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

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

#31

Post by fsloth »

I would not trust an online group to form an opinion what is 'normal' and what is not. An online group is formed of people who were incentivized to join that discussion because it appealed to their personality. There are probably at least 500 million english speakers on the internet. This means there can be subgroups for all sorts of fringe things that have thousands of members, yet present a tiny fraction of the population. Most of all, the groups you visit have people who have same types of personalities as you. Hence, you don't know whether the opinions you get are an overall average, or totally uncommon.

What I mean by this - it's great you are wondering how to to live your life so it' fullfilling - but an online group is not necessarily the best place to gauge the quality of your life in the general context as there is no single optimum for human experience as people are very different. And some people learn to cherish the things that make their life painfull. And some people have toxic personalities yet are terribly good at persuading others.

Social proof is an immensly powerfull force yet it is easily manufactured in this day an age.

That said, many have adviced trying some group sport and I think that's a great advice. You don't need to like it, and can the stop the experience, but there is no way to know except by trying.

It's great you are partaking in art. This already gives you a wider context than just your technical interests.

While wondering how to live your life, you might enjoy reading biographies of technical people. I would warmly recommend Walter Isaacsons magnificient books- Innovators, Leonardo da Vinci, Jobs, Einstein and Benjamin Franklins biographies give a vivid and human description how other technical people with artistic qualities lived their life.

You don't know what your life will be like, and you are a being of your own, but often peoples lives have more things in common than not - even across centuries.

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

#32

Post by viraptor »

eurticket wrote: post #23

Join a group, any group. Close friendships come with time, make the time for that friend and do things together even if it's dumb. You're not there to impress them or vice versa but just the best of them and the best of you sometimes meet up and show the other person that there is something admirable, in morals and values or skills like your programming. You have something to share and time is the most valuable. So m…

This. Some ideas I tried (some of them too late - try earlier!): board games, trading card games, martial arts, dancing, snowboarding, ... - they can all be awesome social activities. You could look at it as a numbers game - the more groups you try, the more people you meet. You'll find someone cool at some point.

> Am I missing out on anything?

From my experience - I wish I tried more at school times. It's much harder once everyone has their own life / family to take care of.

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

#33

Post by rmetzler »

Regarding making friends, I would like to share this paper with you: "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings" [0] See the appendix for a great set of questions/tasks to come closer to another person.

College for me was much better than High School.

[0]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616729723400...

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

#34

Post by honzzz »

mettamage wrote: post #7

I hated high school (Dutch), with a passion. I felt restricted in what we were learning (set curriculum, almost no extracurricular possibilities), I disliked most people and it was posh (I'm not) and therefore had a bit of an overconfident air. I had fun: I cheated, I skipped classes, my motto was "minimum effort, maximum freedom." I went out a lot in Amsterdam in order to get my social fix and a read on what it mean…

I also hated high school with passion. I loved it at the university though. That is also where I found the little circle of my closest friends - after 20 years we are still close. I am not sure there is any lesson to be learned for the original poster except maybe... do not over-think it. Things change quickly at that age and a year from now your life might be pleasantly different without doing anything special to achieve that (not that I am advising against mixing it up a little if you feel like it).

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

#35

Post by lordnacho »

> I don't know how to make close friends.

Don't worry about this. If you can make acquaintances, you're on your way. Think of close friends as friend seeds that you've watered. I even have such people from years ago that I keep warm around this time of year. Whether you become close depends a bit on serendipity. Will you live near each other? Will you work in the same business? Will you have kids the same age?

So gather up friend seeds, it's pretty easy. Go for drinks with people, hang out, that sort of thing. You don't have to force yourself to spend a load of time with anyone. In fact it's impossible in some cases.

As for your interest in coding and math, you've already discovered you can make online friends. Maybe you'll see more people like you at uni, who knows. For the moment you at least have online people you can socialize with, and it's not like they're any less than real people.

