Paul Graham on high school
In "What You'll Wish You'd Known," Paul Graham tells high school students to take life more seriously than school.
To Sum Up:
Don't give up. But not "don't give up on your dreams" - sometimes, dreams don't work out.
Don't be lazy.
"What someone else with your abilities can do, you can do; and don't underestimate your abilities."
Stay upwind of your plans - work on hard problems, learn hard, useful things.
Treat high school like a day job, not the focus of your four years.
Don't focus too hard on college admission, either, because the stuff needed for admission isn't always that useful.
Basically, much of high school, and much of college admissions, is crud.
Be curious. Good, mature curiosity turns work into play. A lot of geniuses have/had no self-discipline, but did what they did because they enjoyed it. Don't be lazy, but don't settle for doing painful work. "Find a way to make it interesting".
Work now on something that interests you, even if it doesn't seem to be useful for your goals.
Don't waste all of your time "hanging out." It's just the 16-year-old's version of the 8-year-old kids' "playing." You're too old for it.
There ya go. The whole article has more detail, and I particularly recommend the footnotes. I'll leave you with the best one.
The key to wasting time is distraction. Without distractions it's too obvious to your brain that you're not doing anything with it, and you start to feel uncomfortable. If you want to measure how dependent you've become on distractions, try this experiment: set aside a chunk of time on a weekend and sit alone and think. You can have a notebook to write your thoughts down in, but nothing else: no friends, TV, music, phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or magazines. Within an hour most people will feel a strong craving for distraction.
To Sum Up:
Don't give up. But not "don't give up on your dreams" - sometimes, dreams don't work out.
Don't be lazy.
"What someone else with your abilities can do, you can do; and don't underestimate your abilities."
Stay upwind of your plans - work on hard problems, learn hard, useful things.
Treat high school like a day job, not the focus of your four years.
Don't focus too hard on college admission, either, because the stuff needed for admission isn't always that useful.
Basically, much of high school, and much of college admissions, is crud.
Be curious. Good, mature curiosity turns work into play. A lot of geniuses have/had no self-discipline, but did what they did because they enjoyed it. Don't be lazy, but don't settle for doing painful work. "Find a way to make it interesting".
Work now on something that interests you, even if it doesn't seem to be useful for your goals.
Don't waste all of your time "hanging out." It's just the 16-year-old's version of the 8-year-old kids' "playing." You're too old for it.
There ya go. The whole article has more detail, and I particularly recommend the footnotes. I'll leave you with the best one.
The key to wasting time is distraction. Without distractions it's too obvious to your brain that you're not doing anything with it, and you start to feel uncomfortable. If you want to measure how dependent you've become on distractions, try this experiment: set aside a chunk of time on a weekend and sit alone and think. You can have a notebook to write your thoughts down in, but nothing else: no friends, TV, music, phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or magazines. Within an hour most people will feel a strong craving for distraction.
posted by Derby at 15:55
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