Ask HN: Advice for accomplished but unchallenged high school senior
He has been in robotics - combat initially and VEX last few years.
Finished one semester intro to computer science, says that he gets binary and hexadecimal counting systems, did a lot of pseudo code with that class and is now teaching himself C++ because that is what is required for the computer engineering degree. I got him started on Project Euler as a way to give him specific problems to solve using C++ and give him a way to measure progress.
So far none of these seem to have really challenged him. He faithfully attends class, takes sparse to okay notes and studying for a major test consists of an hour or so of browsing back through notes and reworking a couple of problems for math and physics and less if it is a liberal arts class - maintaining 4.0 without much effort while taking the hardest classes available.
I suspect that there are a number of people here on HN that were very much like him as a high school senior.
What would you suggest as ways to challenge him?
Suggestions for summer job - he did some construction grunt work a couple summers ago, then tutored math last summer.
If you were like him at that age what might you do different? Or, what was really engaging that might not be obvious?
Thanks
14 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 21.6 ms ] threadEdit: also don’t get cocky. Nothing you wrote sounds particularly impressive to me.
> Also, take time for personal learning and development in undergrad.
In particular, learn how to deal with people - especially people who aren't like you. Technical stuff can be easy. Dealing well with people is hard.
Do you have any specific suggestions about activities to broaden or deepen his people skills?
The one thing I might say is that it starts with realizing that people actually matter. Being right matters, knowing the tech matters, but people really matter as well.
A big, big plus to that! That's the major lesson I had to learn these past two years. Smart people can achieve clever things. Smart people who also care about the people around them can achieve great things.
If he wants a challenge, it sounds like he should look for professors offering undergraduate research opportunities. It doesn't necessarily have to be directly in CS. I worked with a professor on a polymer chemistry project while earning my undergraduate CS degree. He got someone who could troubleshoot data acquisition hardware and write software for analysis; I got to learn more about chemistry and statistics. It was a fantastic experience.
I was at a small liberal arts college. I would presume that there would be even more research opportunities at a Big 10 university, though I don't know if it is hard to make personal contacts on such large campuses.
Education is a very important thing but ultimately it has to be applied in order to be of use. A lot of people who did well within the structured confines of a classroom environment fall down when they reach the real world.
A Raspberry Pi board is a computer that one can conveniently attach things to and control them from software. He could build a variety of interesting systems with it.
A FPGA board would allow him to design digital circuits. He could, with enough skill, create his own custom CPU and computer from scratch. That's a fairly stiff challenge for even college juniors in a computer architecture course.
I know that when I was in his shoes, I felt like I tried everything to find meaning (community college classes, reading books, learning new subjects, etc), but it took me literally moving out and into a group house in San Francisco to find a community of other people like me (see https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-06-07/real-teenage... for my story).
I think it's all about finding like-minded peers that push you. If he's into computer science, perhaps there are hackathons near him? Or maybe he'd get value out of our Slack (https://slack.hackclub.com)? We have a lot of students like him in our community.
We put together https://hackathons.hackclub.com to aggregate high school hackathons and https://mlh.io/seasons/na-2019/events is the best resource for college hackathons if it's helpful.
It is very much possible to get an outstanding education at public universities. I went to the University of Wisconsin for my Ph.D. in math, and they have a fabulous graduate program. I know some of the professors there are also very devoted to excellent undergraduate education.
But my sense is that the usual outcome is a good education, and to get a truly top-notch education at a large public university, you have to seek it out. Some people naturally do this, but seeking out opportunities is a talent -- one I mostly lacked myself as an undergraduate. From what I can discern, it's easy to miss out.
Whereas at a private university there will be a lot of peer pressure. I went to Rice as an undergrad, and I met a lot of fellow students who were incredibly accomplished and motivated at a variety of pursuits (academic and otherwise). The peer pressure very much pushed me in the right direction. Although some people don't need this, or don't really benefit from it, I did.
My point is not to say "private universities are better than public" -- there are many excellent public universities, and plenty of mediocre private ones. If the Big 10 place is his only choice, then good luck there -- all of the Big 10 schools are good universities, and some are excellent.
But, if possible, I'd suggest that he be as deliberate as possible in his choice of university. I wouldn't worry too much about whether CC credits will be accepted or not; instead, I'd try to figure out (as much as I could) what the classes are like, and what the student experience is.
I used to work remotely with firms in the Boston area. I would travel to Boston several times a year and worked with a number of Harvard and other Ivy League graduates.
I tried to convey to my son the value of the network that Harvard supplies. Not only your own student cohort, but also the uniformly high quality of world-class professors and alumni who are in positions of leadership and influence. But for some reason he wanted to go to school close to home and chose our state university. At some point I decided that me pushing was not worth the tension and that he could get a good education at a state university.
Assuming that he will go to graduate school, maybe he will try for some of the elites schools at that point.