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11th grade

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Re: 11th grade

#31

Post by timr »

PieSquared wrote: post #28
timr wrote: post #24

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." 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…

No problem. For what it's worth, I realize that high school (especially public high school; I went to one, too) can be a brutally authoritarian place sometimes. I pretty much hated most of mine, for the same reason.

That said, there are parts of high school that I'd give money to experience just one more time. And of all of the people I know, I don't think anyone has ever said that they wished they'd paid less attention in school. Good luck with it.

Re: 11th grade

#32

Post by jackowayed »

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…

This seems like somewhat of a reply to my comment, just more general.

I actually am very intellectual. I kind of want to drop out, but that doesn't meant I have any intentions of doing so. I know that learning to write and such will be useful once in awhile in my adult life. And more importantly, I know that good grades will get me into a good college (and hopefully also get me a good scholarship).

I'm #1 class rank at the 42nd-highest-ranked public HS in the US. So just because nerds like coding more than school and wish they could trade school for coding doesn't make us all unintellectual

Re: 11th grade

#34

Post by nostrademons »

markbao wrote: post #20
trevelyan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Mark. Take advantage of college to do things you'll never have the chance to if you lock yourself into a software-only world. Show up for lectures on music theory, astrophysics, history. Try to learn a foreign language that works completely differently from English, like Chinese. You can audit most of these courses without signing up for them: just show up and never ask for permission unless it is a small course w…

I know what you're getting at. Although I agree that it's very important to find extracurricular and extracareerular interests as well (and I am seeking other interest areas), I'm (although this must sound naïve) certain that entrepreneurship and business is my passion and thus I set it as my focus. I find drive, excitement and motivation in nothing else than startups. I think college will be a great and eye-opening…

> I'm (although this must sound naïve) certain that entrepreneurship and business is my passion and thus I set it as my focus

Be careful about deciding this too early, and clinging to that decision too long.

When I was in 11th grade, my passion was electric guitar, and I was sure I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. I have completely the wrong temperament to be a rock star, no stage presence to speak of, and a shitty sense of rhythm. But I really liked playing guitar, and of course it was the cool thing to do. I ended up learning a bunch of licks and building my own electric guitar as a senior project, but I'm no rock star.

When I was in 12th grade, I was sure I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. I'd taken a couple college honors courses in high school and doubled the class average, so I thought it was only natural. But once I got up to thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and had to spend 20 hours a week in the lab, I found I didn't really have the passion for physics. Staying in the physics major once I'd realized that my passion was for computers was probably the worst mistake of my life.

If you'd told me any time in the past 10 years that I'd end up working for a company with 20,000 employees, I'd've laughed incredulously in your face. I've wanted to do startups since I was about 19, and the idea of working in corporateland has been anathema since I was about 13. Yet here I am, excited about starting at Google, and I figure I'll at least give it a chance and see how it is.

If you're really passionate about entrepreneurship now, do it - now. But try some other stuff in college, and don't be afraid to switch your focus to them if it looks like that's really where your passion lies. Even if it means abandoning significant skills in entrepreneurship. There's essentially no risk to trying things out in college.

Re: 11th grade

#35

Post by timr »

sown wrote: post #30
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…

You're talking to someone who not only went to a public high school (and not a particularly great one), but had to fight to take college courses, as well as the few AP classes the school offered. I was just as bored as you writing five-paragraph essays; I winced my way through such winning courses as "Home Economics" and "Typing", as well as a chemistry class where everything was taught as a fact to be memorized, without context or theory. When I went to college, I was convinced that I hated biology, because in high school it had been taught as a simple matter of memorizing nomenclature (I went on to get PhD in biochemistry, so I guess I was wrong about that).

So yeah, high school sucked for me sometimes, too. But I think the difference is this:

"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."

Ya know what? I did a lot of that stuff because I enjoyed it. I didn't pad my resume by playing in the band; I absolutely loved to play (still do). And I took the AP classes because I learned more. I'll give you that Key Club kind of sucked, but then again, I never really joined -- I was too busy with the debate team and the newspaper. And my knowledge of Keats? Occasionally useful on trivia nights down at the bar.

You can see these things as hoops, or you can see them as opportunities. I'd rather know the guy who does the latter.

Re: 11th grade

#36

Post by anewaccountname »

tptacek wrote: post #22
falsestprophet wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh come on, Jim Davis at the bottom? Garfield may be terrible, but have you ever read Marmaduke?

Re: 11th grade

#37

Post by thomasmallen »

markbao wrote: post #11

Currently in 11th grade. Can highly relate. I've been working on a few startups for a couple years, exited a few things (not for a lot), working in PHP and now Rails, and it's far more exciting than hs. http://markbao.com (old, somewhat crappy stuff there, new stuff http://files.markbao.com/newstuff.jpg ) I'm not thinking about dropping out, though. The risk is too great to just drop out and work on startups. I'm try…

I'm looking over your stuff at http://markbao.com/ ... it looks like you're more concerned with appearing to be an entrepeneur than with the work itself and product quality. These sites are simply fluff.

Also, I'm not sure how you can really create quality small business collaboration tools without having been in the working world. Just an observation.

Making $10B is not a very admirable life goal: http://markbao.com/lifegoals . Not to mention that $10B will be today's $200M in fifteen years.

Good luck with what you're doing, and be sure to focus.

Re: 11th grade

#39

Post by markbao »

thomasmallen wrote: post #37
markbao wrote: post #11

Currently in 11th grade. Can highly relate. I've been working on a few startups for a couple years, exited a few things (not for a lot), working in PHP and now Rails, and it's far more exciting than hs. http://markbao.com (old, somewhat crappy stuff there, new stuff http://files.markbao.com/newstuff.jpg ) I'm not thinking about dropping out, though. The risk is too great to just drop out and work on startups. I'm try…

I'm looking over your stuff at http://markbao.com/ ... it looks like you're more concerned with appearing to be an entrepeneur than with the work itself and product quality. These sites are simply fluff. Also, I'm not sure how you can really create quality small business collaboration tools without having been in the working world. Just an observation. Making $10B is not a very admirable life goal: http://markbao.com…

Thanks for the feedback.

>These sites are simply fluff.

The sites on there are pretty old, which is why I linked a newer list (incl http://ramamia.com) The third isn't an open site, fourth and fifth just experiments.

>Also, I'm not sure how you can really create quality small business collaboration tools without having been in the working world. Just an observation.

You're right, though I'm not really saying AOD is the best in the world while there are many more. It was something I wanted to manage my work, and it worked for me. Hopefully it helps others. If it doesn't, then so be it.

>Making $10B is not a very admirable life goal: http://markbao.com/lifegoals . Not to mention that $10B will be today's $200M in fifteen years.

It's a goal and an aspiration, that I'd like to meet. Care to elaborate on why it's not an admirable goal?

Again, thanks.

Re: 11th grade

#40

Post by jey »

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…

Er, what exactly is intellectual about 1300 hours of busy work? I fully support learning/reading/studying, but formal education only includes those things obliquely as an accidental side effect. High School is mostly about babysitting and obedience -- your success is measured by your willingness to jump through arbitrary hoops specified by authority figures. Sure, the ones who take an interest in the material will learn something, but that has a lot more to do with the individual than the school system.

I still think going to school and college is the right decision for well over 99% of students, but I think it's a big mistake to treat formal education as a one-size-fits-all panacea.

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