I don’t mean Nazis. Though there is a robust debate in the library community about whether Nazis or TERFs or whatever should be allowed to like, use library facilities for their own group meetings or whatever. I tend to fall on the “I don’t think so” side of the conversation, but there’s a valid argument to be made about not impeding people’s access to information -- even wrong or harmful information.

Any other advice?

Of course! I love to talk. Let’s see . . .

Get really passionate about freedom of information and access: A library’s main reason for existing is to help people get ahold of information (including fiction) that they couldn’t otherwise access. If you’re a public librarian, you have to care a lot about making sure people can access information you probably hate. (If you’re an academic librarian it’s a little more tricky, because the resources should meet a certain scholarly threshold, and if you’re a school librarian there are issues of appropriateness to deal with, but in general more info to more people is always the direction to push.) Get ready to defend your library purchases to angry patrons or even coworkers; get ready to defend your refusal to purchase something, if that’s necessary. Get ready to hold your nose and cringe while you add American Sniper to your library collection, because damn it, your patrons deserve access to the damn stupid book. Get really excited about finding new perspectives and minority representation, because that’s also something your patrons deserve access to. Get really excited about how technology can make access easier for certain patrons, and figure out how to make it happen in your library. Care about this; it’s essential that you’re passionate about information -- helping your patrons find it, making sure they can access it, evaluating it, citing it . . . all of it. Get ranty about it. Just do it.

Be prepared to move if necessary: One of my professors told us that there was one thing that would always guarantee you a job that paid well -- this was in 2016 but still -- that as long as you had it you could do whatever you wanted. And that was a suitcase. Maybe where you live is an oversaturated market (thanks for having 6 library schools in a 4-hour radius, my state). Maybe something something economic factors I don’t really understand; the point is that going into this field, you should probably make peace with the idea that you’ll probably either end up taking a job that doesn’t make enough money or struggle a lot to even find one . . . or you’re going to have to go where the jobs are. It’s a small field. Just know that might be a compromise you have to make, unless you can get a strictly remote job.

Read: This sounds stupidly obvious but it’s true! Read things that aren’t your genre, aren’t your age range; patrons are going to ask you for reading advice all the goddamn time, especially if you’re a public librarian, so the more you can be knowledgeable about whatever your patrons might ask you about, the easier your life will be. If you’re considering librarianship you probably love to read anyway, so just ride that pony as hard as you possibly can.

Learn to be okay with weeding -- even things you don’t think deserve it: You are going to have to recycle books. You’re going to have to throw away books. You’re going to have to take books out of the collection and make them disappear in some fashion or another. There are a lot of reasons -- damage and lack of readership are big ones -- and there’s no bigger red flag to a librarian than someone saying “I could never destroy a book.” That kind of nonsense is said by people who’ve never had to fit 500 books onto a shelf built for 450. Archivists are different, of course, as are historians, and everyone should have a healthy respect for books both as physical objects and as sources of information, but you’re going to have to get rid of them sometimes, and you’re just going to have to learn how to do that dispassionately.

Have fun! No one gets into this because they want money; if you want to be a librarian, or work in any library-adjacent field, it’s because you really care about the values of librarianship, or the people in your community, or preserving and sharing as great a wealth of information as possible. Your job will often be thankless and it’ll sometimes be exhausting. There will be times where it’s actually scary. And unless you’re rich as balls, it will make you stare at your student loans and sigh with despair. (You may be living in your parents’ basement while you sigh at your loans because you can’t afford to live on your own, for an example that has zero relevance to any authors of this blog, living or dead.) I can’t tell you if it’s worth it -- though you’ll probably find out pretty quickly during your internship, because that’s what internships are for. All I can say is that I love it, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

#ask forest #libraries #librarianship #information science #career advice #education advice #oh my god this is long #i have a lot of feelings okay?#there is no way on earth anyone will read all of this #if you do tell me bc i will not believe it #Anonymous

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hopeshoodie · 4 years ago

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ok so which li’s do you think went to college?

So there’s the explicitly canon ones of Marisol, Rocco, and Blake. But I think it’s also implicit in canon that Lucas and Noah did as well- physiotherapy is a extremely specific degree, and in the States you have to have a masters in library sciences to even be considered for a librarian job (there’s more flexibility for assistants and volunteers, but even then they’re usually students). I honestly love thinking about Noah as a library sciences person, like archival work and methodology is so cool and I wish I had taken more classes about it in school.

But with everyone else, there’s a lot more wiggle room. The people I headcanon as having degrees are Hope, Hannah, Kassam, Elisa, and Ibrahim.

A lot of corporate business stuff, while not really needing a degree in practice, only hire people who have business or related degrees. Especially when Hope’s already an ambassador, she needs the credentials to justify getting hired. I can see her having done an undergraduate/MBA combined program and having a degree in communications or business merchandizing.

Hannah definitely has a degree in communications and a minor in English. She just oozes pretentious college girl vibes. I’ve met four of her in literature and philosophy classes, and they’re always working on the next american novel (but don’t actually have any of it written).

Kassam just gives me the vibe of someone who grew up in a relatively well-educated and upper class family, went to college, then decided to pursue his passion. I bet his parents had an agreement like ‘you can do whatever you want, just get a degree first’. He might’ve studied music (I love the concept of him being a fine arts major in like… violin or something but then only making EDM or vaporwave music), but I bet he has a ‘respectable’ humanities degree like sociology or geography and just never uses it or talks about it.

I don’t have a reason for Elisa, I just /feel/ like she’s super smart. Lowkey I love the idea of her studying algorithms or psychology in application to social media and then applying it to her job. I very much get a Paris Hilton vibe from her, where she puts on this very bubbly airheaded persona but is really smart and strategic.

In the US, golf is a sport like… Exclusively for upper middle class and rich people. Also in the US, the massive class divide is often the level of education or specific university you’re accepted to and attend. So like, golfers are more likely to be rich and rich people almost always have degrees from fancy private universities. I can see Rahim attending a prestigious private university, with the way he dresses and carries himself. Because it doesn’t matter what you major in, I headcanon that he got a degree in film or literature because he’s always loved narratives and storytelling.

The people I headcanon has having completed some university but never finished their degree are Shannon, Carl, maybe Graham, and Jakub.

I think Shannon originally went for something like statistics, syllogism, or math and then realized that she hated the environment. She’s a ‘work hard play hard’ kind of person, and I don’t see her finding a lot of people willing to match that energy but still make it to class the next morning. She also realized that she could make more money without a degree, and that was the nail in the coffin.

Carl probably tried to take a computer sciences degree then realized the university he went to had a really outdated curriculum and he could learn more in online communities and through experience than formal coding classes.

I imagine Graham always wanted to be a marine biologist (which is why he takes fish puns so seriously) but then really struggled to support himself in school and also realizing that there’s fewer and fewer jobs in academia. He took a work study program on a crab ship to study the impact on certain species and realized he enjoyed the physical aspects of the work more than the intellectual. He’s still passionate about conservation, though.

Jakub gives me the vibe that maybe he was originally a legitimate personal trainer- going to school for it and getting licensed, but then got caught up in the ‘balling’ lifestyle on Instagram where it becomes less about fitness and more about pulling chicks.

Then everyone else ~might~ have gone to uni, but I don’t think they did.

Most realtors I work with don’t have bachelor degrees but they do have special training for their licenses, so I can see Priya having that but not a university degree.

Garebear probably has training specific to his job but not a formal degree

You can get a degree in interior design, but Chelsea doesn’t really strike me as the kind of designer with a fine arts degree. I bet she built her clientele base from the bottom up and was more self-made than that.

I’m thinking that Jo, Bobby, Felix, Lottie, Arjun, and Henrik all started work right after high school or whatever the equivalent is.

#re-reading this is hope it's not sounding condescending at all #you don't have to go to college to be a smart person and you're not a smart person just because you went to college #I love and adore Henrik #it's not like the ones who didn't go to school are worse people

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astyle-alex · 4 years ago

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[Fanfic] Museum Mishap | the BatFam

Heya! As we approach the End of 2020 (FINALLY), I’m realizing that this story is ridiculously close to reaching the milestone of 25k hits on Ao3. To celebrate, I’ll be posting the whole thing here on Tumblr!

(I would however, deeply appreciate it if y’all would pop over to view it on Ao3, briefly, so I can get the view counted as a hit and actually make it over the line for 25k in views before the close of 2020!)

Museum Mishap | Chapter 1/6

Fandom: the DC Universe, Batman & co. Pairings: Jay x Tim Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson Rating: Gen Audiences Warnings: None

Total Word Count: 38,590

Summary:

Middle-School Tim Drake is on a field trip to the Science Museum, but with a WE exhibition of top-secret new technologies being staged in the basement, Tim separates from his classmates and breaks into the staff-only areas by using the skills he's developed over years of stalking Batman and Robin.

Current-Robin Jason Todd catches him in the act, but he's not there to confront Tim for trespassing or truancy - he's there because there's a rumor on the street that Tim Drake knows Batman's real name. And the rumor's gaining ground, quick, drawing in the wrong kind of attention.

When a Drug-Lord decides to take the rumor seriously enough to kidnap the little genius, Jason jumps into the crossfire. It all goes downhill from there. Fast.

(Jason is 14, Tim is 12)

Chapter 1 : Special Access

A trip to Gotham’s History of Science and Technology Museum would’ve been exciting for even your average twelve year old – it was a day of school that didn’t feel like school, and it meant a chance to hang out, relatively unsupervised, with your friends all day instead of just the one or two classes you managed to luck into having together.

Timothy Jackson Drake was not your average twelve year old, and a trip to the SciTech Muse was the kind of thing that made his enrollment in middle school entirely worth it. For starters, it was an entire day spent in the heart of the city surrounded by some of the coolest artifacts of science humans could craft.

And to make things even better, the trip was an all-day, delayed opening affair, starting at 10am and ending at 6pm – which meant he’d actually been able to get enough sleep last night to be well-rested, a rarity in its own right with his particular extra-curriculars. Better yet, he’d been able to tell the Drake housekeeper / nanny that he’d be having dinner with his class so she could go home right at 6 without having to wait for him to get back so she could cook for him.

That part wasn’t true, of course, but he had concrete evidence that had been legitimately published by the school to help back up his story. Mrs. Simz had her own kid, and was therefore harder to convince than some of the others Tim’s parents had hired, but that also meant she had more reason to hurry home when presented with a believable reason excusing it.

Being a sixth-grader meant Tim couldn’t just stay in the heart of the city when the field trip was over, he was on a rollcall and the bus back to Gotham Academy wouldn’t leave without his name getting checked off. The high schoolers were allowed to take public transit home if they had a signed permission slip from their parents, but Tim had to wait a few more years before he could con his way into having such freedoms.

Still, getting over to the West Side from where his school was in Coventry would be far easier than getting there from the Drake Estate way out in Bristol. The extra hour and a half he’d save himself in commuting time mean he would be able to grab some coffee and something to eat without having to rush to get in place for the nighttime adventure he’d planned.

Beyond all that, the fact that the field trip was this week, meant there was a special exhibition from the cutting-edge tech division of Wayne Enterprises in the midst of being set up. All the main components were being staged in the museum's basement and the ones too big to steal were as close to unprotected as they would ever be – and Tim intended to take full advantage of that.

He’d been summarily and repeatedly denied acceptance to the WayneTech summer camps as his parents owned one of the company's main competitors: Drake Industries. Apparently corporate espionage was a big enough problem that even ten year olds were suspect. Tim found it ridiculous that the one time he would’ve been entirely okay with having his abilities underestimated was the one time he wasn’t assumed to be just another dumb kid. Honestly, Tim was pretty sure that no one had actually read his application – the computer had probably scanned his ID and kicked his profile out of the running before it had even made it to a human that might care about his actual qualifications.

Tim hadn’t figured out how to make a bulletproof fake identity profile – not yet, at least – And he certainly wasn’t going to get caught trying to gain illegal access to WE on a sub-par fake ID. Because there were all kinds of ways that would go poorly for him – between his parents possibly being disappointed in him enough to hire a live-in Nanny to the legal ramifications he’d face, even as a minor, it just wasn’t worth it.

But the thought of getting an up-close look at the new tech WE was rolling out still made Tim's heart pound like he’d just downed a full pot of coffee. WE took a very different approach to developing their tech than DI – more of a ‘you know what would be cool? can we make that reasonable?’ philosophy than a ‘how do we solve this problem?’ sort of thing. Tim found the both the WE approach and their results utterly fascinating.

Not that Tim had been allowed to play with much of DI's tech, being that his parents would hear about him attempting to gain unsupervised lab access, and promptly ground him, and anyone who might supervise treated him like a kid far too young to understand or unobtrusively observe the work going on inside the places he wanted to see.

So, the fact that a spectacular spread of WE tech was set up in the basement of a rather glaringly unsecured staff only area in the very building Tim’s class was touring stood as an open invitation for Tim to investigate.

An invitation that Tim took very seriously. He’d spent at least 18 hours over the past week examining the museum’s blueprints – courtesy of the Gotham City Hall Public Archives – And the rundown of the security, both in terms of the human guards and staff on-hand and the electronic countermeasures – via close examination of the extensive repertoire of ‘insider access’ videos on the museum’s own webpage. Tim would probably end up sending the museum an anonymous suggestion about adjusting that at some point, but he’d worry about that later.

After he used it to his tech fantasy fulfillment advantage.

For now, he simply slipped away from the unwatchful eyes of his teachers, stuck headphones in his ears, and carefully made his way – casually, calmly, and like he had no destination in mind – over to the hallway by the cafeteria near the east wing gift shop. The hallway that had restrooms and a staff-only door halfway down it. A door secured with a heavy-duty machine-lock, with a ten-digit keypad, but a door that was not alarmed.

The human guards were always more focused on preventing shoplifters from stealing over-priced – for a good cause, but still over-priced – museum memorabilia than on the high-traffic restroom hall by the cafeteria. Using his headphones as an excuse to tap his fingers to keep count – while his eyes and most of his brainpower focused on evaluating targets – Tim tracked the museum employees on their lunch breaks and calculated the best option to use as his ticket backstage. He had some in mind, but he had contingencies for last-minute adjustment.

Tim settled on a big guy whose name he’d read on staff profiles but had forgotten with the other useless information provided about his role in the marketing department. What Tim hadn’t forgotten about him was that his department’s office was right by the staff door he was eyeing – 4.5 meters down and to the left, to be exact – which meant that, even with his slow stride, he would be behind another door in the hallway approximately 17 seconds after the door Tim needed closed behind him.

When Mr. Marketing got up and lumbered over to the trash, Tim sidled over towards an informational sign with a museum map. As Mr. Marketing passed him, Tim counted off 4 seconds before he turned around to follow. He slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the u-shaped metallic magnet he'd had to smuggle in by jamming it into his mouth and using sleight of hand to pretend it was his retainer – Less than sanitary, but effective, and he’d taken an extra vitamin this morning as a precaution.

Mr. Marketing punched in his code and pulled the door open to well over 90° before he lumbered through the gap. Tim kept his pace consistent; patient, he could be patient – even though it made his heart rate kick up uncomfortably as he put his faith in his calculations instead of in his feet. He reached the door with almost 6 inches of clearance left for him to slide his hand in and clip his magnet into place over the latch.

The door closed as he withdrew his hand and kept walking, but it did not click.

The machine lock whirred with an attempt to close, but its components struck the flat surface of his magnet and failed to properly secure the door. Had the door been alarmed, that would have drawn a lot of unwanted attention, but as it was Tim made it to the restroom with almost nothing noticeably amiss.