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

#36

Post by solarkraft »

graeme wrote: post #30

To make lasting friends you have to hang out repeatedly with a group of people. Then you'll naturally hang out more with some people in a group, and suddenly you'll realize you're friends. Also friendships bloody well can be forced (or nudged, anyway). All friendships start between two people who aren't exactly friends. "Hey, do you want to X later?" "Yeah sure" Then you try X, and if you enjoy X, you do Y together l…

> Also if people aren't warming to you, then dressing well and being fit help

I have been way over-valuing this before. While the effect might not be 0, I think it is a much worse problem for dating and not so much just making friends. Even then it is surprising how far a bit of confidence will get you.

Don't stress about things you can't change.

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

#37

Post by soneca »

I am 39 yo and I am not close anymore to any of my HS friends. But I am very close to lot of my University friends. I don't think you need to worry about missing something irreplaceable for life.

Also, do not take other people's memories and nostalgic feelings at face value. These memories usually filter out the bad, boring, irremarkable stuff to make the past sound like an anime. Also, it is often compared to struggles they are facing in the present and wish they could escape.

All that said, I think you do should do something to not feel solitary. I am not so sure that friendships must develop naturally. Sure, they can't be forced, by I think they can (should?) be consciously pursued. That's my approach to keep my best friends close in my adulthood.

Keep an eye open for good people, people who are kind to others and that happen to have some common interests with you. And if the interest seem mutual, make an effort to hang out with those people.

For me, the bottom line: make an effort to be nice to nice people and nice things will happen

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

#38

Post by aerovistae »

Everyone's life is different, man. There is no benchmark that you need to compare against. Most of my good friends are people I've known for 15 years who I met in high school. Many people I know kept few or no friends from high school. Some of those people have great friends from college instead, while others have few or no friends at all. Some are happy, some aren't-- with or without the friends. I know two separate girls each with almost no friends who are both happy as a lark, and I know a few people with more friends than they can count who are quite depressed.

There isn't a rubric for life.

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

#40

Post by Broken_Hippo »

For some of us, being solitary is the way it is. A range of things is normal, including being fairly solitary :) I've never really had lots of close friends either, but I've also found that there are upsides to this - it did, after all, allow me to move countries without many complications, for example. I did this in my mid-30's. I happen to move to a more introverted country than the US - being somewhat solitary definitely helped with this.

I fully suggest things like joining groups if you have them in your area. I understand that not everywhere has these or not in your interest. Join groups even if you think everyone else will be your grandparent's age! You never know who you might find. If you can't join any groups, try to do something regularly. Do you have a local coffee shop or even a local McDonalds? Go there once a week, fairly regularly, and drink coffee while you sketch. It is a great way to meet people (I took a vacation to Amsterdam where I sketched in coffee shops and other public places - it was wonderful). Plus, art gives me something to talk about :)

Experience as much as reasonably possible, especially while you are young. The only other real group hobby I have is tabletop gaming - I go to a friends house when possible to play overly complicated board games. I've thought about volunteer work, in part to improve my language skills.

Casual friendships are gold. While it is hard to find close friends - casual stuff is easier. The grand thing about these friendships is that when put together, they tend to equal a full friendship. One person might be good for getting your mind off things while the other might like to listen to some people's problems from time to time. I tend to have very few close friendships. Heck, I have only a few casual ones as well, but i'm ok with that. I'm not sure if I'm missing out on things, but I stopped caring.

College will be partially the same and partially different than high school. I have enjoyed being an adult much more than I did being a teenager. I'm now 40 and can honestly say I enjoy life much more now. You can have the same kind of youthful fun when you are an adult. What you find fun might (and probably will) change. It is normal to be afraid of ending high school, by the way. Most of us get at least a bit nervous before life changes when things seem a bit unknown.

One thing that might help your perspective is learning how to frame things in life. For example, before I moved to Norway after marrying the spouse (who is Norwegian), I figured that if things went badly and I wound up back in the US... I'd at least have a good story to tell and a mound of life experience that wouldn't have happened otherwise. I figured the story itself would make me more interesting - at least to my standards. This sort of attitude makes difficult times ever-so-slightly easier and the fear of the upcoming changes much easier. :)

And this might not have been the best writing, but that's all I'm doing for now :)

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