
Ask HN: How important is high school really? - Banekin
I'm a sophomore right now and lately I just feel like school is completely irrelevant to anything I will do in the future, besides the credentials I will have I guess. With all the talk about Khan Academy and education recently I felt the need to post this. Also to clarify I don't want to claim that school isn't important for everyone, but in my case 95% of the material I can confidently say isn't.<p>So I guess my question is how much should I be allotting my time to personal projects, and should I feel bad if my grades suffer because of it? (By suffering I mean having about a 90% GPA as opposed to a higher one if I really applied myself. I'm not going to do poorly, I'm just not going to be exceptional academically.) I have a really hard time grasping that grades != intelligence, so it does bother me when they are lower.<p>Anyway, you guys have more life experience than I do, so please convince me to do my homework.
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samdk
Evaluate what the consequences of getting a 90% average are, and decide
whether it's going to hurt you or not. If you're applying to very selective
schools it likely will. If you're starting your own company it won't matter at
all. I did most of my work during my lunch period (it's astonishing how much
busywork you can bullshit your way through in 30 minutes--I almost never had
any work to do at home except for AP classes), ended up with a mid-90s
average, got into a very good college, and am very happy with how things
turned out.

Don't ignore the things that don't interest you just because they don't
interest you. Even the things that aren't directly relevant to your future can
become very useful in unexpected ways. School might be an incredibly
inefficient way of learning things for you, but if you're forced to be there,
put the time to good use. (I might be very happy with how things have turned
out in general, but I do wish I'd put actual effort into my foreign language
classes.)

One thing to look into is graduating early. I graduated a year early from HS,
and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. (I'm now a senior in
college.) I had to take English classes at a local community college for one
summer to satisfy requirements, but otherwise it didn't really change much for
me. If you're interested, talk to your guidance counselor _now_. I started
planning in the beginning of my sophomore year.

I should really be doing work right now, but if you have questions about
anything or would like someone who's been through this before to talk to, my
email's in my profile.

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staunch
Do well enough in school to keep everyone happy (including yourself). Spend
the rest of your time learning deeply about something that genuinely interests
you. Everything will work out.

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keiferski
Don't disregard high school until you've actually done something significant
on your own time. Saying "this is a waste of time" doesn't have much merit
when you haven't launched a successful product yet.

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havoc2005
TL;DR: Finish HS and college ASAP, take huge risks, don't think about the
consequences. If you fail, fall back on your college degree for a stable job

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dmazin
Depends on how good you believe your high school school is. I went to a
terrible school, so I dropped out. Am I feeling any consequences? Not yet, I
guess. I got into a mediocre four-year anyway (that turned out to have an
amazing math department) but came back to community college to transfer to a
good public school. I think, were I to do it again, I'd drop out of high
school as early as possible (16), start community college full-time, and
transfer into a good public four-year, two years ahead of everyone. This is
best done in California. Disclaimer: Don't listen to me.

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runjake
High school, like everything else in life, is what you make of it.

I focused much of my time in high school on electronics projects (I wanted to
be an EE at the time) and being in classes or "assistant" periods where I had
access to the school computers & VAX system. The rest of my classes, I did
enough to get by. Although I later gained an immense love for the two classes
I hated the most in HS (math & history).

(Ethically) exploit your environment, resources, and options to reach your
particular goals.

Also, don't act so grown up. Use this time to enjoy your youth. Time drifts
faster and faster as you get older.

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havoc2005
High School is completely irrelevant in life if your goals will not correlate
with the years of geography, history, and literature you have to put up with.
However, in your situation you will want to do good but get out as soon as
humanly possible. If you can somehow take extra classes over the summer or
self study and skip grades that would be idea. Go to college, network your ass
off, but don't depend on college to make you any more satisfied then
highschool has. With that being said, finish college as soon as possible as
well, again, the key here is to network and meet as many people in your
desired career field/goal as possible and then take huge risks. Use your high
school and college degrees as fall backs in case you ever fail in life and are
too burned out to continue.

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runjake
I disagree. Geography, history and literature take up a rather significant
part of this "old guy's" hobby time.

The seeds for these were planted by particularly good teachers in HS.

~~~
havoc2005
Well, to clarify, I'm a huge geography, history, and literature geek. I
believe that, for the sake of reforming our educational system, less focus
needs to be placed on classic literature and maybe have a better redefined and
effective geography and history curriculum which covers more in less time.
Less repetition throughout the years on those subjects and more focus on more
practical subjects such as finance, business, career analysis, and IT. If you
feel the need to progress your education in those other subjects beyond the
amount that will give you general knowledge, then you can always self study as
I have. I'm not downplaying the importance, just saying that the education
system puts too much focus on it.

