If you are unfamiliar with the tale of the nine blind men and the elephant, be sure to look it up. [1] While I don't disagree with most of the advice already gi

If you are unfamiliar with the tale of the nine blind men and the elephant, be sure to look it up. [1] While I don't disagree with most of the advice already given, I don't think the advice given thus far paints a complete picture. For example, much of it is certainly good career advice but not so good if you are interested in computer science for its own sake. One project I wish I started when I was, say, 11 is developing all the software for some hardware. This includes the OS, the compilers, the network stack, the browser, the email client, the application server, etc. Of course, everything might be a little simple, but this is very much akin to how a car enthusiast might spend his/her free time re-building the engine of a classic car. This is a 5- to 10-year project that I would have perhaps completed by now had I started at 15! Also, I wonder if you'd be interested in doing computer science research rather than writing applications. There's a broad range of topics to choose from: robotics, operating systems, program analysis, graphics, and many, many more! Indeed, one of the reasons to go to a place like Stanford is that there is a lot of opportunity to perform research as an undergraduate. (Do a search for "stanford curis".) As for money, many researchers at Stanford, and indeed the very professors you will take classes from (e.g. Engler, Lam, Rosenblum, Ousterhout, ...), have successfully started companies based on their research. If you are interested, I can make time later to get into more details, but my main point is to keep in mind that an elephant is not its tusk, its tail, its trunk, etc., but rather the collection of it all! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant