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Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

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Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#1

Post by wadd1e »

Hey HN, apologies in advance for the long post, the first paragraph should be sufficient to read for those that do not want to read the entire post.

I am in my final year of high school/12th grade/6th form, and I have moved cities(and most recently, countries) and hence schools quite a bit over the years and I have met different kinds of people too. Now that school's coming to an end and I will be going off to university later in the year, I found myself wondering where do I connect with passionate people, especially at uni and later in life? I realise I am part of the much younger end of the demographic, which is part of the reason I am asking, to get some perspective and learn a lesson or two from those who are more experienced than me.

For context, I got the opportunity to attend one of the best high schools/sixth forms/colleges in the country for my last 2 years before uni, and the reason I mention that is that as a result, I am surrounded by bright people who are all excellent students and clear about what they want to do in the future, however, there's a lack of people(who I know of) that are truly passionate about what they want to do; Everyone's just pursuing their subject for the sake of it rather than genuine interest. For example, in a conversation I had with a friend, we were discussing the sorts of things we wrote in our uni applications, and he mentioned how he half-read books for the sake of mentioning them in his application and how he didn't actually find them interesting. Infact, he was a bit shocked when I said everything I mentioned in my application was genuine and that I actually found computer science and maths interesting and rewarding.

Now, I don't expect that sort of thing from people, and I realise that it's not common. But, I personally try to be as curious about life as I can, if someone has something interesting to say, even if I don't know about it(infact especially so) I listen, question and try to understand as much as I can. Again, I don't expect everyone to return the favour, and I enjoy spending time with my friend group and of course respect them a lot as well, but I love maths and computer science and I also love discussing and explaining cool ideas and thoughts I have related to them, and I find myself not having more than a couple of people who I could even bring up something (that I find)cool I recently learnt for example.

Now I don't blame someone for not being interested in listening to me explaining how , time is valuable. But it does leave me wondering, where can I find others who love to talk about their subject(not just maths or compsci, but just passionate people in general) who'd be willing to both, talk about their interests and listen to mine? Infact, if you made it this far, thanks for reading(and as you can guess, I have a tendency to talk a lot).

edited for clarity

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#3

Post by em-bee »

extracurricular activities. people who half-read books just to look impressive (to use your example) don't join extracurricular activities unless there is a tangible benefit. your own passion should let you naturally find those groups and join them because you would anyways, and you'll find others do the same.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#4

Post by knaik94 »

One of the best things I did was staying a little late to ask questions in class and going to office hours. There was one professor I was interested in working with and he had a lab. I got to the the only undergrad that worked in his grad lab. Being in an environment where it's a little competitive is how you find passionate people. A non-academic example, I ended up going to group fitness classes and ended up becoming friends with all of the instructors of my classes. One of the instructors ended up offering me and a group of other people scholarships to get certified as fitness instructors. I met some great passionate people doing that.

In terms of CS, I went to hackathons basically every weekend. I was lucky enough to go to a Uni where there was a strong culture around hackathons and we also hosted out own. I got to meet passionate people hosting it and I also got to meet great people when we went to the neighboring universities across northeast USA. I noticed that I got along best and had my favorite discussions with people who took on teaching roles, for classes it was professors but in research and clubs it was other people closer to my age. Most Unis have a dedicated work area, sometimes an open lab, where people of your major go to work. My uni had a few, and usually it's near the research library or in a specific building where most of the advanced classes for those majors are. I remember being stuck and having trouble understanding something and I went to those rooms and it was just a bunch of other students working or chilling, they kept one assigned person there to supervise and help but usually there's others there too. I went up to them and asked some CS questions and we ended up having a 3 hour discussion. I probably learned more about CS in that talk than I did throughout some entire semester lab classes.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#5

Post by psyklic »

Make stuff you think is cool, share it online, and like-minded people will contact you! You can also get involved in smaller communities, like those surrounding new languages or libraries. Since they are not yet big, they tend to have very passionate people involved. At uni, get involved in research.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#6

Post by ravagat »

Ha, your background is similar to mine and wow, I'm amazed you have already found HN in your senior year. That's a good sign. One thing that I've seen help personally and for others is, publishing your interests and thinking more. Being online, on the internet, is one of the best forms of leverage of recent times. It's best to silo/categorise what subjects you'd like published (niche), start with one and continue onto others by relating them. One actionable step to take asap is start your own website whether its wordpress, ghost, or basic hosted html/github pages. I assume you're already writing and have some notes offline.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#7

Post by ravagat »

ravagat wrote: post #6

Ha, your background is similar to mine and wow, I'm amazed you have already found HN in your senior year. That's a good sign. One thing that I've seen help personally and for others is, publishing your interests and thinking more. Being online, on the internet, is one of the best forms of leverage of recent times. It's best to silo/categorise what subjects you'd like published (niche), start with one and continue ont…

I forgot to add it's important to remember when you're sharing online, what it is your goal with sharing is. In this case to connect with passionate people. Do not ever forget this. It's simple but not easy. And don't worry if your goal changes eventually when you finished this goal, its a natural progression to change goals after accomplishing them

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#8

Post by knaik94 »

em-bee wrote: post #3

extracurricular activities. people who half-read books just to look impressive (to use your example) don't join extracurricular activities unless there is a tangible benefit. your own passion should let you naturally find those groups and join them because you would anyways, and you'll find others do the same.

I agree, there's something about the time requirements of certain activities that filters for passion and hard work. Weekend events were a good indicator of this, people who spend Friday and Saturday nights doing something extracurricular/academic instead of more typically social things, like parties/clubbing, are more passionate.

But it's still relative, if you were looking for people passionate in dancing or sports, you'd find those people at a college mixer the night before a big competition. The college mixer is a meet and greet with competitors from other schools that is close to a typical party by the end of the night.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#9

Post by evmar »

If I reflect over my life, what has worked is being open and showing passion at every opportunity when meeting people. Most will respond as you’ve described, but with enough rolls of the dice you’re more likely to have a lucky hit. It can be a little exhausting to miss so many times, but I think there was no particularly successful strategy beyond that.

Re: Ask HN: How did you connect with passionate people?

#10

Post by wadd1e »

knaik94 wrote: post #4

One of the best things I did was staying a little late to ask questions in class and going to office hours. There was one professor I was interested in working with and he had a lab. I got to the the only undergrad that worked in his grad lab. Being in an environment where it's a little competitive is how you find passionate people. A non-academic example, I ended up going to group fitness classes and ended up becomi…

Thanks for the wonderful advice, I'll definitely be on the lookout for hackathons, that does sound like fun.
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