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11th grade

xkcd.org

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Re: 11th grade

#21

Post by tptacek »

mattdennewitz wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #13

Putting it in a poorly-drawn web cartoon doesn't automatically make a trivial observation funny. Isn't this the topic of, like, 438973489 blog posts and essays?

sprinkle in a little "oh my god i had sex with a real girl look guys look at me she was real and we had actual sex im a god" and you've summarized my opinion of xkcd. thanks for the help.

I have exactly this problem with xkcd too --- girls apparently make hackers feel slightly squicky --- hilarity ensues! Let's have sex in a room-sized ball pit! Awwwww!

Re: 11th grade

#22

Post by tptacek »

falsestprophet wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #13

Putting it in a poorly-drawn web cartoon doesn't automatically make a trivial observation funny. Isn't this the topic of, like, 438973489 blog posts and essays?

This well drawn cartoon tells the story more completely and succinctly than any blog post. And yes, it is funny.

There's a spectrum running from Bill Watterson to Jim Davis, and I'm entitled to my opinion about where Randall Munroe falls on it. :P

Re: 11th grade

#23

Post by PieSquared »

timr wrote: post #15

Ugh. Why is it that self-professed "nerds" are always so blatantly anti-intellectual? It's such short-sighted nonsense; nothing but pandering to the immaturity of every 16-year-old throughout history who day-dreamed his way through the classes that he didn't like, and justified it by whining: "when am I gonna have to use this?" You know what? Sometimes you have to learn things that you don't think you'll "use in real…

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid. I'd be willing to bet that most aren't, and most know that the long-term gains of staying in high school will outweigh the short term losses due to boredom.

As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much. Maybe English would be more useful if the high schools didn't have to cater to the lowest common denominator. But public schools have to, and the end result is that many classes are slow-paced, repetitive, and thus, boring.

And please. Please, please, please, can you stop considering high school nerds as anti-intellectual, narrow-minded, arrogant idiots? The amount of people who share your view make tolerating being one very difficult at times, especially when your administrators or teachers refuse to comprehend the idea that maybe it is possible for people to learn things on their own and not have to repeat them in class.

I'm sorry if this response sounds feels overly acrid or acidic, but honestly, as a "self-professed nerd", I find your comment extremely insulting, probably because I've had to deal with many people who base their entire opinions of me on such ideas.

Re: 11th grade

#24

Post by timr »

PieSquared wrote: post #23
timr wrote: post #15

Ugh. Why is it that self-professed "nerds" are always so blatantly anti-intellectual? It's such short-sighted nonsense; nothing but pandering to the immaturity of every 16-year-old throughout history who day-dreamed his way through the classes that he didn't like, and justified it by whining: "when am I gonna have to use this?" You know what? Sometimes you have to learn things that you don't think you'll "use in real…

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid. I'd be willing to bet that most aren't, and most know that the long-term gains of staying in high school will outweigh the short term losses due to boredom. As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use…

"Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid."

You are. I'm talking to the people who see stuff like this, and think about dropping out. Clearly, that set doesn't include all high school kids.

"As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much."

...and when I was in high school, I said the same stuff. "Why do I have to learn about Keats?" "Why must I write structured essays about James Polk?" "What will I ever gain from knowing the rules to basketball?" "Why can't I just learn more about programming?" On and on.

But you know what? I was an idiot. Back then, I didn't have the perspective to know what was important and what was unimportant (for that matter, I'm still learning what to value). Had people let me study whatever I wanted to study in the 10th grade, I would have missed out on exposure to a lot of stuff that I find very valuable today. I would have turned out to be a very one-dimensional person.

Try not to find this advice condescending, and see it for what it is: one nerdy guy who has been there, telling you that you don't know everything, and don't have enough experience to make good judgments about what knowledge is valuable in life. In the meantime, you can learn something from every situation -- just so long as you want to learn.

Re: 11th grade

#25

Post by GHFigs »

jackowayed wrote: post #2

When I saw this, my first reaction was "Randall is stalking me." I'm in 11th grade. It's Ruby, not Perl, and regular, not just a weekend, but it's basically my life. All the school work I have leaves me not enough hacking time. I wish I could get sucked into a startup so I'd have a reason to drop out.

All the school work I have leaves me not enough hacking time.

Turn on noprocrast and get back to hacking. The constraint of school is useful, in that in terms of productivity, feeling like you don't have enough time is better than feeling like you have plenty of time. You just have to learn how to make the most of the time that you do have--which isn't easy or intuitive--because you'll need that skill no matter what you do later.

Re: 11th grade

#26

Post by sown »

jackowayed wrote: post #2

When I saw this, my first reaction was "Randall is stalking me." I'm in 11th grade. It's Ruby, not Perl, and regular, not just a weekend, but it's basically my life. All the school work I have leaves me not enough hacking time. I wish I could get sucked into a startup so I'd have a reason to drop out.