The restroom was crowded enough that his entrance didn’t draw attention and he shut himself in one of the stalls to count off exactly 10 seconds. Then he washed his hands, acquired a paper towel that he did not immediately dispose of, and went to retrieve his magnet. The paper towel allowed him to grasp the handle without leaving fingerprints and he retrieved his magnet without incident – opening the door onto an empty hallway and promptly swerving right to access the unsecured stairwell he knew would be there.

Tim had no way to hide himself from the singular security camera watching the hallway, but the area was so highly trafficked that he doubted any security guard had been monitoring closely enough to spot his detour. He would get in a ton of trouble if he was caught here – phone calls to his parents would be unavoidable and they’d likely be so angry at him they’d fly back from Spain a week early. But he’d almost certainly avoid any kind of legal consequences.

Besides, he wasn’t going to get caught. He’d planned this too well for that.

Tim made his way through the less convenient passageways in the museum’s basement until he reached the corner of the sub-basement where the WayneTech exhibit was being staged. It was, as he’d known it would be, isolated and completely vacant of staff.

A smile split his face as the relief he felt in making it there successfully was quickly replaced by the buzz of unadulterated excitement. He set his backpack down carefully – mindful, as always, of his precious camera. Then he rolled up his sleeves as he stepped closer to the first machine he saw with the WE logo stamped proudly on its side.

According to the signage prepped in the binder sitting next to the behemoth, it was a component of the quantum computer WayneTech was developing to facilitate physically interactive virtual realities. Tim bounced on his toes as he warred with himself – half wanting to read more about the technical specs and half wanting to dive right in and see it for himself.

Tim made it through another two pages of engineering details before he gave up and literally tackled the machine to hoist himself up high enough to look inside via the glass panel built in for that specific purpose. There were at least a dozen windows in the casing and Tim wondered – for a brief moment of distraction from the tech itself as he clambered higher up its exterior – how the museum was going to work in ramps and such for visitors to get the best views. If he didn’t get arrested tonight or banned from the museum forever, he might have to come back to see it in its full glory.

He’d finagled his way to the last protrusion from top and was marveling at the neat rows of complicated wiring laid out below him when something crucial changed: he discovered that he was not, in fact, alone.

“Ya know, I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here.”

Tim really wanted to pretend he didn’t yelp like a kicked puppy when the sudden voice scared him half out of his skin, but the basement echoed enough for him to know it would be ridiculous to think the newcomer hadn’t heard him. Tim ducked his head in shame as his ears burned red and he turned to face whoever had caught him with hunched shoulders and guilty hands raised in surrender.

And then he spotted his accuser on the floor and froze.

It was Jason Peter Todd.

Jason Peter Todd – Bruce Wayne’s new ward and the new Robin. And also kinda Tim’s neighbor. Well, as far as the word ‘neighbor' applied when your respective estates were so big it took an hour to hike door to door. Tim’s brain got caught in a loop of wondering what the frack Jason Peter Todd, of all people, was doing at the museum on a Thursday afternoon. Was doing down here, in this particular sub-basement, on a Thursday afternoon.

Tim had fully been expecting to see the new Robin today, but that was when he was in full costume and wasn’t supposed to be for at least ten more hours. And Tim had not – in any of his contingencies – planned for Robin to see him.

“Uh, hi,” Tim floundered.

“Hi,” returned the crime fighting teenager Tim idolized and had been planning to stalk through Coventry later today. There was a glint in his eyes as he stared up at Tim with a smirk.

They stared at each other in silence for way longer than could possibly be considered reasonable and Tim's ears resumed to burn at that, and at the distinct realization he had no idea what to say next.

Because what exactly are you supposed to say when Jason Peter Todd catches you red handed in an off-limits part of a museum? Sitting on top of a piece of cutting edge computer engineering that you had absolutely no right to touch?

“You're Tim Drake, aren’t you,” Jason asked – in a way that was definitely not really a question and also made it clear that Jason was laughing at him. “We met last month at the charity gala. I’m Jason.”

“I remember, Mr. Todd,” Tim spouted, falling back on the robotic safety net of manners his mother had drilled into him. “Um, what brings you here?”

“It’s just ‘Jason’, kid.” He jerked his chin at the machine Tim clung to, continuing, “That shit’s WayneTech. B sent me over to make sure it’s got all the right bits with it.”

Tim nodded like a puppet, trying not to drown in his horror as he realized what it meant that Jason had caught him. He was messing with tech that Batman owned. There were probably a hundred undetectable BatSecurity features on this thing. Robin had probably been sent to see if someone was trying to steal it when one of Batman’s invisible alarms had gone off.

“How about you, kid,” Jason asked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo pants. He regarded Tim with openly amused parody as he asked, “What brings you here?”

“Field trip,” Tim responded automatically.

“Field trip?” Jason echoed with an incredulous chuckle.

He stared at Tim for another long moment and Tim stared back, terrified and unblinking and too tongue tied to substantiate his claim.

“Alright then,” Jason said eventually, with a one shoulder shrug inside his leather jacket. “So, you got yourself stuck up there or are you gonna come have lunch with me?”

“Lunch?”

“Yeah, ya know, food. You eat it,” Jason explained. “I know I could use some pizza.”

Tim frowned – at the confirmation of the non-sequitur of lunch plans, not the various insults attached to it.

Jason seemed to falter briefly. “You actually stuck up there, Tim?”

“No,” Tim huffed, willing to admit he sounded slightly petulant about it.

“Well then get your skinny ass down here,” Jason prompted – a beat too late in a way Tim didn’t quite understand. He blinked, trying to puzzle out what didn’t sit right, but Jason arched an eyebrow – in the way Tim had seen him do as Robin, magically managing the expression despite the mask – and Tim realized he was supposed to be doing something.

He was already in enough trouble as it was, so Tim scrambled down the computer and found himself face to face with the second Robin. Or face to chest, as it were.

Tim hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he knew he was a scrawny twelve, but he hadn’t thought Jason would be that much taller. Jason was only two years older and he was stocky to start with. It was different when he’d been in the suit he’d worn for the charity gala. In civvies he looked broad and strong, and he stood up straighter.

Jason pulled one hand from his pocket and threw his arm around Tim’s shoulders – began dragging him towards the exit. Tim lunged for his backpack as they passed it and clutched it close to his chest as Jason continued to drag him back upstairs.

They ended up in the west cafeteria, in a corner that Jason had clearly selected for it’s state of semi-privacy. It was crowded and public enough to make raised voices problematic, but private enough to discuss sensitive details without much worry of being over heard. And it was neutral ground, like Jason was trying to make Tim comfortable before hashing out exactly how much trouble he was in for touching Batman’s stuff without express permission.

Jason had acquired a large pizza, dripping with extra cheese and a blanket of peperoni, and two double-thick paper plates – one of which he piled high with three slices and placed in front of Tim. He gave himself five slices and settled down to chat having somehow already inhaled half of a sixth.

“So,” Jason started around a mouthful of food as Tim poked tentatively as his own serving, “Some people are saying you’ve got some sort of connection to the Batman.”

Tim frowned, his gaze snapping up to evaluate Jason.

He’d spoken quietly, conspiratorially – like he wanted in on a secret Tim had. Like he wasn’t about to threaten to hang Tim by his thumbs in the depths of Batman’s secret lair for the rest of the foreseeable future.

Awareness that Jason didn’t know that Tim knew his vigilante identity sparked inside Tim’s brain. He might be able to get out of this. If Robin didn’t know then Tim was only in trouble for touching the quantum computer because Batman didn’t want anyone touching it, and Jason was limited in how he could exact vengeance because the wrong move would reveal his role as Robin. All Tim had to do was talk his way out of this.

Tim could do that. Right?

All he had to do was figure out how.

“I’m sorry I touched the quantum computer,” he blurted.

Probably not like that.

Tim hunched down into his shoulders and poked again at his pizza to avoid eye contact with Jason. His ears began to burn again as he felt Jason staring at him.

“Shit, kid,” Jason said, after swallowing his bite this time, “You’re not in trouble.”

Tim’s finger paused mid-poke. “I’m not?”

“Nah,” Jason promised. “Fuck the Man.”

Tim blinked. “Then why are you talking to me?”

Jason blinked. A sort of confused expression that was vaguely pitying flickered across his face. Then he reiterated, “’Cause I hear you know who the Batman is, ya know, under the cowl.”

Okay. So, Jason didn’t know he knew, but he suspected.

Tim could work with that. Probably.

He took a bite of pizza purely to keep himself from blurting anymore unhelpful apologies and attempted to calculate the best response.

“Nobody knows who Batman is,” Tim said eventually.

“But you’re a fan, right?” Jason nodded at Tim sweater – at the big black and yellow R embroidered on the left-hand side of the red-wool knitwork. Mrs. Davis had made this sweater for him, before her kids had insisted that she retire from babysitting rich Gotham kids and go be a grandmother in the safety and comfort of their town in Florida. Mrs. Davis had been one of the very few people who had supported Tim’s moderately obsessive interest in Batman and Robin.

She hadn’t really understood, but Tim missed her – missed being able to talk about it.

“You’ve gotta have some theories,” Jason was saying, his voice persistent enough to pull Tim back out from inside his own head.

“I don’t have any theories,” Tim said. And it was true enough. He’d had theories. But that was before. Now, he had evidence. Another bite of pizza kept him from saying that out loud.

“Seriously? None?”

Tim shrugged and counted the circles of peperoni left on his first slice. Nine more circles, fifteen more bites. His stomach was already wary of the food he was putting in it. If this interrogation lasted more than ten bites, Tim’s stomach would probably begin to protest.

Adamantly.

He peeked up at Jason. Who was somehow already finishing slice number three.

“Then why’s the word on the street that you’ve got insider know-how on ole Batsy?”

“I dunno,” Tim said with another shrug. Truthfully, the question was bothering him too.

Tim had never been seen when he’d staked out a spot to catch the dynamic duo on patrol or in the midst of a big bust. Never. They would’ve confronted him then and there if they’d ever found him with a camera full of very clear photos of them in action.

So, how did Robin know enough to suspect him?

“Who’d you hear it from?”

This time, Jason shrugged. “I dunno. People. But like seriously, you don’t have any fucking idea why someone would think you know Batman’s real name?”

Tim shook his head silently. He wanted to save his pizza for the questions that really needed him to have something to do with his mouth other than blabbing out his secrets.

“Huh.”

Jason’s eyes were narrowed, not quite threateningly, but pressingly – like he wasn’t quite sure a threat would be appropriate, but he was certain that Tim wasn’t telling the truth. It was another look Tim had captured him using as Robin. A kind of gentled-down BatglareTM for Robin to use on uncooperative victims instead of how Batman used his on uncooperative criminals – because victims could be uncooperative for all kinds of non-criminal reasons.

Tim suddenly understood why it was so effective.

He squirmed in his seat and caved to the need to take another bite of pizza.

But he wasn’t a victim. Was he?

Suddenly, Robin’s presence at the museum seemed a lot more suspect. It made sense for Robin to be there because Tim had triggered some sort of invisible Batalarm on the quantum computer, but he’d gotten there way too quickly for that to have been what brought him to the museum initially. He’d’ve had to have already been inside the building.

But why?

Tim’s class had been scheduled for this museum trip over a month ago. He’d even talked about it briefly with Bruce Wayne himself at the charity gala he’d attended with his parents – that’s how he’d known about the WayneTech exhibition far enough in advance to plan effectively to sneak down to the basements.

“When’d you start hearing that rumor?”

Tim’s question was so sudden and loud in his own ears that he startled himself.

He seemed to have startled Jason too – who was starting on pizza slice number five and appeared to have been in the middle of a sentence when Tim had jolted into questioning him.

“Uh, about a week ago, I guess,” Jason explained. “Your name had come up a few times before that in regards to you being a fan, but it wasn’t too long ago that it changed to you having special access or some shit.”

Tim nodded absently.

Two weeks ago, there’d been a major drug bust in a neighborhood just over half a mile away from his school. Batman had been tipped off about the drug ring in the same way Tim had: kids who came to school high rode the bus home and the chalk marks on the benches at the stops used by the kids who were using weren’t terribly sophisticated code.

Tim had snagged some really spectacular shots the night that bust went down.

Several of Tim’s classmates had exhibited symptoms of withdrawal shortly after that. A few of those students – namely some who’d never seemed to be able to have a civil conversation or simply let Tim pass in silence – had stopped exhibiting those symptoms a few days later. Tim had assumed they’d found a new dealer.

Maybe they’d needed to find something more valuable to trade too, to make up for getting their old dealer busted.

Info on the Bat who’d busted them would be pretty valuable.

Even just a lead on info would’ve been valuable. Tim had been outright stalking Batman and Robin for over a third of his entire lifespan, at this point, and only just recently figured out who Batman really was. And he was a verified genius who’d happenstantially acquired the right life experiences to recognize things like quadruple somersaults. Who’d circumstantially idolized and stalked two different costumed acrobats for several years before he realized they were actually the same person and begun to extrapolate from there.

Nobody knew anything about Batman.

A tip on someone who might, would be very valuable indeed.

Tim was being interrogated by Robin because he was a victim. He just hadn’t been victimized quite yet.

Tim dropped his pizza like it’d burned him and began to rifle through his backpack for the new cellphone his mother had bought him when school started. It was ‘so he could fit in with his peers’. It was too big to fit in his pocket and he’d never liked wearing a watch, so he’d had to dig to find it and figure out the time.

It was 4:32pm.

Shift change for the guards was in less than an hour and they were already definitely antsy for it. Most of the science staff were already heading home to beat the traffic, and most of the new guards wouldn’t be coming in for at least another twenty minutes.

If Tim were going to lead a team to invade this place and capture an unwilling potential asset, he would do it in the next ten to fifteen minutes.

“We have to get out of here.”

Jason frowned, his confusion pronounced with wary unease. But he demonstrated a willingness to trust Tim at his word for no other reason than Tim wanted him to and clambered to his feet. He took his last slice of pizza with him though – and nabbed the two untouched pieces from Tim’s plate as he followed.

“What’s wrong, Tim,” Jason asked, carefully nonchalant. His hands were full of pizza in the way Tim’s mouth had been to stop him from doing what he wanted to do when asked a stupid question he should’ve known better than to answer – Tim suspected that if Jason wasn’t holding onto the pizza he’d’ve grabbed Tim’s shoulder at this point.

Tim didn’t know how to answer at all, let alone efficiently communicate what he’d deduced about their current situation. Especially not without revealing that he knew Jason was Robin and could guess why Robin was here talking to him to begin with.

Jason was rapidly eating though the pizza that was keeping him from grabbing onto Tim’s arm to stop their not-so-subtle scramble towards the museum’s main exit. They made it to within sight of the doors before Jason had inhaled the last piece of crust, and Tim had probably ignored several unheard comments and questions about their rapid egress, when Jason finally lost the battle to avoid physical contact and wrapped his hand around Tim’s elbow.

Tim swung around to face him as his inertia asserted dominance.

“Timmy, what’s got you so spooked?” Jason asked. “C’mon. You can tell me. Anything. I won’t rat on you, even if it’s something bad. Lemme help.”

“I can’t – it’s not – You don’t,” Tim could practically feel the whine building in his voice at all the false starts that his brain attempted to send through his mouth to make the act of communication happen. His brain apparently thought it worked something like magic.

Tim was frustrated and embarrassed and still very acutely aware of the fact that they needed to get out of the building. Right now.

And Jason was doing the Robin look, the other one – the one for the scared little bunnies of the victims they came across that needed to be soothed and calmed and promised that they had a friend somewhere in the cold cruel world. Tim knew why it worked – felt it working on him – and yet he was mortified that Robin thought it necessary.

He wasn’t a bunny. He was an asset. Currently being targeted.

Recentered, he focused and forced words to come out of his mouth intelligibly.

