The golden years

Dumb take.
I'm in my 30s and working an office job is way less stressful overall than school was. When I'm done with work, I can go home and stop thinking about it.
With school, you can never study "enough", so its always creeping in the back of your subconscious. And good grades alone don't cut it - you've also got to participate in extracurriculars and turn yourself into a trained monkey to write an "interesting enough" college essay. Oh and if you screw any of this up, your entire adult life could be ruined.
Diligent students have it way harder than office workers. Kids need our support and sympathy.
- I still have nightmares of getting to my locker in time and making it to class.
  
  I'm glad it's not just me lol
  
  I still have nightmares where I've somehow just forgotten a big assignment or presentation, or sometimes that I even had a class in a given time slot.
  
  making it back to my locker was stressful enough that I just gave up on it altogether and carried everything around all day
- I'm so glad extracurriculars aren't really a thing that anybody cares about in my country nor are college essays. School and being a teenager was stressful enough as it was.
- Yeah, I liked school for hanging up with friends or relatives... But actually going back to school full nostalgia? No fucking way.
- Your brain was also changing more than from when you were a baby to a toddler during that time. Never mind the rest.

9-3 everyday, no weekends
Idk homework ate up most of my evenings during the week and usually at least an evening of my weekends. Add in working a part time job for the last two years of hs and I think I was busier then than I am now
- I was an absolute screw up in school so I never did my homework or reports... barely made it by. So I had time, did a lot of things, and hung out with friends. I do agree with the job, started in like junior year hs and to this day never had more than 2 weeks off since and I'm 40 now.... probably should have done my homework! Still the job I have could be way worse. Just wish it paid more...
  
  I don't know, I feel like a lot of kids are pushed to work way harder than they need to in school. I took at AP/IB classes, but I didn't need too. It hasn't helped me at all.

First off, it's more like 7:30-3:30 not counting homework and projects after school, second: fuck you man.
- I had to take the bus and it left at *7:00am so I was waking up around 6ish everyday. I was constantly tired and had trouble staying awake in school. Taking the bus back put me at arriving at 4pm home. It was awful tbh. I see grade school years, especially high school, as the worst years of my life followed closely by early adulthood in college.
  
  such a classic, and when you perform badly in school due to being chronically tired they just repeat that sleep is important, as if they're not the fucking reason you can't get enough sleep.
  
  7AM would be awesome for me. My city bus to the station leaves at 5:30AM. At 7AM the first class starts.
  Oh, yeah, last year I was taking train to save money (trains are free for students in Slovakia up to the age of 25 incl.), that left the station at 5AM. No city buses that early, but it's only 20-25 minutes by foot.
  Since I have to walk my dog in the morning, my wake up time is 3:30AM. Awesome.

I hated every moment of school. It was miserable from start to finish, and I wouldn't go back if you paid me. I wish I would have thought to drop out at 16 and get my GED.
- I failed school horrifically and the last year I had a decent attendance rate was 5th grade and the last year I attended at all was 9th grade. I was always so anxious and I was bullying, had a fear of failure, was extremely depressed and had likelihood ADHD (it's not diagnosed but everyone I know with ADHD has told me I probably have it, and I have just about every symptom of it).
  I'm 18, working and its so much fucking nicer. Granted I have a super chill boss and a forgiving job all beit hard job and it's a million times better. I don't have any panic attacks before going to work and everyone's a mature adult, not petty or slightly psychopathic like a lot of teenagers.
  Huge plus is when work is done it is fucking done, I don't need to stay up all night finishing shit for work too, or have crushing anxiety about upcoming assignments. I still cannot fathom how some prefer school over adult life, school made me want to blow my fucking brains out
- Same. Being undiagnosed autistic is horrifying in high school. I was chronically depressed and suicidal and everyone avoided me like the plague because I was weird as fuck and had no social skills. I did drop out at 17, then delivered mail for a few years, then after I got diagnosed and put on proper meds went and got my diploma in adult education at 24, which was super chill. Ironically I decided to become a teacher, in part because I want to contribute to making school a little less horrifying to kids like I was. And the 7 years of delay ended up being a huge benefit, because I can stand in front 25 13 year-olds confidently at 28, but I could never have done that at 21.
- Same but I'm not convinced community college would've been better.

I heard this opinion many times and I couldn't disagree more. I hated school and I much prefer my adult, working life. In fact I feel like my life only gets better as time goes by.
Granted, I'm privileged to have a well paying job I actually enjoy, which probably makes a world of a difference.
- Fr, hated school so much. At least you get paid for work and there is substantially less drama and bs (though I guess this depends where you work at).
- Mostly same. I was horribly depressed and anxious throughout school and had no friends...so I definitely wasn't seeing my friends every day. And when you get home you always had even more work to do.
  Now, I get paid well, I love chatting with my coworkers every day, and I tend to enjoy what I do, even if it's monotonous or stresssful at times. And with my job, it's physically impossible to take work home with you.
  I do miss having a gajillion days off like when I was a kid and I miss my mom making dinner for me and cleaning up after me lol. But for the most part, I don't think I'd want to go back. I did well in school and wasn't bullied or anything, but those times were still really rough mentally.