Don't drop out for a startup. You could do what I did and drop out to go to college early. But you got to keep your eyes on the goal of finishing.

Re: 11th grade

#27

Post by sanswork »

jackowayed wrote: post #8
aneesh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody needs to give you the other side of the story. Don't even think about dropping out of high school to do a startup. Statistically, you have a ~99% chance (okay, I just made up that number) of failing and then you'll just be a high school dropout. Stay in school, and do something on the side. There will always be opportunities for cool startups in the future, and probably after you finish college, you'll be mu…

oh, I know that. I just am tired of school and wish I could code instead. I am actually considering taking a year off to do a startup or something before college. But I have every intention of graduating college (maybe even getting a masters in CS).

I'm a high school drop out that has managed to have a pretty good programming career thus far. A couple things I've found that have helped me the most though is drive, contacts and a lot of luck. Drive to keep me going when it seemed like I wouldn't get a job, and to be willing to start out low down in a company with good odds of progression. Contacts to get my name to the front of the list when new roles came up and luck to be in the right places at the right times and those chance conversations with people at the bus stop that ended up being really important to my progression.

One of the best things my family ever did for me was allowing me to take a year off high school to try to start my own software company. After that I never went back but if it hadn't of worked out the worst that would have happened is I'd be a year behind.

The one good thing about a high school degree is that it's easier to get into a university program later on if you want to. I'd love to go to university now to study a couple things I'm really interested in but have had difficulty getting far.

Also don't underestimate the college experience in shaping your life. I was lucky that when I was starting my career I was surrounded by students and lived with them and did the same things as them so I got some of the experience but I'll always regret not having the full 4 years of college life.

Re: 11th grade

#28

Post by PieSquared »

timr wrote: post #24
PieSquared wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid. I'd be willing to bet that most aren't, and most know that the long-term gains of staying in high school will outweigh the short term losses due to boredom. As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use…

"Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid." You are. I'm talking to the people who see stuff like this, and think about dropping out. Clearly, that set doesn't include all high school kids. "As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they…

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I guess you get a wider perspective as you age, and I don't really have much of an idea about what I'll think later.

Though I might disagree with you on specifics, I agree that it's important not to restrict yourself to a limited set of things. I guess I was slightly annoyed mainly due to the fact that a few of my school admins sound very similar, except they don't bother to take the time to explain their views in a less condescending sounding way.

Re: 11th grade

#29

Post by markessien »

jackowayed wrote: post #2

When I saw this, my first reaction was "Randall is stalking me." I'm in 11th grade. It's Ruby, not Perl, and regular, not just a weekend, but it's basically my life. All the school work I have leaves me not enough hacking time. I wish I could get sucked into a startup so I'd have a reason to drop out.

When you first start coding, it's very addictive, because it gives you frequent 'success bursts'. All you're doing is chasing endorphins, you are likely not actually writing anything useful. You think it is, but it's rather rare that people of that age actually code any good.

You're physiologically addicted to this, if you drop out of school, you'll have a lot of company in all the other people who are addicted to other things that give them those moments of pleasure.

Re: 11th grade

#30

Post by sown »

timr wrote: post #15

Ugh. Why is it that self-professed "nerds" are always so blatantly anti-intellectual? It's such short-sighted nonsense; nothing but pandering to the immaturity of every 16-year-old throughout history who day-dreamed his way through the classes that he didn't like, and justified it by whining: "when am I gonna have to use this?" You know what? Sometimes you have to learn things that you don't think you'll "use in real…

When I was in HS I recognized it as a waste. I didn't really learn much. The people around me didn't care and it mostly felt like day care. It all was mostly busy work. The only way to get a "challenging" education was to jump through a bunch of hoops, such as joining Key Club, marching band, AP everything, extracurricular this and that, all of it just a way of padding a college resume. Now those are things you will never use in real life. I did not want any of that.

So I dropped out early and went straight to college. No one cares what you did in high school. No one ever asks.

I don't know what kind of HS teaches about Keats but It did not appear in my enriched English classes (between normal and honors); 5 paragraph essays did, though. The few highlights of high school were the calculus class I had to fight tooth and nail to get into and of course programming. But I didn't just want to learn more about programming I also wanted to learn more about automata, AI, security and so on.

I also do appreciate the finer arts. I went to New Mexico Tech and learned a great deal of engineering but also humanities. It was only then that it was presented in a rigorus manner. What do you think will appeal to "nerds" like us? Memorizing a list of kings and dates? Or learning about the strategics and logistics of geo-politics?

As for your "life is full of hardships" quip, as if that tells me anything, that's a great story. It really is.

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