“We have to get out of the building.”

Jason had moved to holding onto both of Tim’s shoulders at some point – holding him steady, holding him still. He looked Tim right in the eye and asked gently, “Why?”

The words got jammed up in Tim’s throat again and he squeaked.

And then the museum’s windows exploded inward with a dramatic shower of glass and gunfire as more goons than Tim could count began to repel their way inside.

Tim closed his eyes and winced at the bite of regret on how fracking close they’d been to getting out of this without any major complications.

“That’s why,” he groaned.

-----

|| Read on Ao3 | Read on FF.net | Follow updates on Patreon ||

#BatFam #dcu #dcmultiverse #Batman #Robin #Batman & Robin #Jay x Tim #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Jason Todd x Tim Drake #fanfic #Kid!fic

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oaklores · 5 years ago

Photo

More College AU doodles *hits the whoa*

I have less idea’s about these guys BUT I have a few. I’m also still thinking of relationships for it hehee anyway more info under the cut :,)

Nya Smith

Major- Engineering

Sophomore

She’s a year younger than Kai and realistically should be a freshman but at some point when she was a kid, skipped a grade. She was really into STEM in high school and got a really good scholarship to go to the school. I think she would major in computer or civil engineering of some kind, either way she is very good at building and this kind of science. She hates HATES wearing skirts, if she is dressing up nice she doesn’t mind wearing a dress or a skirt, but you wouldn’t catch her dead wearing a skirt casually. She is also big on working out and going to the gym, she can and will bench press anyone.

Skylor Chen

Major- Hospitality Management

Sophomore

Skylor is majoring in Hospitality Management because she plans to take over her dad’s business. She also wants to minor or double major in something related to sports education, but she hasn’t decided yet. She’s also SUPER big on jewelry, she usually only wears a few rings, maybe a bracelet, and a necklace with a little gold charm, but she thinks it’s pretty and collects it. Her favorite to collect are usually old historical pieces she can find in trader or thrift stores.

Lloyd Garmadon

Major- Undecided

Freshman

Lloyd doesn’t know what he wants to do yet, his parents are also professors at the school. He’s considering majoring in early childhood education because he really loves working with kids and teaching people. He still just doesn’t know what he wants to do. Until then he is taking random classes to fill up his time before he decides.

Pixal Borg

Major- Computer Science

Junior

Pixal started doing internships in high school with Borg industries, she had a very good understanding of coding and what not. She started as a personal assistant to Cyrus Borg to learn more, but they ended up getting like, a father/daughter relationship. Pixal didn’t have any parents which blah blah blah, he ended up becoming her legal guardian.

Nya and Skylor are roommates, which were randomly assigned their sophomore year.

Lloyd didn’t have many friends when he started because he had a hard time talking to people and making friends. Since his parents were also professors he didn’t live on campus. Since the philosophy class was a 101, he could take it (he was randomly placed in it). He also thought the class was super neat, but he didn’t really talk. Just like the other 4 he sat up front, but he took a lot of handwritten notes on the discussion. Towards the end of October, the guys noticed he didn’t really talked to anyone and always saw him alone on campus. At some point One of them just approached Lloyd and asked if he wanted to join their study group. Basically, he said yes and now he’s best friends with them.

Still working on most information with everyone else but here’s some progress!! hehee

#ninjago #ninjago fanart #idk any of their last names or if theres fannon ones lmao #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd #skylor chen #ninjago skylor #nya smith #ninjago nya #pixal borg #ninjago pixal #my art

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wildmichaelflower · 5 years ago

Text

Too Young, Too Dumb - College!SOS PT. 1

Word Count - 1.6k

Warnings - Slight swearing

Luke groaned as his alarm went off, interrupting the peaceful sleep he had been having. Sitting up, he turned it off before going to his select his outfit for the day. Once dressed, he went to go make a coffee to go, biting his lip when he was greeted by the sight of his roommate Michael slumped over the table, a cup of coffee gone cold in front of his laptop. Luke gave his shoulders a couple shakes and whisper-shouted his name, watching the other man grumble to life.

“Mike, it’s 7 am. How long have you been sitting here?”

“Well,” he yawned, “I got off work at ten, stopped at McDonald’s, got home by ten-thirty-ish.” He took a pause to rub his face, “I took a shower, then came out here, so eight hours?” He took a sip from his mug, immediately spitting the contents back out, “That tastes like shit..”

“Well, that’s eight hour old coffee for you,” Luke sighed as he prepared his roommate a fresh cup.

“Nah, more like five hours. I remember making some around two and everything after that is a blur. I passed out around four, I think?” He yawns again.

“How do you expect to pass classes if you can’t stay awake in them?” Luke sighed as he set the mug down.

“I think the bigger issue here is that you’re still expecting me to go to my classes.” Michael mumbled as he eagerly picked up the mug.

“Dude, come on,” Luke gave a hard look, “You’re on a full ride, do you want to throw that away?”

Michael groaned, not in the mood to have this conversation, especially this early in the morning, but he also had to acknowledge that Luke was right.

“Ok,” He sighed, “My first class isn’t until eleven so I’m going to sleep until ten.”

“And your homework is all done?”

“Yep,” Michael grinned sleepily and finished his coffee before placing the mug in the sink. He picked up his laptop and its charger before heading towards his bedroom.

Luke shook his head before continuing to make his breakfast, humming softly as he made his plate. He poured himself a mug of coffee, then sat down to eat his fried eggs and turkey bacon with a side of mixed fruit. He unlocked his phone and began to scroll through Twitter, keeping an eye on any important headlines to bring up during his night class. He got extra credit if the class discussed something he brought up, not that he wanted or needed it, he just thought the conversations were important. After screenshotting a few articles, he finished the remnants of his breakfast before going to load the dishes into the dishwasher. He decided against running it, not wanting to break the silence in case Michael wasn’t asleep yet.

He quietly went to pack up his bag, making sure he had the appropriate books and chargers for his laptop and phone. Sure, he was coming back after his second class, but it never hurt to be prepared.

He headed back to the living room, grabbing his keys from the coffee table before slipping on his shoes. He left a note on the counter for Michael, reminding him to take his meds, before heading out. As he was locking up, he smiled as he watched his neighbor also lock her door.

"Morning," he said, biting his lip as she jumped, "Sorry if I scared you."

"Yeah, you did," she smiled sheepishly as she ran a hand through her hair, "Didn't think anyone else was crazy enough to be awake and moving at 8 am."

He laughs and nods, "Yeah, it's not for the weak, but someone has to make sure the world turns. I'm Luke by the way," he sticks his hand out, smiling as she takes it.

"Carina," she smiled as she introduced herself, shaking his hand, before pulling away and heading to the steps, "So what's your plan for keeping the world turning?"

He grinned, "I work the front desk of the student union. Gotta make sure people have their popcorn."

She laughed and nods in agreement, the student union desk sold other things, but popcorn was easily it's most popular product.

"And what about you?" He smiled.

"I work at the bookstore, where, once the semester settles, people buy anything but books."

Luke laughed at that and nodded understandingly, "Guilty."

"Aren't we all?" She smiled and opened the front door to the building.

They walked out together, and Luke grabbed his keys from his pocket when he noticed her leaving the parking lot.

"Want a ride?" He asked as he unlocked his car.

Carina stopped and turned around, biting her lip.

"You seem nice, but how can I trust you? We just met."

Luke bit his lip, he honestly didn't think she should walk to campus, but he should've known what it would've looked like.

"I'll let you drive?" He offered awkwardly, smiling as she laughed.

"And I was thinking I trusted too easily," she smiled, debating with herself on whether or not to accept the offer.

Granted, she just met this guy, but he was cute, in an awkward but doing his best kind of way, and didn't seem to pick up any bad vibes from him. She would play a test on him, and if he passed, then she would get in with him.

"Before I get in, could I take a picture of the license plate and send it to my friend?" She pulled her phone out.

Luke nodded, "Of course, anything that helps you feel comfortable." He smiled before getting into his car.

Carina smiled to herself, thanking the internet for giving her the clever idea then took a couple pictures of the back of the car before updating her best friend.

Getting a ride from school from my neighbor, never met him before today but he seems nice! Just in case, here's some info.

She sent the pictures before getting into the car, surprised by how clean it was.

"Offer still stands if you want to drive," he smiles.

She laughs but shakes her head, "I don't think you're pretty face can handle the speeds I drive at."

He chuckled and pulled out of the parking lot, heading towards the campus. It wasn't a long drive, just a few blocks, but with the temperature dropping, Luke felt better giving rides to people.

"So, what's your major?" Carina asked.

"Business economics," he smiled, "and yours?"

"Social studies education, with a minor in political science. I'm guessing your minor is something like mathematics or international relations. That's a common one for you business majors, that or Spanish."

He laughed, much to her surprise, but he was used to people assuming those kind of things out of him.

"Actually, my minor is gender and women's studies."

"Wow.. what made you choose that?"

"Well I took one class freshman year about history and social structures from the perspective of women to fill the diversity requirement, and I was hooked."

Carina nodded, smiling at this new insight of her neighbor.

"Your partner is very lucky."

Luke blushed and bit his lip, "I, um, I don't have a girlfriend."

"Really?" Luke wasn't her type but she was surprised, he had a good heart, a good looking future. How could there not be anyone for him?

He shrugged, "College has kept me busy, but who knows, this could be my year." He smiled hopefully.

Carina couldn't help but returning his smile, while also running through a list of her friends that might be a good match for her neighbor.

Luke made another turn towards the bookstore, stopping at the dead end next to the building.

Carina got her bag and smiled, "Thanks for the ride, I really appreciate it."

"Of course! With the weather dropping I don't mind giving people rides, I rather them be safe. If you want to make this a regular thing, you know where I live?" He winked jokingly.

She laughed and nodded, "I'll let you know." She pulled her phone out and opened it to Snapchat, "You should add me."

He nodded, pulling his phone out and snapping a picture of her code, smiling as the request went through.

She slid her phone back in her pocket, "Cool, now we'll be best friends," she joked before getting out, "Thanks again for the ride!"

She closed the door then started to walk to the entrance, smiling as Luke didn't leave until he was sure she was inside.

Luke smiled as he made his way out of the dead end, heading to the parking ramp where he kept his car during the day.

Once he parked, he grabs his bag and travel mug then heads to work.

He greets his coworkers next to him in the printing shop as he set his things down before sitting at the desk. He then logged onto the computer and got the desk ready for the day. He knew it would be hours until the building would be busy, now it was just professors and a student or two waiting to grab coffee.

Luke pulled his laptop out, his boss didnt mind when he or his coworkers did homework on the job, as long as they paid attention to customers. An email popped up in his notifications, reminding him that his night class would begin the final presentations that week. It's not that Luke was unprepared, his presentation had been ready since that weekend, but he had some nerves about speaking in front of the class.

He made a mental note to go over his presentation one more time, then opened a word document to the paper he had been working on.

#5 seconds of summer fic #luke hemmings fic #michael clifford fic #calum hood fic #ashton irwin fic #5 seconds of writing #college!sos #5sos au #5sos college au

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boymeetsweevil · 7 years ago

Text

For science 1/7 - (NSFW)

Grouping: Reader x Nerd!Jungkook

Word Count: 6.1k

Warnings/Themes: masturbation (vaginal) & voyeurism, unrequited feelings, eventual sex. is this crack yet? lol there’s a plot i swear.

Summary: Jungkook asks you to let him watch you get off. For science.

A/N: posting this now because I’ve been working on it on and off for like a month and im tired of looking at it and jk’s bday is coming up HAPPY BIRTHDAY JK and i’ll be too busy with school plus im almost 7k into the second chapter so..

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Your eyes burn in protest as you scroll to the top of your terminal window once more to search for the error that is fucking your code up. It’s been hours of work and you still haven’t managed to get your program to run even though the homework assignment is easy in theory. In fact it’s just like a problem that Jungkook said the professors would probably give you in your sophomore year, and here you are in your junior year seeing such an ‘easy’ question. With him, it had truly been easy, though. Jungkook was a better computer science teacher than any professor you’d ever encountered. Thinking back to early high school days has you smiling softly to yourself.

You miss sitting closely together, heads sometimes touching, as you both bent over a problem while he explained why it looked hard, but was actually something you could do in your sleep. The wide smile he would give you when you completed competition questions in minimal time would always set your heart fluttering.

Your phone vibrating brings you back to reality. The caller ID reads ~JK~ and you swoop in to answer the call. If the time in the corner of your computer is right (and it is) he should have already opened his decision letter from the PhD department.

“Hey, what’s the verdict,” you ask as soon as you accept the call. You know there’s no other reason why he’d call you when you were supposed to meet up in a few hours for weekly game night.

“I got in,” his voice is soft, but you know him well enough to be able to hear the joy mixed in.

“Congratulations, Kook! That’s amazing, I knew you would get in, they’d be crazy not to accept you. Oh my god, we should celebrate.”

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe we could go out for drinks before heading back to mine to play tonight. You in?” Now you can practically hear the smile in his voice.

“Of course I’m in. Let me just pack up and I can meet you. Where are you--the department lounge? I’ll come over.”

“Actually,” his shy tone has you sitting down slowly, returning your jacket to where you had it slung over the back of your chair. “You don’t have to leave right away. I was gonna try and call Yoori. You know, to tell her the news. And then tell Tae and Hobi, of course.”

“Oh. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. I should probably finish this code for Choi’s class anyway. It’s due on Sunday, but I’m almost done. Might as well turn it in early once I find this error.” Your hand scrapes at the sides of your jeans, looking for something to grab at.

“Well then I guess I have time,” he chuckles, “Your typos are always so tiny that they take hours to find. Let’s meet up at the bar in 2 hours then?”

You wince. Although it’s not at all a mean-spirited jab, you’re no longer in the mood for the friendly banter at the mention of Yoori, Jungkook’s long time unrequited love.

“Sure. See you then,” you hang up before he has the chance to say goodbye formally like he always insists on doing.

You put your phone down and berate yourself for getting distracted. If you were the brilliant Yoori, you wouldn’t have even made the typo in the first place. But you weren’t Yoori because you didn’t have the fortune of being born four years earlier and four times more beautiful, elegant, or intelligent. And you didn’t have the luck of being so much of a genius that you could skip years ahead of school like Jungkook either. So instead you would just have to chug along, always watching Jungkook chase Yoori.

You go back to scrolling through your code only to find the error a third of the way down. Jungkook was right, the typo was tiny--a misplaced equals sign. You sigh and run the code to make sure it’s perfect this time, and when it is you send it in to your professor to be graded. You consider heading home and using the extra time to make yourself look nice. Not that there was anything wrong with your oversized university t-shirt and jeans, but suddenly you think maybe things would be different for you with regards to your love life if you tried a little harder. You’re about to leave the library entrance that’s closest to your dorm, but you get a text from Jungkook.

6:41 - I called Yoori and she said she heard about my deal with RealiCorp and she wants to link up when she gets back on campus!

You narrow your eyes at the text. Jungkook had recently sold some software he developed to an up and coming gaming company that was supposed to make the imaging on immersion headsets better. He had made a pretty penny and was covertly offered a position at the company, but it was also a large victory for the computer science department at the university and his picture had been circulating around the department website for weeks. You suppose she finally saw it while she was taking a break from her research project off campus and decided to answer his calls for a change.

You text back what you hope sounds like a cheerful congratulation and decide to just go to the bar instead. What’s the harm in a few rounds before the rest of the crew arrives?

The harm would have been miniscule at most if you hadn’t been in your feelings, but when Jungkook, Tae, and Hobi arrive, you’re three rounds in and a little bit sloppy.

