Better for what? Valedictorians will suffer and sweat under an overseer of their own making -- goal from the future. Failed intellectuals will enjoy the immediate fun of solving a complex problem or satisfying their innate curiosity yet rapidly changing priorities as soon they get bored. At what price?
I personally enjoy the carpe-diemishly failed intellectual's path; I don't deem myself smart but I do enjoy hacking C++, Ruby and LISP out of pure fun and my college GPA is around 2.4 with several failed classes. I never finished high school due to bureaucratic crap I haven't liked to deal with. I've done drugs too, just out of curiosity. I probably look like a typical failed teenager but I can't look at myself with a pair of eyes other than mine.
My friend is a totally different story. Before his freshman year of high school he set a goal -- get a 4.0 GPA and get into a totally awesome university.
I watched him -- it was easy since we shared schools -- months and months, digging into assignments, spending nights at the library, working a part-time job and paying an SAT tutor. He was like a bulldog; he grasped the system by the very throat (yet he seemed like a prisoner of his own mind). He got 3.99 GPA and 2200 SAT (up from 1680). He kept focus for four years. I consider myself lucky if I keep focused on something for more than two months. He went to Berkeley.
Me? I consistently skipped school, learned stuff on my own, been the typical slacker, failed classes, and somehow picked up programming contracts while in high school.
Now he's finishing Berkeley and I'm taking classes in community college, just for intellectual stimulation, working part-time as a C++ programmer and towards my goal: frugal passive income from web-startup that would give me freedom to explore and learn, not being stuck in office (like he might).
My friend has prestige, respect and he is very succesful but I wouldn't live his life even for a second. I value the freedom from all that crap too highly :)
Different people want different things, I guess. Hope that answered your question.
I personally enjoy the carpe-diemishly failed intellectual's path; I don't deem myself smart but I do enjoy hacking C++, Ruby and LISP out of pure fun and my college GPA is around 2.4 with several failed classes. I never finished high school due to bureaucratic crap I haven't liked to deal with. I've done drugs too, just out of curiosity. I probably look like a typical failed teenager but I can't look at myself with a pair of eyes other than mine.
My friend is a totally different story. Before his freshman year of high school he set a goal -- get a 4.0 GPA and get into a totally awesome university.
I watched him -- it was easy since we shared schools -- months and months, digging into assignments, spending nights at the library, working a part-time job and paying an SAT tutor. He was like a bulldog; he grasped the system by the very throat (yet he seemed like a prisoner of his own mind). He got 3.99 GPA and 2200 SAT (up from 1680). He kept focus for four years. I consider myself lucky if I keep focused on something for more than two months. He went to Berkeley.
Me? I consistently skipped school, learned stuff on my own, been the typical slacker, failed classes, and somehow picked up programming contracts while in high school.
Now he's finishing Berkeley and I'm taking classes in community college, just for intellectual stimulation, working part-time as a C++ programmer and towards my goal: frugal passive income from web-startup that would give me freedom to explore and learn, not being stuck in office (like he might).
My friend has prestige, respect and he is very succesful but I wouldn't live his life even for a second. I value the freedom from all that crap too highly :)
Different people want different things, I guess. Hope that answered your question.