I’ve never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I’m stretched thin.
I’ll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I’m medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There’s some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I’m doing life on hard mode and it sucks
How do people do it? Simple, they don’t. It’s only because of your ADHD that you’re staying afloat as much as you are. You are literally trying to accomplish the same amount as 3 people, so ya, you are going to learn slower.
Of course, none of that helps you right this moment… I would start by confessing to the people around you including your fiance that you have fucked up and are in the process of finding out. Give them a date this semester ends and beg them to help where they can until then.
Someone else mentioned study groups, I have found that actively studying with others and discussing what you’re working on is a massive boon. Are any of your classes online or do you have a way to communicate with your fellow students? Post on there that you have ADHD and are looking for study buddies. I 100%guarantee that there are other people who have ADHD or are struggling.
Do you commute or have other times where you have forced “down time”? I find that chagpt’s phone app with the voice chat feature is amazing for helping me learn new stuff. As I am driving, I can ask it to explain stuff and if I don’t quite get it. I can ask it to explain it again in simpler terms. I can focus in on things that I am interested in or don’t understand. Then once I have a better grasp on the little pieces I’m not embarrassed to ask it to explain it all again. I can also get it to review course information with me. You can ask it to let you tell it what you know and have it correct things you are getting wrong.