“Woah,” Hobi shouts, giving you a too strong pat on the back when he sits in the chair next to you. “Someone started a little early. What’s the occasion, are we celebrating something for you too?” Jungkook shakes his head with a sheepish smile and goes to sit beside you, away from Hoseok.

“Nope. Just getting ready for an evening with your loud ass.” He gives you a pretend pout and flags the bartender over. Tae sits next to him and gives you a little wave and smile.

“Two whiskeys, make mine a sour and make his straight. From the high shelf.”

“Hey now,” Taehyung’s eyes widen comically, “Are you forgetting that payday isn’t until next week? I’ll take the regular whiskey down there, please.”

“Don’t worry. Kookie said he was paying with his RealiCorp money,” Hoseok stage whispers into your ear, “He’ll probably cover your round too.” You swat him away and turn to Jungkook, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“You know I’ll cover yours. The rest of them, I don’t know.”

“What? Come on, you’re the youngest,” Tae whines, less than satisfied with his cheap whiskey shot.

“Shouldn’t that mean you guys pay for me?”

“N-no! Because you’re actually our senior now. You’re graduating this year, I’m the oldest technically but I’m not graduating until next year. We know these two aren’t graduating until the year after that,” he points to you and Tae, “Plus, you’re going to the PhD program next year. You should definitely be paying for us.” Hoseok has a point, you and Tae nod sagely to back him up.

“Fine,” Jungkook sighs, pushing his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose, “I’m in a good mood, so why not.”

“I bet you are,” Tae’s grin is big and catlike in the low light of the bar. His gaze a little lewd. “I would be too if I was one step closer to finally bagging a girl like Yoori.”

You look down into your beer bottle, the green glass suddenly much more fascinating than the conversation at hand.

“Did you hear,”Hoseok turns toward you,”Yoori is gonna come back soon and when she does he’s gonna make her Mrs. Jeon.”

“I’ll be sure to throw rice during the wedding,” you snark. The bartender brings you a new beer without another word. Taehyung howls at your comment.

“I’d kill to have a wedding night with her.”

“Hell, I’d kill to have a bathroom stall night. With anyone,” Hoseok sighs, “It’s hard out here for a comp-sci major. Right, guys?”

You hum in agreement. It had been a while since you’d last gotten laid.

“You’re right. I can’t even remember that geology minor’s face. Do you remember her? What was her name? Mara? Kara?”

“Sara,” Hoseok provides with a grin, “I think she has a thing for comp-sci majors. Kook, you ever hook up with Sara?”

Jungkook shyly traces a finger around the rim of his empty vodka class. “I haven’t hooked up with anyone.”

“Ever?” You try to keep incredulity from bleeding into your question.

“Ever,” he nods. He hiccups a little and all of the sudden you totally believe that Jungkook is a virgin.

“Dude, wait, I thought you hooked up with that one chick at the music festival last spring. Am I the only one who saw her?”

Tae nods in agreement. “Yeah, she gave you her hotel room key and everything.”

“It wasn’t like that. She told me her brother was there for a robotics tournament and I asked her if I could see the bot.”

You smile despite your sour mood. If there was one thing you loved about Jungkook it was his blind enthusiasm for STEM. Even if it made him a little oblivious to other things at times.

“Well, you better fix that whole virgin thing fast, bro. Chicks like Yoori probably want someone with experience. In more ways than one, if you catch my drift.” Hoseok nudges Tae with a wry smile.

“That’s not just a Yoori thing, most people don’t want to have to coddle someone in bed unless that’s, like, their kink or something,” you take a large swallow of beer.

“Wait,” Tae says, eyeing you like he’s had an epiphany, “You’re a girl--”

“Didn’t we establish this 2 years ago? When we met?”

“No, no, I mean you can help Kookie so he doesn’t drop the ball with Yoori.”

“Yeah, right,” you snort, “Help him how? Give him a sex-ed lecture?” You turn to laugh with Jungkook, but he’s looking at you seriously. Or as seriously as he can when he’s tipsy with unfocused eyes and blushing cheeks.

“You…don’t want to help me?” His voice sounds pathetic and small, making you feel bad instantly.

“Oh, Kook, it’s not that I don’t want to help you. But think about what that implies.”

“Is it because I’m a virgin?”

“Oh my god, Kook, there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin don’t listen to us. We’re idiots.”

“Then why don’t you want to help me?”

Because I like you. You swallow hard, your throat suddenly dry. You obviously don’t say that, though. Instead you sit back in your bar stool.

“I-I would if I could, but I don’t know how to help you,” you finally say.

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I guess the thought of being with Yoori makes me a little stupid.”

Desperately you search for a solution. Instead of finding one, you call the bartender back and order a round of tequila shots. Jungkook gives you a sad look but doesn’t ruin the mood by not taking a shot. You order two more rounds because somehow, even though he’s drunk, he still looks dejected. After your third shot you can’t stand the way his shoulder slump.

“You know what,” you slur loudly, drawing three pairs of eyes to your face lazily. “It’s getting late and we might not get to play Fortnite this weekend. Let’s all get to bed so we can be up early tomorrow to play.”

Tae points a wobbly finger in your direction, eyes suspicious. “When you say early, you mean after 2pm right?”

It takes twenty minutes for everyone to get their shit together enough to leave the bar. Tae and Hoseok keep losing each other in the bathroom. Jungkook keeps forgetting that he has to pay and tries to ask the bartender what he thinks about sub-atomic particle physics. Even though you’re drunk off your ass, you somehow manage to keep yourself responsible enough to wrangle Tae and Hobi out of the bathroom and guide Jungkook through the motions of swiping his card and signing the bill. The four of you then squeeze into the back of an uber. Hoseok whines about being lonely while sitting in the passenger’s seat. Jungkook’s bumps his hand against yours until he can firmly grasp it and get your attention before you pass out.

“Hey, can I sleep on the couch,” he whispers in your ear. His breath smells like alcohol and limes. You turn your head to chase the scent away and rest your head on his shoulder. You yawn.

“Sure. No problem, buddy.”

Your apartment is the first stop on the route and you launch yourself out the car and run up through your lobby and to the elevator to escape the cold of the air conditioner and the fluorescent lights. Jungkook lingers in the car until Tae pushes him out to make room for Hoseok.

“Kook,” Tae calls out as he helps Hoseok pour himself into the back seat.

“Wassap?”

“The only way to get good at sex is losta—lotta...lot’s a practish. Okay?”

“But-but…Who am I gonna practice with?”

Tae merely whistles and points a finger upward, gesturing to your illuminated window. The car pulls away and Jungkook sways unsteadily up onto the sidewalk with nausea clawing at his throat. Thinking of the stairs he’ll have to climb—because there’s no way in hell he’s taking the elevator, even in this state—he regrets not just going to his own first floor dorm. Does he really need to get sex counseling from you? There’s always porn, he muses before remembering the rant you’d gone on blaming porn for making a guy you’d been hooking up with try to do weird things in bed involving a summer squash. Looks like he’d have to rely on the real deal to get anywhere with Yoori. Oh, Yoori.

A shimmering vision of the beautiful girl with elegant eyes and an ever-painted smile floats in front of his hazy vision and gives him the strength he needs to hobble forward towards the lobby door with dedication.

Minutes ago you couldn’t wait to go to sleep, but as soon you unlocked your door and made it to your room, you were wide awake. Even brushing your teeth and stripping out of your jeans didn’t to tire you out.

“Fuck,” you groan. You throw yourself onto your bed and hope that the way the room spins will lull you to sleep but when the spinning stops, your eyes still won’t stay closed.

The clock resting on your desk across the room reads 1:48am. It’s already clear that you’re going to be hung over, but knowing that it won’t be cushioned by a nice long sleep before you have to go to yoga at 12 makes you want to cry. You desperately wrack your brain for all the remedies there are to make you sleepy. You just canceled your cable last week to save some money, so you can’t veg out in front of the TV. You’re lactose intolerant, so warm milk isn’t an option. You’d take a warm shower but you washed your hair already and if you go to bed with wet hair your mother’s voice will haunt you all night with stories of the cold coming your way. Kicking your feet in frustration, you toss yourself over the edge of the bed to hang. Maybe all the blood will flow to your head and you’ll pass out.

You’re about to risk passing out and landing on your neck the wrong way and dying when a bright pink shoebox under your bed catches your eye. Of course, you think, how could you forget your precious vibrator. Luckily for you, a good orgasm or three always managed to knock you out like a light. You reach over and scoot the box forward with your outstretched fingertips until you get it close enough to reach inside and grab the petite tiffany blue bullet. Giddy laughter leaves your mouth as you heft yourself back onto your bed and fall back on the pillows with a contented sigh. Orgasms solve all your problems. You flick the device on to the lowest setting and ghost it against your clothed mound.

Jungkook is completely breathless as he leaves the center stairwell and finally arrives on your floor. The stairs were a bitch and a half, but your door is only two down from the floor entrance. He can practically hear the siren song of your pull-out couch. When he turns the knob to your front door, it doesn’t budge and he wonders if you must have locked it on instinct. There’s no way you forgot that he was staying over, he thinks to himself. Reaching above the doorjamb, he hunts for the spare key you left there especially for him. The door unlocks easily and he smiles to himself as he locks the door behind him and toes off his shoes. He’s about to face plant into the couch when you call his name faintly from your bedroom.

As he stumbles through the hallway slowly to your room, he thinks over what Taehyung said to him before driving off. To Jungkook’s drunk mind it makes sense, so it must be a good idea to seek sex practice from you. You’re the only girl he knows and he’s known you so long that he can already tell there would be no awkwardness. The sad look in your eyes as you listened to his predicament in the bar tells him that you want to help him, but you didn’t know what route to take. He flexes his hands by his sides and figures he’ll just tell you what Taehyung told him and get to coming up with a curriculum.

The door to your bedroom is half-open and the lights shine through the opening, so he figures you must be up and waiting for him. He can still hear you calling his name, but it still sounds oddly soft from where he is. He pushes the door open but freezes in his tracks when he sees you.

The first thing he notices is obviously the frantically moving hand you have between your legs and the loud buzzing sound that comes from it. He takes in more details the longer he looks. He realizes belatedly then that you’re not wearing pants. Thanks to the high prescription strength of his glasses, he can also see the way your hand and thighs shine and the huge dark spot in the crotch of your panties in the light of your table lamp. Your toes are curling and he can just make out the way your lower stomach clenches underneath the very same sweatshirt you’d been wearing to the bar. Technically he can’t see your other hand but he has a pretty good idea of where it is and what it might be doing with the way it disappears under your shirt. You can’t see him, though, because your head is thrown back and your eyes are closed. The only thing you’re probably at least partly aware of is the cacophony of wet sounds that come from where you work the nose of the toy over yourself. The last thing he notices is the way you call his name in a soft whining tone that has him stepping forward without thinking.

“Fuck, Jungkook,” you whine as the slippery heel of your hand bumps against your covered clit a little roughly on an upstroke.

“Yes?”

“What the hell,” your eyes snap open and your head whips around to see him leaning on the door frame as he watches you.

His eyes are heavy with alcohol and his cheeks are just as pink as the lip he releases from the grasp of his teeth. He reaches out and stumbles forward, causing you to scramble back to distance yourself from him. You bring your knees up to hug to your chest before you realize that you’re still very much on show.

“Jeon Jungkook, what is going on here,” you shriek, bringing your hands to cover your eyes only makes you feel a little bit better.

He sits down on your bed like it’s any other day and he’s just chilling in the room like you invited him over. And then you realize that you did kind of invite him over as fragmented memories of the recent uber ride you took together spring up.

“You said you wanted to help me, but you didn’t know how. But Tae told me I just have to practish.”

“Practish?”

“Practice,” he corrects himself.

“Practice what?”

“Practice sex. Duh!”

“Jungkook, no!”

“Please? I wouldn’t be asking such a huge favor if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary.”

“Why can’t you just go to a frat party like everyone else?”

Your heart is beating rapidly and you think maybe you’re not drunk anymore. Never in your life did you think you would turn down sex from Jungkook, but then again you never pictured it happening this way.

“Because I,” his head hangs and he starts to pick at a loose thread in your duvet, “I guess I missed out on this kind of thing when we were younger and I don’t think I could get very good results in a basement party. Plus, I know you’d…”

“I’d what?”

“You’d be good to me.” He lifts his eyes to lock with yours. His gaze is oddly sharp despite the fact that his skin is still clammy like it gets when he drinks.

Your breath hitches and for a moment it does feel like the fantasies you have almost every other time that you settle into your room, lonely and horny. Jungkook laughs bitterly to himself and you can feel your resolve crumbling as something selfish rears its head in the back of your mind. He tries one last time.

“Please?”

You crack.

“Okay.”

“Really?” His eyes light up once more as he gives you a blinding smile. “Great. Let’s start!”

It feels as though you’re having an out of body experience as you watch him clamber closer onto the bed with you. Your legs naturally open to accommodate him and he scoots into your space, his hands falling to naturally stroke with the soft skin of your ankles. Even though he lacks experience, Jungkook has a leg up in that he’s naturally on the affectionate side. Something you can’t teach with any amount of practice. Even still, the idea that Jungkook will be sitting between your naked thighs makes your stomach do flip flops.You barely start formulating something to say that will sound educational when you hear him get ready to interject once more.

“God, what is it?” You worry that if he interrupts you one more time you’ll lose your nerve.

“I need a visual aid. And, uh, I won’t be able to see because of your, uh, undergarments.”

You’re certain that you’ve never taken anything off faster than you do in that moment. The panties fly into some far corner of your room and you can only hope that they don’t land in a clump of dust bunnies.

“Alright,” you stutter, “I don’t have to give you an anatomy lesson, right? Please tell me you at least know where everything is.”

“We took anatomy together in 7th grade,” he says like that’s a decent answer.

You roll your eyes. “Right, okay. Anatomy lesson it is.”

“What’s this,” you point at yourself.

“That’s the uh…entrance to the vagina?”

“Ok and?”

“It’s where the pleasure comes from?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes?”

“Partial credit.”

“Isn’t that where the…phallus goes, though?” You decide it would be best to ignore his word choice for now.

“Yeah, I mean stuff goes in there but that’s not where all the pleasure comes from. For some people that’s not where any of it comes from.”

His eyes widen nervously. “Then where does it come from if not from penetration?”

You gesture again. “This is the clitoris.” His sweaty bangs flop over his lenses as he nods enthusiastically. Finally something he remembers.

“The clitoris,” he chirps affirmatively. You side eye him, but keep going.

“This little thing is basically there for the sole purpose of pleasure.”

“How do I activate it?” Again you blink at his terminology. Although you’d been a STEM freak with Jungkook for years, somehow he managed to baffle you with his nerdiness.

“Uh, you can stimulate it by touching it.” You draw a small circle in the air around the nub to demonstrate. “Like that, for example. You can also use your hands or your mouth.”

“Or that little blue thing you were using earlier,” he chimes in, reminding you of the embarrassing way this whole thing started.

You sigh. “Yeah. That too.”

“And that’s it?”

“No that’s definitely not it. We haven’t even touched the other places of pleasure or technique or foreplay. But this is a pretty good cheat code.”

“So what about the inside? Like the tubes?”

“There’s really not that much you need to know involving the actual reproductive organs themselves. We can just focus on the external bits for now.” You wince at how uncomfortable the discussion is.

“That makes sense,” his brows furrow seriously. He’s slow to blink, partly so he doesn’t miss anything and partly because he’s still fighting off tendrils of sleep.

“I mean,” you wring your hands anxiously, “that’s all you really need to know for now. It’s mostly learning on the go, anyway. You’ll be fine.”

“But what if I’m not fine. Don’t you think you could, you know, show me?”

“What is there to show?”

