3 ms·

from anyone out there feeling the pressure - i did only well enough in highschool to get into a halfway decent college (good public school), and then graduated

from anyone out there feeling the pressure - i did only well enough in highschool to get into a halfway decent college (good public school), and then graduated there with a 2.0 out of guilt of wasting my parents' money. i literally had the minimum required GPA to graduate - not a coincidence. i'm not saying you should do this, but it's what happened, and those were the choices i made at that (very) young age. i'm doing just fine. people end up all over the map and it usually has very little to do with what they did in school. i know academic overachievers who never got anywhere in life, and total slackers who found their niche a few years later. my co-founder is a drop-out, not because of grand ambitions but because he just said 'fuck this' a few months into it. the trick is to find something to do something well (and do well in), it doesn't have to be school. it doesn't even have to be making money (and if you follow the logic when rationalizing over-pressuring kids in school, it always goes back to money. always.)

craigyk 11y ago
When it comes to youthful ambitions, time is the ultimate equalizer.
lfowles 11y ago
> from anyone out there feeling the pressure - i did only well enough in highschool to get into a halfway decent college (good public school), and then graduated there with a 2.0 out of guilt of wasting my parents' money. i literally had the minimum required GPA to graduate - not a coincidence. i'm not saying you should do this, but it's what happened, and those were the choices i made at that (very) young age. > > i'm doing just fine. people end up all over the map and it usually has very little to do with what they did in school. Absolutely. I went to a pretty dang small school in Kansas (18 in my graduating class), which offered no AP classes and barely even had a calculus class. Followed this up by attending a state college (almost automatic admission for decent students) and now I have a fulfilling job, at an established company I had never heard of, straddling the line of software and hardware that I look forward to going to (almost) every day. I did not push myself 10% as hard as most of the comments on this very thread, even. Life goes on. Now, I may not have the same opportunities available as if I had gone to an engineering school everyone has heard of, but is that worth the cost?

craigyk 11y ago

When it comes to youthful ambitions, time is the ultimate equalizer.

lfowles 11y ago

> from anyone out there feeling the pressure - i did only well enough in highschool to get into a halfway decent college (good public school), and then graduated there with a 2.0 out of guilt of wasting my parents' money. i literally had the minimum required GPA to graduate - not a coincidence. i'm not saying you should do this, but it's what happened, and those were the choices i made at that (very) young age. > > i'm doing just fine. people end up all over the map and it usually has very little to do with what they did in school. Absolutely. I went to a pretty dang small school in Kansas (18 in my graduating class), which offered no AP classes and barely even had a calculus class. Followed this up by attending a state college (almost automatic admission for decent students) and now I have a fulfilling job, at an established company I had never heard of, straddling the line of software and hardware that I look forward to going to (almost) every day. I did not push myself 10% as hard as most of the comments on this very thread, even. Life goes on. Now, I may not have the same opportunities available as if I had gone to an engineering school everyone has heard of, but is that worth the cost?