Ask HN: How can I make the most out of high school?

As other people will probably tell you, I hated HS. For technical people it seems to be a common thread: stories of the type "I was miserable until I went to Uni, when I found out there's other people who like talking about the Linux kernel" are everywhere. So I will risk it and say "yes, it's normal to be solitary in HS if you're a technical person, but College is often better".

As far as hobbies go, it's more about you than about the hobby. I had a drawing group where we would gather at coffee shops and talk and draw for a couple hours. Sports are also surprisingly entertaining once you do them because you feel like it rather than because someone tells you to. I made lots of friends through martial arts.

1. Forget about what's "normal". Instead, ask yourself: "Is this going to contribute to my broader goals in life?" Having close friends in high school may offer valuable experiences in social dynamics and managing relationships, but chances are you won't remain friends with most of those people after high school, and that's ok.

2. Definitely research colleges thoroughly and apply to them, but realize that you don't have to go to college. And certainly not right out of high school. In some disciplines, such as web software engineering, those 4 years spent working with real clients could be more valuable for your career than spending lots of money on a Computer Science degree.

3. Leverage all the extra-curricular activities you can in order to gauge your interest in certain subjects. Obviously you can't register for everything, but pick, say 3 activities to focus on each semester and apply yourself to them. As life goes on, you'll have less and less carefree time to explore this stuff.

Here's a nice advice page done by founder of Stripe - https://patrickcollison.com/advice

You'll be missing out on teenager life as you worry about teenager life, so don't worry about it and just do what you want to do.

[apologies, wall of text follows]

A number of other people have suggested sports. I wish I had discovered Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu younger, but I was a competitive fencer and boxed in university. All sports give you a pool of people to have shared experiences with (maybe a bit artificial) whether they are team sports or individual sports.

The other element of these kind of 'instant friend' activities is that you can find a kind of 'placeholder' group of people to hang out with who may be able to introduce you to other people you are more likely to click with. I made some good friends from groups of people that I largely had nothing in common with but was hanging out with because of some girl (for example) - but you might wind up meeting way more interesting people on the periphery of a group you don't really 100% click with.

My friends in high school were generally 'shared interest' nerd friends (mostly Dungeons and Dragons as a core nerdy interest).

It's possible to make friends doing pretty much whatever - a lot of friends I had in university were my peers in CS and other subjects. We had to hang around in labs and classes together, though (and having a 4th year "honours" program in CS where we did 100% CS and all had on-campus shared offices was really good for that). So it's just as possible that you could wind up walking in, doing your work, and walking out. Cultivating some projects and working with a group might really help with that. A lot of undergraduates are considered disposable randos who are just interested in getting a qualification as quick as possible while accumulating as little extra knowledge as possible, but if you're interested in type theory, maybe you should be trying to work with a research group in something you like. Ideally go for a healthy research group that's actually at the place you want to go, not something that exactly fits your supposed interested right now (which will likely change). So if they have a big healthy machine learning group that welcomes undergraduate research interns vs one cranky weirdo doing type theory, do the former (that's better both socially and, likely, as research prep if that's the direction you want to go).

Do try to make sure that you're not assuming activities are asocial when they aren't, too. Maybe people are getting coffee after art class?

It's very hard to force the issue - I think people are more and more preoccupied with their phones and previous social connections via social media than they are interested in meeting new people. I suggest cultivating a lot of interests (including a wide variety of things), behaving yourself well, keeping an open mind and seeing what happens.

Of course, maybe you're just solitary by nature. But don't assume stuff. I substantially reinvented myself in university and essentially declared myself an extrovert after having been very introverted in HS. Despite some awkward moments from this forced transition (yes, someone trying to put on an extrovert skin can be about as dreadful as you might imagine) this was a very good idea long-term.

Socialize where you can. I say this as someone who is looking at putting together a wedding party and deciding on a best man. I had some good acquaintances in high school, then I had some good acquaintances in college, and then professionally. But no one that can really hit that "like a brother" spot that stuck through each major change. Beyond all the socializing and carefree stuff the one thing I wish is there was at least one person who I knew throughout all the big parts in my life.