The bus picked me up at 6:30 AM and I had extracurriculars, so I didn't get home from the late bus until after 5:30 PM. I'd almost always have an hour or two of homework too, but usually I could get it done on the bus or during other classes. But not always.
Then there is the puberty and hormones, plus the depression from not being popular or good looking, which still affects me today.

Fuck that. Give me 9-5 any day over going back to being stuck in an uncomfortable metal desk+chair contraption all day and then have to do hours of filler homework after. Hauling around books I may or may not ever even open in class. Pushing through rush hour traffic in the hallways between classes. Gym class? WTF no. Then take massive tests like our lives depend on it.
I'm cool, no thanks.

Doing nothing productive with your life, everything revolves around social drama, getting permission to take a shit...
I enjoyed my time at school. But you've got to ask yourself, if the best time of your life was at school that means you've made bad decisions, so what did it prepare you for really? School failed you.
The truth is that school fails all of us.

Highschool was way tougher when it came to time management tbh. Even in college I was envious of normal 9-5 jobs. With those, holidays, weekends, and evenings you actually get to shut off. In school there was just constant assignments/stress.

Tell me you peaked in high school without telling me you peaked in high school.

Hard disagree. School was a nightmare.

Pay could have been better

Idk i really liked high school, all the fun and minimal responsibilities. I wasn't even popular but had a great friend group. Classes were fun, most teachers were cool. Would I go back? Hell nah. I love my life now at 35 even more.

I think it has more to do with less responsibilities and the freedom children have.
Then we become just another cog in the machine.
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two (Official Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrxX9TBj2zY
- Children don't have freedom. Most don't get to transition.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=HrxX9TBj2zY
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Nah, the hours were fewer but during those hours I had a lot less freedom to the point of having to ask just to go to the bathroom. Plus having to do homework and having strict deadlines (turns out missing deadlines in office work isn't as big of a deal as it is in school). Now if we're talking about university/college, then yeah, those years were great, provided you didn't have to work many hours on the side. I had a part-time job, but things were light enough that those years were leisurely and lovely, certainly better than the grind now.

True but learning is hard work.
And fuck, I hated homework.
- Learning is great when it's something you want to do. I went back 10 years after graduating to study something I was interested in and it was fucking awesome.

Abled and neurotypical take lol
- i have autism and jefus sucking christ school has to be part of my childhood trauma, i remember in the early grades they forced us to be outside during breaks and i had 0 friends so that meant every single FUCKING day was just spent in abject misery.
  i straight up spent many breaks just standing in a corner listening to the same few songs i had on my shitty phone, thinking back on it is god damn depressing and makes me feel like all the adults around me should be put in jail.
  
  Ikr, also special education tends to be dehumanizing and have major issues with abuse

Well, that is, if you had friends in school, and weren't being bullied.
Also, no worries, but also no money.

Only 6 weeks off for summer? We were off almost 3 months every summer. (Usually about June 2-3ish and the next year started the last week of August.
- Yeah idk what they're on about, my summer breaks went from mid-May through Mid-August. 6 weeks sounds rough
- The UK has alternating 1 or 2 week school holidays every 6-8 weeks throughout the year as well as the 6 weeks during summer and also bank holidays occasionally.
  
  My wife did work at a district that was 'year round' 3 months on, 1 month off.

This is commander Shepard and I approve of this comment section!
- If you’re the real Commander Shepard, then what is your favorite Citadel shop?!
  
  This is Commander Shepard and I this (any shop that gives me a discount, because I am a cheap dirty capitalistic whore) is my favourite shop on the citadel. 👍

I loved school man, and not just in retrospect, I can't believe I'm completely alone with that based on the comment section. And I wasn't even one of the "cool kids" or anything. I went to a high school that some would consider "elite" (though that description makes me cringe), and sure, there were some stressful times, but generally as long as you had realistic expectations and didn't aim to ace everything, it was pretty chill. My day began around 7:30 I think and was free after about 2pm, and usually I spent maybe like half an hour extra studying for the next day, plus a bit in the weekends, and then I could do whatever, it was such a bliss. And I loved learning, I just loved that I got to study such diverse topics, and you know what man, I love knowing that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Oh and the summer breaks were also great, some of the best times of my life. I'd take school over the sheer amount of bullshit you have to deal with as an adult any day.

Y’all don’t get Easter holidays?

I'm in college RN, taking three classes, and literally just last week i was working so much to keep up with all the classes homework I started from 9am to 10pm with no breaks (online) with only the 5 min eating break every so often. If it was a 9-5 I would have been done and have time to spare for other crap. Fuck this idolizing the past "9-5 is evil" bullshit.

Being a grown up means I get to choose my gender, so grownup automatically wins

And traffic

Yeah thinking back, school was mostly lots of fun and little to no responsibilities. Cheap food every day and I'm home by 15:15, I meet my friends every day and we all have lots of free time to spend together. School was great.