/sci/ - Science & Math

How do you find motivation to study when you have no near-term gratification or deadlines, /sci/?

I need to study a ton of subjects in math and science and brush up on fundamentals for some things I'm taking, and I feel like I need to get it done by march, but there's nothing pushing me to do it. There's no real deadline. The people around me are deadbeats and do nothing but sap motivation by making their problems my problems or outright discourage me to study (it's a shitty family).

How do I find a way to motivate myself to start and keep going?

Hey /sci/, I need advice.

Some backstory: Right before I was to start highschool my mother (who has some severe mental issues) had a break and took me and my younger brother to a foreign country where we had family - somewhere third world with almost no educational infrastructure. I managed to bring a laptop with me and kept up to date as best I could with studies. We (finally) came back around the time where I'd be a senior, and I went to the local school district to enroll and finish up.

I was told immediately that the only way I'd be able to get a diploma is by repeating 3 years of high school and graduating at 21. There were no tests or equivalency programs to make up credits in a faster time frame, even though I was already past the high school level. I had to physically make up the seat time for every year that I missed.

My extended family pressured me into doing it the past spring and this fall semester - the time where I should be starting my undergraduate program. It's the worst shit in the world. I can't focus or study on anything because I'm stuck doing essays and pointless exercises on things I already know. I'm slated to do this for another two and a half years, surrounded by 15 year olds. It's hell.

Should I just take my state's high school equivalency test and get out? Is there another alternative that I'm not seeing? I know the stigma of a GED-like instead of a diploma will hurt while applying for a college, but what I'm doing now is sucking my soul dry.

I turn 19 in about two days. I've been thinking of quitting the school, studying and acing the equivalency test and SAT at the start of spring, and then applying to a late/rolling admission college for the fall, before transferring next year.

Hey /sci/.

I'll cut the BS. I had my entire HS education periodically fucked up or outright barred from me because my mother turned out to be ill in the head. She left my father with me when I was young, she took me out of the country when I was starting high school. I'm not trying to peddle a sob story or look for sympathy

I kept up to date as best I could, and I got pretty good at teaching myself, but I need some help in figuring out how to further my own education. I'm joining community college and doing some college classes so I can get an equivalent HS diploma, but I want to review and do some lectures on the subject online so I've got shit down pat before I even enter the class.

Is MIT OCW viable for this if I'm gonna be doing a regular Electrical Eng. course? I'm looking at 'Circuits and Electronics' but I want to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree, or if there's a better one out there.