

Ask HN: About To Finish High School, What Next? - bdean

Dear HNers,<p>I reach out to all of you for advise and general thoughts 
on my situation. I'm currently a senior in high school graduating
in May. I have many passions, but the past two years has been
more or less solidifing in my mind that I very much want to pursue
technology, and business (surprise!). Before we begin let
me tell you a bit about myself.<p>I grew up (still live in) a very technology "savvy" home. My father
is a control systems engineer and always insistled technical 
knowlegde on both my brother (who works in the medical IT field)
and I. I spent most of my time outside of school working on my
local FIRST Robotics Competition team (Google it, its awesome).
Last summer (Summer 2010) I was fortunate enough to use my
experience from FIRST (plus having contacts) to land a programming
internship at a logistics firm about a hour north of where I live.
After the summer I'd proven myself valuable enough (mostly writing
cucumber/selenium tests) to a small agile team that
they hired me on part time while I work through school.<p>But over the last year I've grown a large itch toward starting my own company...and its tough to let go of it. I have some ideas I've tossed around, but I've never really
had long periods of time to crank them out.<p>So at this point my natuaral progression from high school would be
to move on and pursue a computer science degree. Although, due to
financial, and academic issues moving into a four-year collage 
right out of high school isn't looking too bright.<p>So the question is whether I pursue going to a two year technical school with the plan on transfering to a four school for computer science? Or do I skip school for a year and pursue developing my ideas into potential companies?
======
keiferski
Take a gap year and see what happens. If you succeed, awesome. Otherwise, go
to school.

Going to college immediately after HS was probably one of the worst decisions
I've ever made.

~~~
maxharris
_Going to college immediately after HS was probably one of the worst decisions
I've ever made._

This was true for me, too! If you're not committed _fully_ to the idea of
_more school_ , do not go. You won't be giving it your all, and your grades
will show it. I tried to go to college and write software for my startup idea
at the same time. This resulted in an academic disaster that I had to later
work _very_ hard to recover from.

Pursue your startup idea. If it works out, you're better off^ than if you had
gone to college. If it bombs, you can pick yourself up and go to college, and
you'll be a _better, more focused student_ by this time!

^If you still want to go to college for some reason after a successful
startup, you can. It's a hell of a lot easier to study anything when you don't
have bills to pay. Just don't get into debt of any kind pursuing your startup.
If this means living with your parents, so be it. You'll find out quickly
enough is people want your thing enough to pay for it.

------
chromejs10
I agree with Shantanubala.

Once you put school off, it will get much harder to return to it. I know a lot
of people who go "Oh i'll take time off and save up some money and go back in
a year or two" but they never do. Also be careful going to non-four yr schools
from the start. If you have the grades, it would be good to go to a state
school (cheaper). Tons of people go to community colleges (or some other pre-
college school) to save money, but end up getting stuck there because units
wont transfer or they can't get their classes. They end up spending way more
money. Might be better off to just be a student worker and take out some
loans.

You read about kids dropping out of college to pursue their business ideas,
but the majority of them fail. You'd be better off getting a dual degree in
say CS and business. School will allow you to develop your ideas further and
get the connections you need to get a job or start a business.

best of luck!

------
shantanubala
I'm also in my senior year of high school, and I'll say this: don't skip on
school. You'll have free time, and you can put that time into starting a
company. But first, you have to just play around with stuff, and you'll always
meet people in any school. Find people who share your passion, because they'll
help you continue forward. And keep doing stuff like FIRST -- it's fun, but it
also helps you tackle problems well. If you start building stuff for fun that
seems like it'll make money, you've found an alternative to school. But
unlimited free time sounds fun, but I guarantee you'll be getting the same
amount of work done if you go to school and work on stuff in your free time.
You may even produce better work because you won't "have the time" to
procrastinate.

But it's all a matter of preference. I'm not really any wiser than you. But
one question: does the idea of school sound appealing to you on its own?

------
fooandbarify
If you really have the itch, my vote is to take a year and go all-out
entrepreneur. I'm on the far side of an electrical engineering degree and by
the end of it an extra year one way or the other makes no difference, but the
amount of experience to be gained from just one year of trying to run a
business is invaluable. If school is a priority for you, set a benchmark for
yourself so that you are not tempted to drag along a failing business for
years instead of going to school.

If you don't have access to a good network of hackers (to be a part of your
team and to go to for advice), ignore what I just said. Go to school - a CS
degree is probably the best way for a young person to build up a network of
programmers.

------
eswelsh
>So the question is whether I pursue going to a two year technical school with
the plan on transfering to a four school for computer science? Or do I skip
school for a year and pursue developing my ideas into potential companies?

Even if you don't finish college, I think you'll find that the experience will
improve the quality of your ideas and your ability to execute them.

------
bootload
read _"What you'll wish you'd known"_ ~ <http://paulgraham.com/hs.html>

------
grizzlylazer
HS senior from hong kong here! recently graduated and heading to college in
the bay area in september. i think it's a great idea to take a gap year to
figure out what you want to do next. there is a lot you can do in one year. if
you really have a great idea, the pursue it!

