It definitely helped for getting into college, which helped me out a lot, though fittingly I did end up dropping out of college years into it because of more projects I picked up on my own which then helped get me a job.
I think a lot of homework is busywork, made under the idea that nothing a kid does already outside of school has educational value. It's a shame that some of the most educational experiences I had were in conflict with the system. But then again, maybe that is an unusual experience? I think there's a stereotype I don't want to fall into, of autodidacts who fail to realize something unusual happened with them and think that all that's necessary to put others onto their path is to merely remove the obstacle of school. I wonder if it's possible for schools to better encourage this kind of experience, of kids learning through fostering mildly-competitive scenes of projects like this.
