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Ask HN: What's a young hacker to do?
Aside from being careful with our grades, what should young (high school) programmers be doing and aspiring to? I program as often as I can and (of course) check Hacker News for the latest. Recently, however, I've hit a wall. When I code, I worry that I will have nothing to show for it, though I might complete a project. What did you do as a high schooler and what do you think we should do?
- jeggers5 15y agoI'm in High School right now (the Irish equivielent anyway). Last year, I entered a Twitter-related project into a Science competition and I won my category. I've created software ranging from Copyright-protection to http://spreadapp.co http://spreadapp.co. My point is, there is no limitation to what you can do, the sky is the limit. Think of a cool project you'd like to work on, and make it to the best of your ability, and don't let anybody hold you back. You'll find at the end that you have a great piece of software (or a product) that you can have to show for your work, or sell! Good luck in the future!
- shii 15y agoBuild something that makes money from other businesses to get filthy rich.
- checker 15y agoI think its important focus on the development of your soft/social skills in addition to your technical skills. The combination of both will help you get far in interviews. Otherwise, if you go the entrepreneurial route, they will help you understand your customer. At the end of the day, we all need to communicate, and ideas tend to be only as valuable as we can communicate them. (this isn't a criticism, you seem to write well!) Also, have fun with your programming and experiment. Getting experience in fields and languages that you enjoy will enhance your likelihood of finding a job in those areas. The sooner you find your passion, the more experience you can build up before you look for full-time income.
- rhdoenges 15y agoI remember speaking to a university student at a Q&A session. Someone asked him, "what class did you take in high school that you feel helped you most here?" and he replied immediately, "AP English." He said it gave him the interpersonal and critical thinking skills that he needed to be successful as an adult. So, yes. I guess communication is a big deal. Thank you!
- pvarangot 15y agoI didn't particulary get into any of the two, but if you like algorithmics you should check out Topcoder and http://ioinformatics.org http://ioinformatics.org. Topcoder is full of highschoolers or young undergraduates. IOI is specially targeted towards them, though I think you need sponsorship from your educational institution to participate. Faring well in any of the two is something cool to add to your CV, and is highly valued by many firms in Silicon Valley.
- rhdoenges 15y agoI did Google Code Jam this year, which was really rewarding. Topcoder looks like it could be even better, especially with the frequency of competitions. As for IOI, my school only has a robotics team (which I am a member of), so I might start a group to compete in that. Thanks!
- canistr 15y agoAs long as you work on things that interests you, then just keep working at it. When I was in middle/high school, building forum communities from PHP and MySQL were all the rage. So I attempted to create my own community by buying a Linux server, installing PHP and MySQL, and installing the appropriate forum software. Then I proceeded to add mods to it and write my own mods. It was a fun project to learn Linux and PHP on. The best part was that most mods were 'modular' which made them easy to install and dissect the code of.
- JackStraw 15y agoConsider applying for an internship with the government? http://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/index.shtml http://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/index....
- rhdoenges 15y agoThanks for the link! I definitely have thought of interning, it's just that most internships are for college students only. I'm thinking of bothering some Seattle tech companies as well to see if I can convince them to take me for a summer.
- JackStraw 15y agoThe program is specifically designed for High School students. I would check it out, if you are interested.
- shahedkhan30 15y agoHey Guys, this thread is amazing. I'm also a high-school student, I currently reside in Illinois. Please feel free to email me, and we can arrange a meeting. Email: shahedkhan30@gmail.com
- adrusi 15y agoI'm a sophomore in high school and I completely understand your dilema. I would say just _do_ it. Build the app (or other type of project) you've always wanted to, and complete every part of it. You'll need to hire a designer if you want people to use it, but many professional designers are willing to trade services, so you don't need to spend anything there. What you do after you release your product depends on what it is. If it's a web app, then launch it on a good server, but something that doesn't cost too much. I'd recommend an EC2 server which is relatively low cost and gives you a free trial long enough to see what users will think of it before you make too big of an investment. If it looks like it's going to be successful, then you just succeeded in your goal. If not, you only made a small investment and try not to get discouraged; build something else. Apart from that, I would recommend you join forrst if you haven't already. If you haven't and need an invite, I can giv you one. Forrst really helped my programming skills go from just a hobby to something that people ask to hire me for without me ever having to search for clients. Forrst also helped me get my name out there. It's made my posts visible to enough developers that I've had my stuff tweeted about by people with over 20,000 followers. But above all I'd recommend to just learn as much as you can and get as much experience as possible. If you want to make a career out of it (which seems like a good fit for you), there's no such thing as too much knowledge or experience, it's what can separate you from the crowd. If you can finish college with a degree in another science field _and_ 6 or so years of real life programming experience, you'll be leagues ahead of the competition. Best of luck!
- winsbe01 15y agogreat answer, and great advice! I think this advice is great for _anyone_, not just people in high school. at least, I hope it is, because I feel moved to "just do it already", and I just graduated college!
- rhdoenges 15y agoThanks for the advice. I just now made a forrst, since they let you in if you have an active github. Best of luck to you as well!