“How about you just continue…what you were doing when I came in.”

“Masturbating.”

“What?”

“I was masturbating when you came in.”

A hand flies to the collar of his shirt and he tugs on it sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

You try not to focus on how weirdly awkward the mood is now that your lust has calmed down to barely even a simmer. You reach for the discarded vibrator that jumped out of your hand and landed by the edge of the head of your bed, but he stops you with a raised hand.

“Can you, uh, maybe do it the old-fashioned way? For the first time at least?”

“Right, I guess I’ll get to it.”

Jungkook sits back on his heels patiently and watches closely as your hand trails a path down your torso to the apex of your thighs. The first touch, though you know it’s your own hand, has you twitching a bit. You bite your lip hard to focus and circle your entrance to coax out more moisture, then you move back to circle your clit. You close your eyes in hopes that not being able to see Jungkook’s gaping expression will help. It does, a bit. After a few moments, you let out a breathy sigh and sink further into the pillows. You plant one foot more firmly on the mattress to give yourself some leverage and push yourself more into your circling hand. The slight increase in pressure has you moaning and your eyes fluttering. You peek through heavy lids to see Jungkook’s expression has also changed. His eyes, clear just a second ago, look glassy again from behind his lenses, his mouth slack and shiny. The rise and fall of his chest is a bit heavier. You let yourself think it’s because of you and go back to collect more arousal to increase the slip.

Apparently, you’re more turned on than you thought. When your middle and ring fingers wander down to your hole they come back pleasantly slick. Something in you suddenly feels rebellious, so you use your free hand to spread your lips further and bring your coated fingers up to Jungkook’s face. You flex your fingers and separate them to show crystalline streaks of arousal connecting them.

“Just so you know, this is a good sign.”

Jungkook swallows hard. Somehow, even though you’re still wearing socks and a baggy sweatshirt, you’re hotter than all the completely bare, busty women he’d watched moan and writhe wildly on his computer screen. He reaches out and delicately grabs you wrist before redirecting your hand back to your dripping center.

“Keep going,” he rasps.

You whine and begin to rub your clit more earnestly, lewd wet sounds fill the room. He can practically see your lips getting wetter and wetter as you redistribute your arousal with every rough swipe of your fingers. Your wrist is moving fast, but it’s clear that you’re becoming frustrated with all that you can do with one hand. Your other hand quickly moves to take over making tight figure eights around your clit while the one already coated in your juices moves back down to your entrance once more. This time, you crook two shining fingers and shove them into your hole. Immediately your back bends and a drawn out moan leaves your mouth. Jungkook gasps quietly. You pump your fingers in and out roughly, then withdraw them to add a third finger.

He watches you like that for a while before you get fed up again. It’s been a while since you’ve been so needy and you feel like you’re on fire. Your toes curl impatiently on either side of Jungkook and he realizes you’re looking for more. On instinct he scoots further until his own legs are brushing up against the undersides of yours. His hand reaches out to pet your quivering thigh in a sympathetic effort to help with your plateau. He looks down at your hand, twitching feverishly in and out of yourself. His hands are much bigger and suddenly he moves like he’s about to replace your fingers with his own.

When Jungkook’s hands start to approach your center your breath hitches. You’re not quite in the right state of mind to reject him if he offers to finger you, but you don’t want to take advantage of the situation and make it any more emotionally complicated than it already is.

“Not yet,” you offer when his hands get too close for comfort, “Next time, maybe.”

He seems to be thinking the same thing and averts his attention to the forgotten vibrator. His grip on your thigh disappears, and you sigh quietly, but it’s hidden under the slick sounds you make each time your fingers get sucked into your heat and the low moans you make every time your pinch your clit just so.

“W-what do I do?” His voice is small and his sudden worried look has you wrapping a hand around his and bringing it to show him how you click the toy on and circle it around your entrance.

His hands are sweaty, shaky, so when your hips start to circle on their own, they move to find a resting spot on your thighs and squeeze to deal with the tension rising in his own belly. He grits his teeth, clenches his hands, does anything he can to keep from overstepping and making this about him. As obviously cliché as it sounds, seeing you sweating and moaning underneath him lets him see you in a new light. You’d always been around, but your presence as a woman in his life was backgrounded at best. Now, with Yoori momentarily not clouding his mind, he wants nothing more than to ravage you. He’s almost certain that if he tried, his lack of experience wouldn’t matter too much. He’s sure his body would be able to act on baser instinct and give you the what you wanted. If you wanted.

Your moans change in pitch and soon he’s aware that this will be the first time he’ll have been privy to someone else’s orgasm in real life. His dick is painfully hard and straining against the jeans he’s wearing. But he forgets the discomfort fast as he watches you grind yourself down against the toy in a way that is absolutely filthy. Your bottom lip, shiny and reddened, is pulled taut between your teeth in ecstasy. Your eyes flutter open and lock with his own. You focus and notice his blown-out pupils look huge within the depths of deep brown irises. There’s no denying he’s turned on once you flick your gaze down to his crotch and see the large tent in his pants.

“I—I think I’m gonna…Oh!” Your leg kicks out on its own like some electric current runs through you. Your voice breaks as the waves of your approaching high begin to take over you. One of his hands inches upwards a bit and strokes the tense muscle near your groin softly, at a loss for words. “Oh god, Jungkook, you—” keening, your eyes roll into the back of your head.

One of your hands reaches up to squeeze at his bicep as he’s leaning over you. He wonders in the back of his mind when he got so close to you. Your leg hooks around him like it has a mind of it’s own and tugs him down, forcing him to topple over you. That’s the last straw and you sob from the intense pleasure. Meanwhile your warmth and proximity and your words prove to be a deadly combination and within seconds he’s spilling over himself in his boxers, untouched. He lets out a low groan that puffs against the side of your neck.

You both sit there and breathe for a long while, catching your breath and coming back down to earth. He sits up eventually and pulls away from you, leaving you cold. Your legs flop from around him heavily. You’re a bit irritated when you realize you won’t be able to walk normally for a while. He discretely wipes his hands off on your duvet while you wipe at the sweat soaking your hairline.

“That’s it, that’s the show,” you finally say.

He shoots up and looks at you anxiously. It’s cute. “You mean until next time, right?”

His eyes are wide and imploring as he hovers over by you. He looks a bit like a turtle from this angle. A cute one, though. One that you want to play with again next week. You nod even though he might have all that he needs to do well with Yoori, being the fast learner that he is.

“I guess so. Same time, next week. Do some research for next time maybe. Make sure it’s from something not involving the medical library.”

“Got it!” He turns and waits until you’re not looking to adjust his pants.

You notice his hair is sticking to his forehead when he finally stands up. And there’s a cowlick sticking up in the back that reminds you of middle school Jungkook, before he met Yoori. The idea of the other girl, the girl he’s really in love with, dims your post-coital glow. Although, you suppose you have her to thank for this evening’s events. How else could you have ever managed a one-sided romp in the sheets with your long-time crush?

Both of you take turns using the bathroom to clean up. While he hums in time with washing up, you slip panties on and debate about whether or not to throw your sweats back on. You decide that if you’re going to play this off like it hasn’t changed your relationship, you should put pants back on.He comes out looking pink and clean and you want to pull him back into your bed and wrap yourself around him.

To protect his glasses from the dangers of the bathroom, he left them in your room. Squinting, he walks with hands out to collect them. When he puts them on he doesn’t look at you and instead pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes around while leaving the room.

“Heading out,” you ask with a quasi-disinterested tone.

“Yeah, I remembered I have to run the Saturday tutoring session this week. So I might as well go home so I can get ready for that. You should come, you know. Your test scores dropped 2 points this week.” Typical Jungkook. He couldn’t ever fully leave TA mode.

You roll your eyes. “Thanks for the reminder, but that’s still an A.”

“Maybe we can try this again next week the same time?”

“Yeah, uh, okay.”

“Cool, I’ll put it on my calendar.” He lifts his phone to his face to tell the digital assistant to pencil you in for next week. You try not to grimace at becoming a date in his calendar app.

“Get out already, you nerd.” You push him out after he puts his coat back on, but you do watch out the window to make sure his taxi comes.

#btssmutclub #bangtan bookclub #networkbangtan #bttnetwork #btswriters #bts smut #bangtan fanfic #bangtan imagines #bangtan scenario #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts imagines #jungkook imagine #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenario

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thorne93 · 6 years ago

Text

Stan Lee University

Prompt: What would the Avengers be like in college, more importantly, what would they be like if Y/N existed around them?

Word Count: 2559

Warnings: drama, language, betrayal

Notes: This is based on a HC from @carryonmyswansong. They helped brainstorm and write part of this series. In this AU, no one will have powers, everyone is a normal human. Beta’d by @carryonmyswansong

~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday.

It’s busy.

It’s hectic.

It’s nerve wracking.

It’s college.

Your junior year to be exact, the beginning of fall semester. You shouldn’t be daunted by this though, you were only nineteen, whereas most of your peers were twenty-one. Thanks to your desire to learn, and some strings pulled at your small-town high school, you’d had advanced through the grades, and when the seniors graduated at eighteen, so did you at sixteen.

From there, you joined them at college. A lot of people have to deal with saying goodbye to their friends in high school. Friends that most of the time were people they literally grew up with. But in your case, in your small city, pretty much everyone you ran around with in high school came to the same college.

It was a quaint, small college with roughly twelve-hundred enrolled students on a rather green campus, and sixteen of your friends had come over to join you.

Now, all you had to do was get to your morning class -- Physics 3000.

You skated into the classroom and located Tony and Bruce quickly, already sitting on one side of the four-chaired black top lab tables.

“Hey, hey!” Tony greeted happily. He stood up to give you a quick hug before you slid into your seat, five minutes to spare before class.

“Hey, thought I’d never make it here. Four freshman needed help, decided to pick me to be their tour guide,” you explained.

“You could’ve said no,” Bruce retorted.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I know that word,” you teased with a half smile.

Tony and Bruce were very good friends of yours. The three of you shared a strong love of science, known each other since freshman year of high school… well, your freshman year. Tony was double majoring in engineering and computer science. Bruce decided to double major in chemistry and biology, while minoring in engineering.

Meanwhile, you were a psychology major - pre med. Everyone called you crazy for wanting to do pre-med, and especially for putting time into a major like psychology. Nearly everyone said it would just be easier to major in chemistry, and minor in psychology, since you had to have so many chem courses for pre-med. But you didn’t want that. Psychology was your life, it was your driving force. Nothing got you more excited than the idea of finding out what makes people tick.

Just then, a student sat down beside you. You’d never seen him before, and on this campus, with this population size, that was nearly impossible. He began pulling out his notebooks while you and The Science Bros (the nickname nearly everyone had given Tony and Bruce long ago) stared at him. The three of you shared a quick look before the new student glanced up at you all.

“Uh, hi,” he greeted with confusion, his eyes touching on all of you. “I’m sorry, do I have something on my face or…?”

“Sorry,” you began, blinking quickly. “We’ve just never seen you before,” you remarked, taking in his appearance. He had dark, short hair. He was tall. Blue eyes that seem to cut anything they looked at. His presence alone was intimidating, even before he opened his mouth.

“That’s probably because I just transferred over. Went to Bransford University before this,” he explained matter-of-factly. Bransford was a huge college about two hours east of your university.

“Oh, why the switch?” you inquired, leaning a little more towards him, your body involuntarily shivering at his voice, and his piercing eyes.

“Wanted a smaller school,” he answered. “Got tired of the faculty treating us like cattle at BU.” He scoffed slightly and rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I’m Stephen.” He held out his hand and you took it, giving your name. After that, the others introduced themselves.

“Nice to meet you,” you said.

“Yeah, you too.”

“Good morning, everyone,” the professor said, standing up in front of the class. “Say hello to everyone at your table. They will be your new lecture and lab partners for the rest of the semester.”

Stephen looked back to you briefly, his expression unreadable until he put his eyes back on the professor. He tried to hide it, but you saw a small smirk on his face and you were curious if he had felt a spark like you did.

---------------------------

As soon as lecture let out, Stephen went on his own way while you and the science bros began making your way to your next class. Tony had some robotics engineering class, while Bruce had biochem coming up. As for you, it was off to Ethics in Mental Health.

The three of you diverged around the middle of campus, where Tony had to go to the business building, Bruce to the science, and you to the social science building. It was there, that your best friend had started walking across the courtyard and you nearly exploded from excitement.

“Clint!” you called, waving at him to get his attention before running full force at him. You slammed into him, wrapping your entire body around him. Your legs went around his waist, your arms around his neck, while he wrapped you in a tight embrace, spinning you around before sitting you down.

“Hey! How was your first class? I’m headed to mine now,” he informed.

“Interesting. We’re going to go into centrifugal force first, and I’m really excited because--”

Clint held up his hand. “Too many big words for this early in the morning,” he remarked.

You laughed at him. “It’s like… ten-thirty in the morning, Clint,” you teased, nudging his elbow.

“I’m not changing what I said,” he confidently responded. “Where are you off to?”

“Ethics in mental health.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you really need that class. Bad.”

You punched him playfully. “Hey, fuck off, Barton.”

“See! You just hit me. That needs anger management. When you’re a psychiatrist you can’t just go off the handle like that, Y/N. You need to reel it in,” he said, laying into you, teasing you.

“Oh, don’t worry, if anyone gives me a hard time, I’ll just lobotomize them.”

“You’re a scary person.”

“It’s always the most unassuming,” you said with a shrug before bidding him a goodbye and skipping off to class where you ran into Wanda. She was another psych major, but she wasn’t pre-med. She planned on getting her Masters in counseling. She wasn’t sure if she was going for children, marriage, school, or general. She was still on the fence and constantly grilled you about how you just knew you wanted to be a psychiatrist, when she was always so uncertain.

“Hey,” you greeted with a smile as you plopped beside her in the medium sized lecture hall.

“Hey. You ready for this?”

“Of course,” you said confidently. You pulled out your folder. “Already printed the syllabus, the schedule, and the first homework assignments. I do have some questions about it though…”

“Oh my god,” she groaned. “You’re the biggest nerd on campus, you realize this, right? Why are you like this? Why can’t you just let the professor hand you this crap? They all do it every time.”

“They don’t always do it,” you corrected. “I’ve had several not do it, and then I’m stuck without a plan. And you know how much I hate being without a plan.”

“Don’t we all?” she muttered, but it was so low you missed it.

--------------------

After your psych class you had a sociology class, where you met up with Scott and Sam. Scott was a total goofball, but you loved him. He was constantly cracking jokes, and while he seemed like an idiot and not serious about his work, he rivaled Tony and Bruce in his intelligence and skill. His area of expertise and interest lied in microbiology. Whenever you, or anyone else asked about it, he always said he loved small things. He just thought things on a microscopic level had the capability to kill, and he found it fascinating. It sort of creeped everyone out, but hey, he was a good guy so who cared?

Sam, on the other hand, was in aerodynamics. He majored in the aerospace program, with a minor in robotics. Sam was the chillest dude around, and you adored him. He was a wise cracker, but just like Scott, he wasn’t one to be underestimated.

“Hey boys!” you said happily as you sat with them in a small room.

“How are you so cheery?” Sam asked, not moving anything except an eyebrow and his eyes to glance at you. “It’s almost the end of the day and after all my classes I’m already ready to leave.”

“Because I’m doing what I love?” you asked as if it were obvious. “Come on, you aren’t thrilled knowing we’re about to embark on some sociology?”

“Aren’t you a psychology student? Why do you care about this?” Scott asked, gesturing to the front of the class before crossing his arms again.

You shrugged. “I can still appreciate a sociologists point of view. Without knowing how society affects my future patients, I can’t properly treat them.”

