3 ms·

YES! That's really all I can say. I agree with this so much. (Wow, I'm articulate!) I just wish it were easier to do. Personal story: I'm in high school right

YES! That's really all I can say. I agree with this so much. (Wow, I'm articulate!) I just wish it were easier to do. Personal story: I'm in high school right now. Many of the courses I'm taking are very... high-school-y. Low on content and high on busy-work and hand-waving. Some, though, I find are actually well taught; namely, my Statistics course and my Multivariable Calculus/DiffEq course. The teacher for the Stat course posted all the homework he plans to assign (all out of the book) online; while the teacher for Multivariable hasn't done that, he assigns the same homework every year, so I managed to get his homework from previous students. Currently, I'm done with my statistics course and 3/4 through the multivariable course, where both of them should be full-year courses. It just feels amazing to be learning at my own pace - the class speed in high school (and, I guess, college, and perhaps life) is catering to the lowest denominator. I know that I, and many of my classmates, could easily double or in some cases triple that speed.

teej 17y ago
I can understand why you want to go fast. You learn at lightning speed and high school classes seem beneath you. I did the same thing and ended up taking Grad level math courses at JHU my junior and senior year of high school. Looking back, I wished I had slowed down. Being years ahead has certainly put me ahead of my age group, but there's a huge amount of value you miss when you dump all your effort into academic learning. My advice is to take 20% of that passion and speed and put it into learning about people and social interactions. The high school theatre class I took has been more valuable in the real world than number theory or compilers. TL;DR - Been there, done that. Found out that being well rounded and socially engaging is a force multiplier on being deeply technical.
tlb 17y ago
The danger you face, and I speak from experience here, is that because you get such good results from studying math, you neglect other things like learning about history and developing social skills. You probably can't make progress 2-3x as fast as normal people there. So concentrate on your strengths, but don't neglect the other stuff. And please consider applying to Y Combinator and starting a startup when the time is right.

teej 17y ago

I can understand why you want to go fast. You learn at lightning speed and high school classes seem beneath you. I did the same thing and ended up taking Grad level math courses at JHU my junior and senior year of high school. Looking back, I wished I had slowed down. Being years ahead has certainly put me ahead of my age group, but there's a huge amount of value you miss when you dump all your effort into academic learning. My advice is to take 20% of that passion and speed and put it into learning about people and social interactions. The high school theatre class I took has been more valuable in the real world than number theory or compilers. TL;DR - Been there, done that. Found out that being well rounded and socially engaging is a force multiplier on being deeply technical.

tlb 17y ago

The danger you face, and I speak from experience here, is that because you get such good results from studying math, you neglect other things like learning about history and developing social skills. You probably can't make progress 2-3x as fast as normal people there. So concentrate on your strengths, but don't neglect the other stuff. And please consider applying to Y Combinator and starting a startup when the time is right.