- #1
BenKlesc
- 8
- 0
Hello PF. Thanks for accepting me!
Says to introduce yourself, so I'll try my best to keep this as short as possible. I have a funny story. My full name is Ben Kleschinksy. I graduated high school back in 2014. My original life plan was I was going to learn a manual labor trade so I went into a trade school, because I absolutely hated math. In fact for about 9-12th grade I barely passed math and chemistry. It was a torturous subject for me and I was happy I got out alive. I graduated with a 3.0 which isn’t bad but I could have done a lot better if I took it more seriously. In high school I ended up participating in software development classes but grew to hate them, so I set my sights on "blue collar" trade world as that is where I wanted to be.
I ended up going to Nashua Community College in 2017 for auto body and collision repair, as I understood my strengths and weaknesses. I originally loved the idea of having a job where I could bang on metal and move around. I knew I never wanted to have an office job in a cubicle, and I ruled out medical and law school since I didn’t want to become a lawyer and dislike the current American medical industry and stress doctors have to be under. I graduated my community college with a 2.6 GPA, suffice to say because I did not take the extra curriculum courses seriously. After all if I was going to be banging on cars, so why should I worry or care about math and sciences? What would I ever need those for?
My entire life I’ve had massive ADD, jokingly say my apparent IQ is 83 but probably need a proper test, and even with countless math tutors it would always take my three times as long to complete homework especially math. I thought a trade would be perfect for me. On my first day in a bodyshop I realized I was in the wrong place. The foreman would tell you what to do, and all my mind wanted to shout out was how and why? They would tell me to sand a car, and my mind would overanalyze the details and ask how? I wanted to problem solve and think outside the box, and in a trade it really is cutthroat tasks you must conform to. The common answer was just common sense and for some minds that works.
I ended up doing it for 3 more years after seeing no improvements with my skills, including some bricklaying on the side to see if I would like that field and it was totally mind numbing for me doing the same basic tasks. In high school I belonged to our Robotics Club and took place in FIRST competitions in Boston, and I remembered meeting Dean Kamon on two occasions and him telling me the possibilities of entering a STEM field. I was never exposed to any of this at my normal high school classes and I never took it seriously until I entered the trades. I had one amazing physics teacher in 11th grade and passed his class with a 98.
Well during this pandemic cars started to slow down with nobody driving and work got really slow. Our boss naturally had us doing grunt work like cleaning the bathrooms and painting the exterior building to try and keep us busy, until we were eventually all laid off. It was right then and there because of this pandemic that I decided to walk out and start a new life while collecting unemployment. This was after I had spent 14 grand on a community college education, and 5 grand of mechanic tools I had collected since high school.
Looking at the world as it is I said what can I do to join the fight against climate change? So I took my history of lack of ability to pay attention, my horrendous history of grades and enthusiasm for math and science, and decided to transfer my degree to UMASS Lowell and major in the nuclear physics and engineering program. One of the colleges that has a reactor on site. I watched the 30 hour MIT YouTube course on nuclear engineering during my free time because of the pandemic and absolutely fell in love. Funny how I understood the entire MIT course but my mind goes blank in 7th grade algebra class. When math is combined with chemistry it helps me visualize and makes it fun to work with.
This is despite the fact I live in Massachusetts where we just closed down the last power plant Pilgrim. I realized the industry is facing a serious labor shortage, and I really do see the future possibilities of clean nuclear energy and I want to be apart of that. I’m going to have to take advanced calculus, chemical engineering, and micro economics classes but I’m going to apply myself this time and take studying and homework seriously at the age of 25. Ironically it actually would be safer working in nuclear plant than breathing in paint fumes every day in a bodyshop. Sometimes I felt felt like a nuclear waste handler with all the hazmat suits and goggles I would wear. We'll see how it goes.
Says to introduce yourself, so I'll try my best to keep this as short as possible. I have a funny story. My full name is Ben Kleschinksy. I graduated high school back in 2014. My original life plan was I was going to learn a manual labor trade so I went into a trade school, because I absolutely hated math. In fact for about 9-12th grade I barely passed math and chemistry. It was a torturous subject for me and I was happy I got out alive. I graduated with a 3.0 which isn’t bad but I could have done a lot better if I took it more seriously. In high school I ended up participating in software development classes but grew to hate them, so I set my sights on "blue collar" trade world as that is where I wanted to be.
I ended up going to Nashua Community College in 2017 for auto body and collision repair, as I understood my strengths and weaknesses. I originally loved the idea of having a job where I could bang on metal and move around. I knew I never wanted to have an office job in a cubicle, and I ruled out medical and law school since I didn’t want to become a lawyer and dislike the current American medical industry and stress doctors have to be under. I graduated my community college with a 2.6 GPA, suffice to say because I did not take the extra curriculum courses seriously. After all if I was going to be banging on cars, so why should I worry or care about math and sciences? What would I ever need those for?
My entire life I’ve had massive ADD, jokingly say my apparent IQ is 83 but probably need a proper test, and even with countless math tutors it would always take my three times as long to complete homework especially math. I thought a trade would be perfect for me. On my first day in a bodyshop I realized I was in the wrong place. The foreman would tell you what to do, and all my mind wanted to shout out was how and why? They would tell me to sand a car, and my mind would overanalyze the details and ask how? I wanted to problem solve and think outside the box, and in a trade it really is cutthroat tasks you must conform to. The common answer was just common sense and for some minds that works.
I ended up doing it for 3 more years after seeing no improvements with my skills, including some bricklaying on the side to see if I would like that field and it was totally mind numbing for me doing the same basic tasks. In high school I belonged to our Robotics Club and took place in FIRST competitions in Boston, and I remembered meeting Dean Kamon on two occasions and him telling me the possibilities of entering a STEM field. I was never exposed to any of this at my normal high school classes and I never took it seriously until I entered the trades. I had one amazing physics teacher in 11th grade and passed his class with a 98.
Well during this pandemic cars started to slow down with nobody driving and work got really slow. Our boss naturally had us doing grunt work like cleaning the bathrooms and painting the exterior building to try and keep us busy, until we were eventually all laid off. It was right then and there because of this pandemic that I decided to walk out and start a new life while collecting unemployment. This was after I had spent 14 grand on a community college education, and 5 grand of mechanic tools I had collected since high school.
Looking at the world as it is I said what can I do to join the fight against climate change? So I took my history of lack of ability to pay attention, my horrendous history of grades and enthusiasm for math and science, and decided to transfer my degree to UMASS Lowell and major in the nuclear physics and engineering program. One of the colleges that has a reactor on site. I watched the 30 hour MIT YouTube course on nuclear engineering during my free time because of the pandemic and absolutely fell in love. Funny how I understood the entire MIT course but my mind goes blank in 7th grade algebra class. When math is combined with chemistry it helps me visualize and makes it fun to work with.
This is despite the fact I live in Massachusetts where we just closed down the last power plant Pilgrim. I realized the industry is facing a serious labor shortage, and I really do see the future possibilities of clean nuclear energy and I want to be apart of that. I’m going to have to take advanced calculus, chemical engineering, and micro economics classes but I’m going to apply myself this time and take studying and homework seriously at the age of 25. Ironically it actually would be safer working in nuclear plant than breathing in paint fumes every day in a bodyshop. Sometimes I felt felt like a nuclear waste handler with all the hazmat suits and goggles I would wear. We'll see how it goes.