“Does every class get you excited or is it just the boring ones?” Scott wondered.

You laughed. “I love all knowledge, Scott,” you reminded sweetly.

“Oh yeah, I forgot she’s Einstein-incarnate,” Sam said, thrusting a thumb at you and rolling his eyes.

You giggled and blushed before the class started.

---------------------

And thus ended your first day of classes. It was a lot to keep track of, but you would spend all night in your dorm alone creating a nice color coded schedule and reading over the syllabus for each class twice. Towards the end of the night, you thought you’d head out to grab a coffee and a late night meal when you ran into another friendly face.

He came out of his room just as you were locking your room behind you.

“Oh, hey, Steve. I didn’t know you were across from me this year,” you said, glancing over your shoulder at the tall muscular blonde.

Steve was a really great guy. He was the football captain back in high school, but he wasn’t the typical stereotype. He was actually like the perfect, all-american kid. He kept up his grades, he was really sweet to everyone. He never acted better than anyone else, and he was a great leader. He got a full ride football scholarship at college and he was a great student here as well. Lots of people thought he would go into sport science, but he actually chose business. He claimed that his body would deteriorate one day, especially if he went pro; but with business, he had a real career to fall back on, one he could retire with, and one that wouldn’t cause physical damage down the line.

Steve and you weren’t close, well, not exactly. You dated his best friend… a lot… on and off… since freshman year of high school.

Freshman year you met Bucky, who was just a sweetheart. He was a bit of a flirt, but he was a nerd like you, but hid it, for fear of being made fun of. So he put on this air of being a total player. He had a prosthetic left arm, something he got from a bad accident when he was a kid. Steve was there, saw the whole thing, seeing as they were neighbors. They grew up together, like brothers. Neighbors until they moved out and came to college, but here they had different housing.

The prosthetic arm had left Bucky a little insecure which is why he always tried a little harder at everything he did. He felt he had to prove himself constantly.

As for you, you had no problem with his arm. You honestly never noticed it. Hell your best friend was technically deaf. Without his hearing aids, he couldn’t hear jackshit. You’d picked up a good bit of sign language to make it easier for Clint.

But you and Bucky… god… it was complicated. You dated throughout most of freshman year, broke up in the summer, got back together in the winter of sophomore year, then broke up again before the end of the sophomore year… The cycle went on like that for several years. Each time you dated got shorter and shorter, and it seemed you had more dates in between your time with Bucky.

The first time you broke up, you didn’t see anyone at all. You got back together with Bucky, and that was that. But then you broke up a second time, and then you started dating another kid in your class. That didn’t last long, he was just more of someone to hang out and study with.

You lost your virginity to Bucky junior year of high school, and he to you. You would’ve thought that would’ve helped things, maybe make you closer. And it did, for a while. But eventually, you broke up again.

Throughout college, it was basically a friends-with-exclusive benefits when you two got together. There was no real relationship. It was pretty much physical except for the occasional movie or dinner date, but the romantic connection seemed to die a long time ago for you.

The two of you had broken up yet again earlier this year, early June. You started dating in the end of April, but by the beginning of June you were restless. You wanted a real relationship, not just random, casual sex with meaningless hangout sessions.

Bucky was still a really good guy, and you two were still friends. The breakups never affected that and most of the time it was as simple as a text stating, “I’m ready to take a break.” Sometimes he initiated them, sometimes you did. Most of the time it was either life was too busy for the whole FWB thing, or one of you was interested in someone else.

But, it was because of your odd relationship with Bucky that you weren’t exactly close with Steve. Steve thought it was weird that you two couldn’t just decide to be together or not. He didn’t want to get close to you in case one of these times the breakup wasn’t so amicable. He didn’t want to feel like he was caught between you two or something, so he just stayed close to Bucky and polite to you.

“Oh, yeah, moved in about a week ago,” he informed. “I don’t think I was here when you moved in so…” he explained with a casual shrug.

“Oh, gotcha. Okay, cool. Well it’ll be nice to have you across the hall!” you exclaimed. “Did you have a good first day?”

“Uh, as good as it can be. A little stressful, but I’m sure nothing like what you’re dealing with,” he offered.

“Oh, that’s no big deal,” you waved off. “Just classes. I’ve done tons of them before, they won’t be any different now.”

“That’s true. Well, hey, I’m off to go meet someone. I’ll see you around, okay?” he kindly said and you nodded, waving a goodbye to him. He went right down the hallway while you went left.

All in all, you had a rather happy good first day. Now it was time to celebrate with some food and time to think about the handsome lab partner you’d met earlier today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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etudias · 7 years ago

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(Edit: I am aware of the typo in the title, it should be experience)

Hi there, my name is Alessandra and I am going to tell y’all about how the whole college application process went for me. I think my experience ended a little differently than most, or at least most that people will share. It honestly took a lot for me to feel comfortable posting this so I really hope that it will help someone out there. It is however a very long post, so I am going to break it up into sections, feel free to read only what you need/want.

1. Researching Schools

I got excited for college. I was excited to go to college for as long as I can remember and was looking up different schools on site’s like the college board one, bigfuture, which by the way, I recommend, since probably 10th grade. So come Junior year I had a bunch of schools I was interested in. I ended up visiting a few in Boston over spring break that year. I visited Harvard, MIT, and Boston University (clearly my sights were set high). I did not really think it was that important to visit colleges, and that I should just visit the ones I got into to help decide (I now know that college visits can actually really help you get into a top school). The summer before senior year I worked hard to narrow down my list. I ended up with 12 schools that I applied to. This may seem like a lot to some, or not many at all to others. Most people I know applied to more like 5-8, but I know some people who applied to 20+, you gotta do what’s right for you. I wanted to apply to more honestly, but based on costs that is the number my mother and I agreed upon.

2. The Schools

Okay so in alphabetical order here are the schools I applied to:

Barnard College

Brown University

Carnegie Mellon University

Case Western Reserve University

Duke University

Georgia Institute of Technology

Harvard University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stanford

University of California - Berkeley

University of Georgia

University of Pennsylvania

So, some reasoning on my choices. I heard someone say something that I fully agreed with, and after everything still do. That you should apply to as many reach schools as you can because it raises the chances of getting into just one. So with that I applied to a bunch of reaches, a few meets, and 1 safety. The one safety school I decided on was because it was in state and in my state if you have a 3.75+ GPA and some other requirements, you get full tuition to in state schools and I knew that given the money, there was really no other school that I could consider a safety school that I would choose over it. I still stand by this choice.

3. My Stats

You are probably going to ask this and I’ve decided to be upfront and tell you because why the heck not. I sent in ACT scores, not SAT (although I did take it). I got a 32 (33 English, 33 Reading, 35 Science, 28 Math), I should have spent more time studying for the math as that score never changed, but it was my 3rd time taking the test and I was over it, my goal had been a 33, but to me that was close enough because I was tired. My GPA was a 3.875 unweighted and a 4.063 weighted. My school did not offer many AP courses, I took all that I could with the exception of 2 history courses that I had strong reasons for not taking and when I had my Harvard interview and I talked with the lady about it, she wholeheartedly agreed and said that as the counselor of her private school she even made her school stop offering those courses, so yeah I feel pretty valid about that. (Ended up taking 7 AP’s if you are curious about which ones, they are on my about page) I basically got all A’s in my academics, my B’s came from some arts classes and health, I know, I know. I’m going to briefly mention my school in this section because it is sort of related. I went to a public arts high school that is ranked number 2 in the state for academics and 75th in the nation. It was extremely rigorous.

4. Extracurricular’s and other application stuff

I was very involved. I participated in theater for all 5 years (my school was 8-12). I did technical theater and by 10th grade was crew head for shows and in 11th grade I worked every show (which at my school was a lot). Senior year I became a stage manager which is a big responsibility and sort of like being a president of a club, but even more responsibility. I calculated the hours I spent with theater junior year alone, 300 hrs. I was also very involved in orchestra, all 5 years. My school has 4 orchestra levels, the first two comprising the lower orchestra, 3&4 comprising the higher level orchestra, based on skill level, not age. I was in orchestra 2 for 8th and 9th grade, orchestra 3 for 10th and 11th grade, and orchestra 4 for senior year, orchestra 4 was a big deal, with only 11 members and you played not only in the higher level orchestra but also the touring orchestra. Lots of hours. I also played in my county’s honor’s orchestra for 2 years. I was on the executive board (basically president) of my schools National Honor Society (our school only opens it to seniors, so I was only in it for 1 year). I was part of Beta Club for 4 years. I was a math tutor. I founded a Girls Who Code club at my school and taught it. I was in our award winning mock trial for 2 years. I was a member of my schools Gay Straight Alliance. I babysat all throughout high school. I did more than that but this is already long enough and you can tell that basically, I was a try hard.

Let’s talk about summers. The summer after 10th grade I went to a 7 week long summer immersion program for coding called Girls Who Code. The summer after junior year I went to a week long orchestra camp, then my states Governor’s Honor’s program, which in my state is very prestigious and hard to get into (I think its like a 10% acceptance rate). I was a software engineering major and a math minor there. (Those are really the summers that count, but all other summers I went to orchestra camp)

More application stuff, I had a fair amount of school awards as well as the aforementioned Governor’s Honor’s. I got recommendations from my pre calculus teacher, who I founded a Girls Who Code club with, and my world history/ap psych teacher. They both loved me and I’m sure wrote great recommendations (with the exception of UGA where I did not send any). All the schools I had interviews with went extremely well. I was a legacy for Duke. I had an alumni friend write an AMAZING letter of rec for CMU. I felt my essays were strong (and checked by 3 or so people).

My major: I basically applied everywhere as a computer science major. I felt good about this with the way I spent my summers, some of my extracurricular, and classes I chose to take. I wrote a fair amount of essays about this and I feel as though my applications demonstrated the work I had put into bringing more people (especially women) into STEM, specifically cs, and my interests and knowledge of cs.

5. The Decisions

Finally the good part right? Well at least for you readers. I’ll go in order of the decisions (although towards the end I forget the order a bit because it was tech week and show weeks for my schools biggest production, I was busy) and add some commentary on some. (All regular decision unless otherwise noted)

MIT (Early Action) - rejected, it hurt a little being my first, but not unexpected

Case Western (Early Action) - deferred, then waitlisted, then rejected, everyone from my school got the exact same decisions from them and there were people from the bottom of my class to the very top lol

University of Georgia - accepted, oh boy I cried because finally thank goodness somewhere at least

Georgia Tech - waitlisted, then rejected, this one still stings, people with all around weaker applications from my school got in that applied early. the acceptance rate dropped from 40% to 8% between early and regular, biggest regret is not applying here early, once I was waitlisted here I felt for sure I wouldn’t get in anywhere else

Barnard College - waitlisted, still waiting to hear. at this point i just felt like I was getting waitlisted everywhere

Harvard - rejected, expected as are basically the rest of these

U Penn - rejected

Brown - rejected

UC Berkeley - rejected

Duke - rejected, but damn that letter I’m still mad about, like the fact the I got rejected was unsurprising at that point, but they sent me 3 long paragraphs of rejection bc I was a legacy saying how sorry they were and how many times they reconsidered my application. One sentence would have been better.

Stanford - rejected

CMU - rejected, and man I knew it was coming but it was the last school I heard from, my last hope, and it was closing day for my last school musical, this was a bad day, not so much for this one school but just the process in general

6. Reflections

So I got into 1 school, yup just 1. My safety school that’s it. Let me tell you I was devastated, not over any particular school, but that I didn’t get into any others. I ate 4 donuts and cried a whole lot the day of that last rejection. I got really REALLY stuck on the fact that I would only ever read that one acceptance letter, that one congratulations. I moped around and was sad and upset with my self and full of regrets like why did I not apply to more schools, it was a bad time. But let me tell you that time really showed my what good some friends could be, friends really helped me through that. Even though I had only one school I waited till the last minute to commit. So yes, fall 2018 UGA here I come, go dawgs! (and really its not a bad school, especially the honors program) I worked really hard to get myself excited for this school and as much as I am, with the major I want to go into, I know it is in my best interests to transfer, no matter how much I do not like the idea of transferring (its a good school don’t get me wrong, just not the best for my major). I am still trying to come to terms with the idea of transferring and honestly this whole process in general. I do not think I would have done things much differently, I put my best into my applications, honestly if I changed anything I would have just applied to more schools and probably only more reaches or meet/reaches at that. I have come to accept the decisions (mostly, I still get quite down about it from time to time). It was an odd year for decisions at my school in general. We usually send a good amount of students to top top schools like ivies and the equivalent, but this year no one got into any, heck our valedictorian is going to UGA too. (I think it has something to do with our class being super strong overall, 50% had a 4.0+ weighted, so therefore none of us really stood out) So yeah it really freaking hurts only getting into one school, I’m pretty sure I went through all the stages of grief, but now I am in acceptance and just getting excited for college!! and I am SO EXCITED

If anyone has any questions about this process, my inbox is open.

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beauty-brains-and-booty · 8 years ago

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New Studyblr!

Hey! So, I’ve been a fitblr for years now, and I decided to add a studyblr aspect to it since I’m going back to school this fall! Here’s a bit of an introduction:

My name is Merinda. I’m 23 years old. I started college right out of high school, but I ran into some mental health problems and got academically dismissed. I then took classes on and off at the community college in town, but again, I wasn’t getting help for my mental health, and I ended up dropping more classes than I passed. I’ve been on medication for almost a year and a half now, and I’ve been in therapy since December. I feel like I’m in a much better place to tackle school!

Physics major and Psychology minor

I plan on doing a Computational Physics concentration, which is Physics + Coding.

Future plan: Go to grad school for Astrophysics

Dream job: College professor/researcher or working at NASA

Ravenclaw

INTJ

Favorite subjects/classes: Biology, Psychology, and Creative Writing

I’m a huge fan of science, mainly biology, physics, and astronomy

I’m learning French as my foreign language. I’ve already taken 1 semester of it, though I don’t remember much, so I’ll probably be retaking it when I go back to my 4 year university.

Visual/tactile learner

Favorite books: The “Robert Langdon” series by Dan Brown; Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Inferno. He has a new book coming out shortly too! And the Harry Potter books.

Hobbies/interests: gaming (video games, card games, board games, and roleplaying games), DnD, writing, cooking and baking, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, hiking and camping, and anime (Death Note, Deadman Wonderland, Naruto, and Rosario + Vampire are my favorites).

Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know!

#personal #studyblr #studyspo #college #university #school #study

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iamliberalartsgt · 6 years ago

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7 Common Myths About Liberal Arts @ Georgia Tech

By Andrew McGraw, Public Policy

First off, I want to congratulate all of the recently admitted students of the Class of 2023! Now that the hard part is over, you can begin to look at all your options and decide which college is the best fit for you. Hopefully this little list of debunked myths can help make that decision easier!

1. Liberal Arts Classes are Easier Than STEM ones

A lot of the stigmas surrounding Georgia Tech and the Ivan Allen College is that liberal arts “don’t belong” at a Tech-focused school. So, to compensate for that, Tech has “easier” versions of core classes like Math and Computer Science for Ivan Allen students to take. These classes are most definitely not easier than their STEM-centered counterparts. Rather, the material is more tailored to a liberal arts focused curriculum. For example, while engineers take CS 1371 and learn Matlab, Liberal Arts students can take CS 1315 and learn HTML, CSS, Java, and Python, all coding languages that have stronger liberal arts applications, such as coding your own website.

2. Getting in to Tech as a Liberal Arts Major is Easier Than Other Majors

Georgia Tech reviews applications holistically, meaning they evaluate a plethora of different aspects of each individual’s application before making a decision. This does NOT mean that a student who applies to Ivan Allen has a better chance of getting in than they would at any of the other colleges. Students are admitted to the Institute as whole first, and then are accepted in to their major and college based on their fit, not the other way around.

