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Interestingly, the advice in this article pretty much aligns with what I did, although I can't claim I did what I did with any grand strategic vision. I mostly

Interestingly, the advice in this article pretty much aligns with what I did, although I can't claim I did what I did with any grand strategic vision. I mostly blew off high school doing the bare minimum necessary to graduate, while spending as much time as possible in-person and online with adults who worked in tech and would mentor me, working on side projects, and volunteering on open source. I went to college, but ultimately dropped out, with my most valuable time at community college where I was able to get tech certifications as part of my classwork. It's been more than 20 years since I left high school and I've had a very good career and life despite having no degrees and a piss-poor high school GPA, because ultimately none of that actually matters in the real world. All that matters is who you know and whether you can do the job. If you know people who will give you a chance and you can actually succeed at the job, you'll do fine. Learning actual skills that other people care about and value is far more important than being able to regurgitate bullshit for a test to get a piece of paper that's meaningless. My only real regret is that I didn't just drop out of high school and get my GED so I could focus more time on my side-projects at the time.

squarepizza 3y ago
> while spending as much time as possible in-person and online with adults who worked in tech and would mentor me, working on side projects Sounds like quite a privilege.
- tristor 3y ago
  > Sounds like quite a privilege. Cool. And? Yep, I was privileged to have a computer at home and family members who worked at a university so I could get a dial-up SLIP Internet connection and access to Usenet and IRC. So what. How is that even a remotely useful response to my comment?
  - rovolo 3y ago
    The article is explicitly advice for students. It matches the path your life took, but would your advice to drop out and get a GED be good advice for someone without your privilege?
    - tristor 3y ago
      Point out where /I/ provided advice for anyone? I described what I did and my observations, I didn’t provide advise for anyone else. There’s way too many people who reply to every personal anecdote shared online by “calling out” the sharer’s “privilege”, which adds absolutely nothing of value to the conversation and implies that nothing about the sharer is relevant or important except their demographics. It’s not the efforts I put in seeking out mentors, contributing docs and code and my time volunteering in open source, studying and passing certifications, or any of my long hours and excellence in the workplace. Oh no, no, not any of that. It’s my “privilege”, that’s all that matters. Oh fuck off, both of you, seriously. You don’t know anything about me and your responses to what I shared are a net reduction in value to this entire conversation. Be better.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> Learning actual skills that other people care about and value is far more important than being able to regurgitate bullshit for a test to get a piece of paper that's meaningless. Reminds me of the quote "the A students lead the C students, who are the bosses of the B students"
WalterBright 3y ago
You're right that today's high school diploma has little meaning. There's nothing wrong with the idea of the diploma, but plenty wrong with the institution that issues it. For example, you found tech certifications to be valuable to you, and indicated a GED was valuable as well.

squarepizza 3y ago

> while spending as much time as possible in-person and online with adults who worked in tech and would mentor me, working on side projects Sounds like quite a privilege.

tristor 3y ago
> Sounds like quite a privilege. Cool. And? Yep, I was privileged to have a computer at home and family members who worked at a university so I could get a dial-up SLIP Internet connection and access to Usenet and IRC. So what. How is that even a remotely useful response to my comment?
- rovolo 3y ago
  The article is explicitly advice for students. It matches the path your life took, but would your advice to drop out and get a GED be good advice for someone without your privilege?
  - tristor 3y ago
    Point out where /I/ provided advice for anyone? I described what I did and my observations, I didn’t provide advise for anyone else. There’s way too many people who reply to every personal anecdote shared online by “calling out” the sharer’s “privilege”, which adds absolutely nothing of value to the conversation and implies that nothing about the sharer is relevant or important except their demographics. It’s not the efforts I put in seeking out mentors, contributing docs and code and my time volunteering in open source, studying and passing certifications, or any of my long hours and excellence in the workplace. Oh no, no, not any of that. It’s my “privilege”, that’s all that matters. Oh fuck off, both of you, seriously. You don’t know anything about me and your responses to what I shared are a net reduction in value to this entire conversation. Be better.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

> Learning actual skills that other people care about and value is far more important than being able to regurgitate bullshit for a test to get a piece of paper that's meaningless. Reminds me of the quote "the A students lead the C students, who are the bosses of the B students"

WalterBright 3y ago

You're right that today's high school diploma has little meaning. There's nothing wrong with the idea of the diploma, but plenty wrong with the institution that issues it. For example, you found tech certifications to be valuable to you, and indicated a GED was valuable as well.