How do y'all Veeky Forumsentists stay disciplined? Currently studying Mech. E...

How do y'all Veeky Forumsentists stay disciplined? Currently studying Mech. E. I made it this far (junior) however I'm just not putting in the effort like I should be. Nothing has been technically difficult however my grades are showing my lack of effort. I need to change but I'm just wasting my days senpai. My peers are putting in work and seeing them succeed is putting me down. I need that competitive drive but it's just not there.

Anyone ever hit this mental state?

Remind yourself daily on why the fuck you are there and why the fuck you are paying 20k per year to be here.

That should keep your head in the game.

I was like this my freshman year after smoking a lot of weed and being an overall degenerate. Seeing my friends in my field who had their shit together and were getting good grades really inspired me. Basically just changed who I hung out with and stopped doing drugs and sat down and did the work. Its still a work in progress, but my GPA is slowly improving.

Also, the biggest difference for me was when I started finding genuine interest in the subject matter. For some classes it came easy but for others I had to larp and pretend I was a prodigious mathematician. Basically just try to find joy in it, youll get a lot more out of studying and learning that way.

I actually don't pay a dime. Get's covered through financial aid. But if i'm honest it would really help if i had to pay.

I'm in the same situation, only thing that keeps me going right now is thinking about future opportunities that could be lost because of shitty GPA

I'm a junior in EE and have a 3.9 GPA. I never really had good grades until I got to college and did well my first semester (it was an exceptionally easy semester, as I hadn't yet declared engineering and was just taking gen eds) and then got "addicted" to succeeding. When was the last time you killed a test? Gotten the highest grade in the class? Got a perfect score? Remember that feeling before you study. It should help - it helps me, at least. I also start my study sessions off by telling myself it's just 1 hour. After that is just another, etc.

Still investing time, and time is even more valuable than money.

I had that really bad my second junior semester and my senior year. I was a 4.0 student through sophomore year and coasted off of it to the end. I think I got burned out and lost vision of why I was there. It turned into just checking boxes until I got my degree. After graduating, working a few years and going back to do some grad school I finally realize and appreciate the opportunity but I certainly didn’t back then.
I think my advice to you would be stick it out and try not to fuck your grades up too bad. You’re probably a bit burned out. Try to remember why you’re there, hopefully it’s for the love of your discipline. I know this is cliche, but these should be your best years, don’t become too complacent and let it slip by you. There’s a whole layer of corporate bullshit that obscures the fun part of engineering that you’ll have to deal with in the “real world” which makes it harder to crack open a book and continue learning.
Also, as a side note, you need to find a way to instill a love for learning on your own. Being able to pick up the latest scientific literature and apply it to an engineering problem is the probably one of the top 3 most important skill you can have as an engineer. Being able to do that takes curiosity that you have to maintain across the life of your career.

Feel this so much