3. Liberal Arts Students are in Their Own Bubble

Many people believe that liberal arts kids form their own “bubbles” on campus with people of their own college/major, but this is far from the truth. From living in residence halls across campus, getting involved in clubs, or simply grabbing a meal at the dining hall, there are plenty of places for Ivan Allen students to interact with students from other colleges. Additionally, many engineers will adopt liberal arts minors to seem more well-rounded, so it’s not uncommon for you to see them in your own classes as well!

4. The Only Way to Make Money in Liberal Arts is to Earn a Master’s Degree or PhD

While many Ivan Allen students do go on to pursue even higher education, it is not necessary to make money. As a matter of fact, the average starting salary for a student with a Bachelor of Science is about 62k. Having a BS in a liberal arts field makes you even more marketable to employers!

5. You Have to do Research to be a “Good Student”

Although Georgia Tech is a research-focused Institute, you do not have to do research; there are PLENTY of other options to build a resume and be a “good student”, such as getting involved on on-campus organizations, internships, co-ops, and study abroad. But that doesn’t mean you CAN’T get involved in research! Many STEM-focused teams are looking for Liberal Arts students to join their projects and bring a fresh perspective.

6. Studying Abroad as an Ivan Allen Student is Difficult

As this is a STEM-focused institution, the study abroad programs are STEM-focused as well. A lot of the common study abroad programs like GT Lorraine offer mostly engineering-focused courses, and it can be hard to find enough credit hours to stay a full-time student. As long as you plan ahead, you can avoid this issue and still study abroad! Actually, 71% of Ivan Allen students graduate with some form of international experience!

7. Liberal Arts @ Tech is “New”

Most people think that the Ivan Allen college just got started, it’s quite the opposite. Liberal Arts have been a part of Georgia Tech since it opened in 1888, teaching English as one of the six subjects offered. From there, the college – and its reputation – have done nothing but grown!

#gt #Georgia Tech #gt23 #public policy #Ivan Allen College #college #igotin #myths #student #liberal arts #GTLiberalArts #atlanta

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taesthetes · 8 years ago

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I really liked the advice you gave to that last anon bc I can really relate... I'm starting college next year probably with a bio major bc of that "gotta get a high-paying job" mentality. I'm completely lost and have no clue what I really want to do in the future and I guess money has kinda shielded me from thinking about my actual passions. Your reply gave me reassurance about college bc I'm extremely scared LOL ❤️❤️ thanks so much

ahh, you’re welcome!! i’m really glad my advice is helpful for you! to be honest, i wasn’t sure if i could help because i’m literally in the same situation. i still have no clue what i want to do in the future, and that absolutely terrifies me because this college decision will impact me for the rest of my life. during the application process, i actually applied to different colleges with different majors because i had no idea what i wanted to do, but i don’t really recommend you to do that lol

this also got really long sorry lmao, so i’m putting it under the cut

do you like bio though? if you don’t know what to do but you at least have some sort of interest or liking towards bio, i think you should try it! in college, you can also sit in on other classes during the first week of school to get a sort of feel for it if you like it. and if you enjoy the class, you can sign up for it. even if the class is already full, the professor usually will let you join if you ask nicely. personally, i think it’d be helpful if you sat in or maybe even take a few classes of other majors if you’re still unsure to see if you like another major instead of bio :)

and you can always change your major or add a major/minor in college if you decide that bio isn’t right for you! it’s best that you explore the different majors in freshman year though if you decide to switch majors. that way, you can still graduate in the usual four years. it’s still totally fine if you want to switch majors later on, but you may have to stay in college an extra semester or however long it takes to fulfill all the class requirements of your new major.

it always helps to talk to older students in various majors as well. in my experience, they were super helpful and explained to me what their major is about and what they do in their classes, so i know what to expect for future classes and can decide if i want to continue with my major. talking to other students was also how i figured out my major wasn’t right for me. every person i talked to was super happy and into what they were doing. i was going to do computer science engineering, and every one of my friends who was in that major was always pumped to learn about programming and write more codes in class. i honestly thought they were crazy, and i just tried to get through my coding classes as fast as possible. that’s when i realized that i shouldn’t be doing engineering.

while money does play a factor because you do want to have a secure future, your happiness is more important! your life won’t be very enjoyable if you dread going to work in the morning everyday for the next 20+ years. but also, if you don’t think your passion will give you a secure job (like for me, i know i can’t solely major in art because i’ll probably be very poor and homeless in the future if i do), minors are a great way to pursue your passion and they’re only about 5-7 extra classes! some of the classes you take for your major may overlap with classes for your minor as well. that means you get credit for both your major and minor with only one class, and that’s even better!

overall, i know you’ll figure it out and do just amazing in college! ♡ it may be tough in the beginning, but it’ll all come together. i’m still trying to figure it out myself, but i’m a lot happier and satisfied with where i am now. i hope this helps, and best of luck to you, sweetpea!

#replies #anonymous #personal #advice

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topicprinter · 5 years ago

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Hi HN! We’re Erika and Arnelle, friends since high school and co-founders of Edlyft (https://www.edlyft.com). We help college students pass their most challenging computer science classes, by offering them group tutoring sessions, study groups, and guidance from peers who’ve done it before them.

Arnelle and I came into college as freshmen not knowing how to code, but wanting to graduate with a CS degree. We found the steep learning curve discouraging, the lack of support frustrating, and felt like everyone else was always ahead. Impostor syndrome hit hard. But we made it through! In the end, what made the difference was connecting with students and mentors who had come before us. My junior year out of desperation, I wrote a letter to a grad student who was willing to meet with me weekly to review concepts and connect me with other CS students. Without that support system, I probably would've been weeded out from the CS major and not here writing this launch today.

Despite almost being weeded out, Arnelle and I were fortunate enough to land internships and jobs at fine tech companies. However we kept thinking about all the talented people who could and should be succeeding and don't have access to the same tools that we did. If they'd had the same kind of support that we were able to create for ourselves, they could’ve not dropped CS and maybe pursued their dream job in tech. Finally we decided to quit our jobs to build the support program that can make this difference.

If you got into programming before college and/or grew up in an environment where you were encouraged to play with tech, it may be hard to appreciate what an enormous head start that is. For many people who didn't take that path before college, there's a huge culture shock in the beginning to learn the basics of computing. It's all too easy to get discouraged and think that you don't have what it takes, and the sink-or-swim culture of academia unfortunately encourages these outcomes. Just having access to someone who was once in your position and knows that you can do it--because they did it--can be a game changer, especially in STEM.

You might be wondering why universities don't provide this already. That's what we ourselves wondered while we were going through the experience. For a while, we were fighting within the departments to get more support implemented. But it turns out that the incentives just aren't there. Colleges mostly aren't incentivized to increase CS enrollment, as Professors want to focus on their research and budgets are tight. Instead schools cap the major and struggle to increase support as demand goes up. Students wait for hours in line at office hours to get help--sometimes as long as 6 hours. At Cal, almost half of students who take the intro CS class will not receive a qualifying grade for the major. For universities, this is just an attrition number, but we know that much of that so-called attrition is people who have every ability to succeed at the material but need the right kind of orientation and support. Given the incredible value and growing importance of CS in our economy, this is not a minor difference in outcome. This is a broken system that we’re determined to solve.

Once a student joins Edlyft, they are immediately connected to a group of students in their CS class and an older student mentor from their school who has aced the class before. We hire compassionate and patient student mentors who host weekly group tutoring sessions and on-call q&a hours. Every Edlyft student gains access to up to 6 more hours of CS help per week and becomes a part of a larger community of CS students. They answer each other’s questions over Slack, work together over Zoom, and rely on our growing school-specific playbooks that are kept up to date by the student mentors. This is the supportive ecosystem we wish we had.

We’re currently launched at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Santa Cruz. But the vision does not stop there; We plan to expand to other schools beyond California as fast as is sustainable and see a clear path to expanding into all high growth STEM fields, like Data Science and Pre-Med. We charge a monthly subscription for students to join, and offer need-based financial aid to ensure Edlyft is accessible and inclusive. Our hope is that the students who succeed through this program will become mentors to the ones who are coming up later, and make some money in the process.

If you have any memories struggling with Computer Science, please share them below! Although many people on HN were programming from an early age, we also know that there many who came late to computing and have done very well for themselves. We’d love to hear your stories and share them with our students to remind them that it’s normal for CS to be challenging and they’re not the only one.

Most importantly, if you know a college student struggling through CS, encourage them to find a mentor who can guide them through. And put them in touch with us! We’d love to talk to them.

We’re excited to hear your thoughts on how we can make computer science better for college students!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22805215

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

#hacker news

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prosperopedia · 6 years ago

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Why I’m Teaching My Kids to Code

I really don’t want any of my children to be coders for a living.

But I’m teaching them to code.

Here’s why.

My Own Software Development Experience

There was a time in my life when I thought I would spend my next thirty or so years employed in a career, from the time I was in college working as an intern up until my ultimate retirement, that involved writing software at first, then managing a team of software developers.

The coding phase of my career ended up being pretty short-lived.

Here’s how it went down.

When I started college at the age of 21 (I served a two-year volunteer mission in Canada right after high school), I had no real skills to speak of. I spent my childhood up through high school playing sports year-round (football, baseball, basketball, wrestling) and goofing off mostly, not worrying much about how I’d provide for myself and a family later.

My experience as a missionary, more than a thousand miles away from home teaching people about a religion that was hard for most of them to grasp, mostly because they didn’t want to, helped me to grow up quickly. When I returned home from my mission (1997), and it became time for me to educate myself, I received a lot of advice from family and college counselors. Much of it focused on the need to “get good at computers” to become employable in the rapidly accelerating technical economy.

I followed their advice. My first class at Snow College, the school I chose mostly with the aim of playing football initially, was an accelerated pre-semester introduction to computers course. I struggled, but I liked the challenge. I followed that class up by taking three terms learning how to program in C++. At the end of that freshman school year, I realized that I was a horrible coder, and that it wasn’t very natural for me. My code was sloppy. It took me forever to get things to compile, much less to follow the algorithms required to pass off assignments. But I was persistent. I made my way through the three terms with something like a B+ average.

Then I had some experiences that were almost magical for me. I began to notice that my ability to articulate technical topics had lunged forward. Along with the math and engineering classes I took, this computer science and coding regimen was forcing me to be very disciplined about describing how things worked. The responsibility of modeling what happened in real life with functions and variables that I was taught made their way down ultimately to 1’s and 0’s being fed through a complex system that began at hardware components like a motherboard, a central processor, memory devices, communication buses, and several other supporting pieces that came together with an operating system on which interesting software applications could be developed.

In addition to the excitement I had as a rookie in the software development world, I also found out towards the end of that semester from my professor that my newly developed skills were likely sufficient to help me land a summer job that paid more than double what I’d made in previous job making pizzas at Pizza Hut. He threw out the idea that I should be able to land a job making $12+/hour. “Wow!”, I thought, “I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious.”

I later landed a job as an intern with a technology company called Vinca (later purchased by Legato Systems) that paid $14.60/hour. One of the developers I worked with told me he was making over $70k annually, and he expected to see increases in his pay as he moved into management roles, ultimately expecting to make in the six figures range. Learning about that potential, I thought for sure I’d found my career path.

Turns out I hadn’t.

Trying to Survive BYU’s Electrical Engineering Program

After I finished my two years at Snow College (neither of which, incidentally, involved playing football), I transferred to BYU in Provo, Utah. The natural progression of my Pre-engineering Science major at Snow College combined with my experience writing software in C++ seemed to me to be majoring in electrical engineering at BYU.

That ended up being a really bad choice.

My first two semesters as a EE major at BYU involved struggling to push my way through 17.5 credit hours of engineering classes that included complicated electronic circuit theory, advanced multi-variable calculus and linear algebra math, writing programs in assembly language code, and a seemingly never-ending half-credit breadboarding lab in which I found myself (as a color blind knucklehead) unable to figure out the difference between resistors that varied by magnitudes of tens of thousands of ohms. It didn’t help that the teacher assistant for that lab couldn’t EVER be bothered to get up from his video game to help a newbie like me.

Combine that workload with a nagging feeling that I should be dating (looking for a potential spouse, which was a strong religious and cultural priority for me) and the twenty or more hours I put into my programming job each week, and it’s easy to see why I experienced burnout. My excitement at becoming the next technical genius haling from BYU turned into a struggle for survival.

Ever Caught a Football Before?

As I’d attempted to hang on my fellow classmates, trying to see if just associating with them while they worked together on their homework in the commons area of the Clyde Building, I repeatedly found myself not really fitting in socially. Almost none of these people knew anything about college football, the Atlanta Braves or Boston Red Sox, or any other thing I considered to be cool. Every time I heard someone say, “You can’t spell gEEk without double E”, (which was pretty much every day) it made me reconsider who I was being expected to become. This technical persona simply didn’t match very well with who I was.

The culminating experience that made me realize I was not a fit culturally for this group of people came one morning in my ECEN 220 Electrical Circuits Analysis class. Our professor would draw up a circuit on the whiteboard, then ask if someone wanted to come and solve the problem on the board, the reward being a prize.

I watched as this goofy kid confidently (I learned that there is a nerd “swagger” that kind of parallels what good athletes manifest) walked up to the board, ran through some calculations for inductance, capacitance, and resistance using partial derivatives and other math, then ultimately arrived at a solution. The professor asked the class for approval of the student’s ultimate solution (a few steps behind what was happening, I was like, “Yah, looks good to me.”), then moved on with the prize portion of the contest.

He pulled out a little BYU-branded football, the kind they give away as promotions during games, and threw it across the room to this student. What happened next was surprising to me. This guy awkwardly lunged at the ball with some of the worst timing and least coordination I’ve ever seen. The ball went off his fingertips and up in the air, towards the second row of students. Not willing to give up (in a non-athletic kind of way this guy was apparently a fighter), he dove awkwardly into the second row of students, still far from being successful at catching it. His persistence made it seem like he thought that not catching the football was make his work null and void.

I remember thinking to myself, “Wow! This guy has never in his life had a ball thrown in his direction before. Unbelievable!”

It was then that I began to seriously question what I was doing planning a career that would put me right in the middle of that crowd of people, most of whom simply had a much different take on what was fun and interesting in life than I had.

Shortly thereafter my ambitions to become a software developing electrical engineer ended. I remember receiving a test score back from the first major mid-term test from that electronics circuit theory class. I knew I hadn’t prepared well for the test, but I didn’t expect the humiliation that naturally came when I was handed back a test paper that had more correction marks on it than my initial incoherent chicken scratch attempts to solve the problems on the test. My test score: 39%/F-. I immediately got up from my seat and wandered over to the counselor office to discuss how to transfer out of that major.

After ultimately deciding to leave electrical engineering, I went through a list of other degrees I could achieve to satisfy what I thought at the time were my family’s, potential employers’, and society’s unwavering expectations about education. That list included everything from sports coaching to math to a simple online general studies degree. Ultimately I ended up graduating with a BS degree in Manufacturing Engineering Technology with a minor in Business Management. Obtaining that degree took more time and effort than I would have liked, and I ended up having to negotiate my last 30 or so required credit hours with the department heads, convincing them on my third time trying to substitute some engineering classes I took at Snow College for the civil engineering classes I’d missed from BYU.

My last experience writing code full-time was a job I held as the lead developer for a text messaging application startup called Communitect (now Solution Reach). I wrote a significant chunk of the company’s initial codebase in Java in 2001, before calling it quits to ultimately move into the world of entrepreneurship, where I’ve been ever since.

