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> Looking back now I wish I had actually taken a year off before college, as opposed to skipping a grade in a hurry to get there, and I encourage every high sch

> Looking back now I wish I had actually taken a year off before college, as opposed to skipping a grade in a hurry to get there, and I encourage every high school student and parent I know to think in these terms. 100% agreed. I took a year out to work in software before University. Despite being completely disregarded by employers, it changed my perspective on independence, time management, and the risk of not making the most of opportunities. It's one of the best life decisions that I've made.

somethoughts 5y ago
It would seem better to do as many hard, high investment (i.e. time and energy), high risk of failure but high reward things as young as possible while still having a societal protection blanket of "that's impressive for a high schooler". No one expects much from a high schooler so if your "exploration" (startup, project, etc.) hits a bump - you can recover quite easily and just re-join the mainstream. "Explorations" after graduation can look like unemployment to potential employer. Also with today's plethora of online education available there's unlimited amount of options for exploration. In fact going deep application domain wise before college can be a great way to motivate deeper study of theory once in college. Imagine being a high schooler today mucking around with tensor flow apis. Once you get to college all those black magic random functions (i.e. predict(), fit()) you were calling in the Google tutorials will all of sudden make sense.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rpmisms 5y ago
I did something like that, but I never stopped. Software doesn't need a degree, and I realized I wasn't interested in the debt. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm enjoying making my own way so far.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I would implore some form of higher studies though. Not all college is a waste, and even within software, putting your focus towards a topic and doing a PhD is life changing in terms of giving you more structure. The world needs smart people to guide it in all directions. Too many of them are now being wasted moving money around and showing ads.
  - bopbeepboop 5y ago
    Your comment provides an interesting perspective on why: You lament people are doing X, and implore them to do Y to accomplish Z, but don’t analyze that perhaps X-not-Y is the rational way to accomplish Z from their perspective. My thinking is so many viewing college/graduate programs as a waste is a sign they’re offering a bad product.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    I focus heavily on continuing education, as schedule and energy allow.
- woofie11 5y ago
  Software, plumbing, and car mechanics don't need a degree. They are technician work. However, if you can have a much more fun life if you have a deep understanding of things like signal processing, image processing, differential equations, control systems, dynamics, etc. Those let you do things like building medical imaging systems, autonomous robots, or deep learning systems. They're much more intellectually fulfilling than just coding, which loses its charm after a bit. You're also not competing against low-cost coders, which isn't a problem in the current market, but economies are cyclical. When the next recession comes, having more specialized skills is more helpful. These do require mentorship, guidance, and some form of study. As much as coming into university straight out of high school is often a bad idea, so is skipping it altogether. The key problem is these aren't skills you can pick up incrementally. They take years of focused study. For example, you can't learn control systems without diff. eq. which in turn requires calculus. There's little immediate reward to learning calculus and diff eq, and little way to know what's important without expert guidance.

somethoughts 5y ago

It would seem better to do as many hard, high investment (i.e. time and energy), high risk of failure but high reward things as young as possible while still having a societal protection blanket of "that's impressive for a high schooler". No one expects much from a high schooler so if your "exploration" (startup, project, etc.) hits a bump - you can recover quite easily and just re-join the mainstream. "Explorations" after graduation can look like unemployment to potential employer. Also with today's plethora of online education available there's unlimited amount of options for exploration. In fact going deep application domain wise before college can be a great way to motivate deeper study of theory once in college. Imagine being a high schooler today mucking around with tensor flow apis. Once you get to college all those black magic random functions (i.e. predict(), fit()) you were calling in the Google tutorials will all of sudden make sense.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

rpmisms 5y ago

I did something like that, but I never stopped. Software doesn't need a degree, and I realized I wasn't interested in the debt. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm enjoying making my own way so far.

ramraj07 5y ago
I would implore some form of higher studies though. Not all college is a waste, and even within software, putting your focus towards a topic and doing a PhD is life changing in terms of giving you more structure. The world needs smart people to guide it in all directions. Too many of them are now being wasted moving money around and showing ads.
- bopbeepboop 5y ago
  Your comment provides an interesting perspective on why: You lament people are doing X, and implore them to do Y to accomplish Z, but don’t analyze that perhaps X-not-Y is the rational way to accomplish Z from their perspective. My thinking is so many viewing college/graduate programs as a waste is a sign they’re offering a bad product.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  I focus heavily on continuing education, as schedule and energy allow.
woofie11 5y ago
Software, plumbing, and car mechanics don't need a degree. They are technician work. However, if you can have a much more fun life if you have a deep understanding of things like signal processing, image processing, differential equations, control systems, dynamics, etc. Those let you do things like building medical imaging systems, autonomous robots, or deep learning systems. They're much more intellectually fulfilling than just coding, which loses its charm after a bit. You're also not competing against low-cost coders, which isn't a problem in the current market, but economies are cyclical. When the next recession comes, having more specialized skills is more helpful. These do require mentorship, guidance, and some form of study. As much as coming into university straight out of high school is often a bad idea, so is skipping it altogether. The key problem is these aren't skills you can pick up incrementally. They take years of focused study. For example, you can't learn control systems without diff. eq. which in turn requires calculus. There's little immediate reward to learning calculus and diff eq, and little way to know what's important without expert guidance.