Writing Code Isn’t For Everyone

My experience attempting to become a coder certainly wasn’t a write-off. If I had any reason to think that it was, I wouldn’t be teaching my kids how to do programming.

One thing I have learned from that experience is this: while software development can be a lucrative career, writing code (and similar technical disciplines) certainly isn’t for everyone. In fact, based on my experience as a developer and working with software developers since that time in various roles, I can see that there is a very distinct personality required to be successful at software development.

Much of this I’m going to be speaking in terms of stereotypes, but this description of the typical software developer is not without some data and experience backing it. Many people refer to the software developer personality as INTJ (Introvert – Intuitive Thinking – Judgment) using the Meyers-Briggs personality scale. The brains of software developers typically work quite a bit different from the rest of society. They are typically chronic problem solvers, a strength that allows them to develop complicated software to follow algorithms and solve complex problems, but that also reduces their abilities and inclinations towards other things, like interacting with people in what would be considered by most of society as “normal” or healthy environments, or doing other socially involved or physically demanding activities, like playing sports.

While some part of my personality craves the problem solving elements of being a software developer, that attribute takes a back seat to my natural tendency to want to interact often with people while not looking at a computer screen and my lifelong pursuit of sports and athletic involvement. From my experience, the persona of an athlete or someone who’s heavily involved in sports doesn’t much overlap with the persona of someone who spends his entire day writing and troubleshooting code.

As I guide my kids through the process of discovering who and what they want to become, I am fairly convinced already that spending their full-time careers interacting being fully involved in the community that comprises coders and related professionals won’t be nearly as fulfilling for them as lots of other alternatives.

Speaking about the social implications, I certainly don’t want my kids ever playing networked video games all night long, living in my basement, unmarried, and unmotivated to be more involved in real life social activities. Nor do I want them to think that because they can think faster and solve an algorithm more quickly than most of their peers that they can’t listen to feedback or feel like they know everything there is to know. I especially don’t want them inclined to reason away their belief in God because faith becomes something irrational for them. Coders have done a lot to earn each of those stereotypes.

But I do want them to have a grasp of the fundamentals of software development.

How Learning to Code Helps Non-Coders

When I entered college more than two decades ago, my skill set consisted mostly of tackling people, hitting, catching, and throwing baseballs, and some sweet hip hop dance moves. As I mentioned, I quickly figured out that those “skills” wouldn’t cut it when it came to making money and supporting a family.

Fortunately for me, rather than having my first few semesters of college be filled with soft classes like English (the language I already spoke), history, etc. I found myself learning computer science along with civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering and math topics. That experience completely transformed the way I think.

I learned how to be precise as opposed to being sloppy in the way I described things. In my associations with up-and-coming coders (many of whom wondered why I even bothered to take the classes they were taking), I learned how to become very observant of how things worked as we did our best to model real life things using a programming language. I became much more perceptive of cause and effect relationships. I also became much more of a critical thinker. In fact, my brain was transformed (of necessity) to be able to a find missing semicolon among hundreds of lines of code, which now allows me to find misspellings in a 1,000+ word document within a few seconds of seeing the text.

In summary, learning how to code forces a person’s mind to think a lot like the way a computer thinks, which turns out to be pretty helpful in the 21st Century economy.

The majority of high-paying professions in our current economy require a person to have a solid background in technology. They must understand more about context when it comes to using spreadsheets, understanding how apps work, knowing the ins and outs of the relationship between software and the hardware that makes use of it. Not only that, the most successful need to be armed with the ability to not just regurgitate information (just about the only thing our public schools tend to teach these days), but to figure out new things using their intelligence.

The process of learning to code tends to instill that kind of intelligence among those who have been exposed to the discipline.

With the prevalence of software-related careers, it’s true that there is a higher percentage of software developers who are breaking the traditional mold of the 1980s software geek. In my own career, I’ve seen how a background in software development has uncovered steps for me as an ecommerce business owner to climb to be more successful in my career. I’ve seen how understanding how software is written has given me a better approach to teach Google’s search engine how to send traffic to my websites and how to extract traffic to my Amazon stores from the Amazon search algorithm. The learning process that led to me knowing how to code has been a blessing for me financially, mentally, and even socially in many ways.

I don’t want to code all day long. But I’ve found a pretty good balance for myself between knowing the basics of software development and even understanding how to write software and being able to operate businesses that make use of software written by other people.

I want the same thing for my kids.

The post Why I’m Teaching My Kids to Code appeared first on The Handbook for Happiness, and Success, and Prosperity Prosperopedia.

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#Prosperity #Wealth #Riches

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dorothydelgadillo · 6 years ago

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WebDev Chat: Lessons for Marketers & Complex Web Elements

One of my favorite "perks" of working at IMPACT is that I am privileged to work alongside some of the smartest people -- who are genuinely experts in what they do -- every single day.

But how often do I go out of my way to learn more about what others do? Not very often.

That's why I've set a challenge myself to learn more about the area of expertise under the IMPACT roof that is the most foreign to me -- web development. To achieve this goal, I'm going to sit down with IMPACT Senior Front-end Developer Tim Ostheimer once a month to talk to him about what he does and why, and what us marketers can learn from his background and experience.

Because, for two groups of people that need to work together a lot -- marketers and developers -- I think we could do a much better job bridging the divide between us.

Enjoy!

Can you tell me about your background and how you got into web development as a career?

Tim: I have a bachelor's degree in Interactive Digital Design from Quinnipiac -- that's what they called it -- which was mostly digital graphic design using Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign -- pretty much all of the Adobe tools. We studied typography. We did some animation and 3-D modeling. We did print design, and we did some web development.

I enjoyed all of the classes I took at Quinnipiac, but within the first few semesters it quickly became clear that there wasn't a specific medium or direction that the major focused on. Instead, it was more of an opportunity for students to experiment and come to their own conclusion of what they wanted to gain from it.

This was the perfect environment for me to learn in.

I started experimenting with image editing and HTML when I was young, but it wasn't until around 9th grade that I started challenging myself to learn more and take the hobby seriously. I spent a lot of time building websites about video games I was obsessed with and I wouldn't stop working on them until I was satisfied with the way they looked and functioned, even if the only person who would ever use them was myself.

We had a few elective classes in high school so I made sure that I took every class that had anything to do with computer science, photography, graphic design, and web design. These were very introductory classes, but it was a time in my life when I was starting to think about college and further education and these helped reassure me that some kind of digitally-focused career would be appropriate for me to pursue.

At that time, I was too inexperienced to know what kind of options there were. I knew that I enjoyed working with websites and code but I also had a lot of interest in everything related to design and I didn't want to pick a major that focused too heavily on one thing.

While looking at colleges and majors, I had a lot of trouble finding one I was confident about. I ended up specifically ruling out art schools because I still needed time to explore my options and wanted a more well-rounded experience. Quinnipiac's program was appealing to me because it had just that -- a little bit of everything.

I started with what I thought I wanted. I chose Quinnipiac and began my first semester with a predeclared minor in Computer Science. Unfortunately, I didn't really know what I was getting into. The course focused heavily on object-oriented programming which was different from anything I was familiar with and I struggled with every assignment and learning the material. So, I decided to drop the minor after completing the second course in the curriculum.

Instead of choosing a new minor, I decided that I was going approach my education in the same way that had gotten me to that point.

I filled my elective courses entirely with classes in related subjects that I'd be able to use to support my major. That way I'd have a better understanding of the processes and would be able to apply that knowledge regardless of the industry I ended up in.

I took classes with the film students and learned a lot about something I knew nothing about. In addition to filming, each of the courses focused on video editing, motion graphics, special effects, and/or sound design, and all of it was interesting and exciting to me.

So, I didn't stop there. I took classes in game design and development, and learned about mechanics and all of the different roles that are involved in the industry -- from the world-building aspect of the storytelling to the specific code that's written for the interface to ensure the experience is immersive.

Sometimes there might be an entire company that's focusing on just one piece, and that realization helped me to understand that it was okay to not be talented in every area of the design process.

Each of these courses gave me a different perspective on visual design and enabled me to apply what I had learned in everything I created from that point on.

During my third year of college, while I was taking courses in game design and animation, I ended up revisiting object-oriented programming. I had decided that I wanted to create a functioning game as a combined final project for these two classes but I couldn't do it without learning some new code. I spent countless hours outside of class and on weekends to learn the very thing that I struggled with the most.

But this time, it didn't feel overwhelming. Instead, there was a point where suddenly everything made sense and I became passionate about it in the same way I was about everything else I had learned.

The code now had a purpose, and it encouraged me to spend time learning what I wasn't able to understand the first time. I ended up spending more than 50 hours on this one assignment and combined all of the knowledge I had learned from my classes in different majors.

I wrote an elaborate story on which my game was based, drew every frame of every character's animation and the world around them, designed an interface which supported my theme, and coded all of the functions that were needed to make it all work.

The result was an amateur game and my favorite portfolio piece from college that I will forever be proud of. I still occasionally dig through my folder of creative work every few months just to play it for a few minutes to appreciate and remind myself of how much I learned from it.

In case you're curious, this is what it looked like:

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Because I had so much fun building that one, I ended up taking part in a challenge called Global Game Jam that same year. The task was to design and build a game using any medium within the span of a two-day period based on the theme "heartbeat."

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Before Quinnipiac I didn't realize there was a development side to design. I didn't think much about that fact that most people specialize in one part of the process and the designer of something like a website or a game is usually different from its developer.

What interested me the most was how each of these roles overlap and contribute to combine their work into a single unified experience. Rather than being concerned with the fact that I may not be pursuing the same career path as other students, I challenged myself to learn from every major that had anything to do with design and the various forms of digital media -- and it was the best decision I've ever made.

In the end, I decided that web development was the most appropriate career for me and that choice ended up leading me to work at IMPACT building great experiences for our clients and the users of their websites, but I can confidently say that working with students with entirely different career goals ended up teaching some of the most useful lessons I've ever learned.

Are there challenges to people not understanding what it is you do as a web developer or your processes -- how they're built or why they're structured a certain way?

Tim: Yes, we see a lot of confusion regarding development concepts or specific functionality, just because it's so technical.

With design, a marketer who's not a trained designer can still talk about specific elements of a design and understand their purpose. There may be things that they may not know are best practice -- like some of the principles of typography or user accessibility. But, for the most part, they can look at something like a Photoshop mockup and envision that as a page. When it comes to the intricate parts of functionality, determining how difficult something might be to build, potential drawbacks of an adjustment to a design, or the technical side of how their website gets built, however, those are things that marketers have a lot of trouble talking about.

This matters a lot when scoping a website redesign project for a client because it's difficult to try estimate something like timelines or effort involved for a particular task without knowing the full context. Without having a design available where we can specifically reference an exact example, it's hard for us to estimate how long something might take, because it usually comes down to understanding all of the individual parts that are combined to build it.

If I look at a design, I can tell you about how long it might take me to build it. But it's really hard for me to provide general guidelines that always apply for scoping because even a minor change to a design could drastically change the way it has to be built.

Moving something over just a couple pixels could sometimes require an entirely different code structure, and adding in one small feature might mean that the rest of a page has to be built so it doesn't interfere with it. Sometimes a small request can end up being a lot of work, and it can be hard to identify those even if you are a developer.

What would you say are some of the most common tasks or website elements that, may seem to someone like me that would take a short amount of time but, actually take a lot time?

Tim: In certain situations, one would be changing things on mobile.

Developers don't determine what content is written on a page, so we have to balance flexibility with structure. Depending on the way the page needs to adapt for different screen sizes, it can be very difficult to ensure the layout is indestructible without infringing on the marketer's freedom.

Usually, for a responsive site, you want to adjust the layout at different screen sizes to ensure the page always looks great.

If it's a very important page -- like a homepage or pricing page -- it's worth spending as much time as you need on mobile because it's a very important user experience. Even if that means the template can't be structured in an intuitive way because the marketer managing the content will be using the page less than their end users will.

But, for other pages, completely changing something on mobile just for a minor adjustment could end up taking a lot of time if it doesn't share the same content structure as it does on desktop.

Sometimes it can also result in a poorer experience for the marketer if the template can't be structured in an intuitive way. Keep in mind, developers are building templates for both the users who view the page, as well as the marketer managing the content.

I would say the other thing is sliders and things that move.

An example of a website slider built by Tim.

It's rare that any two are the same. We have a couple that are somewhat standardized and we'll use those in situations where a custom one isn't required because we're able to make some adjustments to their design.

But, often, a custom slider is needed to achieve a desired layout or functionality. The content organization may be different, or the slider controls may be in a different spot, or it's full-width instead of within the grid. Maybe the amount of slides per active state changes at various screen sizes.

Maybe on desktop it's not a slider at all.

Maybe you have three columns but on mobile it becomes a slider, where there are three slides that you have to swipe across. That actually takes a lot of work because we tend to avoid using unnecessary code when possible, even if prewritten code or a plugin has the options we need.

Another example would be sliders that look like they're on an infinite loop -- where it appears that you can just keep swiping forever. Even if looks like there are only three slides, there's usually not just three slides.

For this kind of design, usually what has to be done is duplicate the first two and last two slides and then put them on the ends of the slider. Then, when a user gets to the point where the slider would loop, we actually just move them all the way back to the clone of the last slide and then transition forward. This all happens in a single frame.

So, what's specifically happening is we're temporarily disabling the animation, moving the slider to the clone of the last slide, enabling the animation, and then moving you forward to the first slide in the group. The result is that it looks like you have transitioned seamlessly and the slider never ends.

Because we want them to be perfect, sliders can take a lot of time to build just because there are so many moving parts and we'll often have to code them by hand.

If you could give marketers and business leaders one piece of advice that would transform any conversation they have with a web developer going forward, so they're more productive and positive, what would it be and why?

Tim: This isn't a simple response, but the answer is learning basic HTML and CSS. You have to understand what a website is and how it works. If you can even just right-click on your page and click on "inspect element" and understand mostly what it is that you're looking at, or at least be able to identify what it is that you don't understand, that can help a lot with any conversations with a developer. It will also help give you the foundation you need to learn more over time, even if you aren't building anything yourself.

It'll start to make sense how pages are structured and how that structure is determined by a design. If you at least understand that part, you can begin to predict what might be involved in changing a page to fit a certain type of content or allow for a more flexible layout.

Well, even if someone like me doesn't take the time to learn HTML deeply, just looking at the complexity of it and understanding that something that seems very simple on the surface has thousands of moving pieces, and pieces of code that you have never seen before.

It sounds like that's, at the very least, a first step toward bridging the divide and being able to acknowledge -- as a marketer -- "I don't know what I don't know, and my web developer isn't trying to ruin my life when he's telling me that something's going to take longer than I originally anticipated."

Tim: Yes, absolutely, and another benefit of it is that you then also start to understand the technical SEO part of your site. Because, for the most part, it's not the developer actually doing the technical SEO implementation -- it's most likely going to be the marketer. There are certain best practices that the developer definitely needs to adhere to. But when it comes to the marketing side of SEO -- meta descriptions, titles, headings, proper formatting, etc. -- there's only so much that a developer can ensure is done properly if they aren't the ones entering in the content themselves.

If you know some HTML, it will help a lot when you're trying to either troubleshoot or fill in that information and that you're not breaking your site -- or you at least you'll know what to look for if something goes wrong or seems wrong.

Just knowing a little basic HTML will help a lot, even if you never have to write it yourself. It will help give you a better perspective of what your webpage is doing. You'll start to understand the behavior of your templates, what the robots from search engines are seeing, what technical SEO is, and how to use the page to its full potential.

And, most importantly, you'll be able to have better conversations and continuously learn from the people around you.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/web-development-for-marketers-misconceptions

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