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Ask HN: How important is high school really?

5 points by Banekin ↗ HN
I'm a sophomore right now and lately I just feel like school is completely irrelevant to anything I will do in the future, besides the credentials I will have I guess. With all the talk about Khan Academy and education recently I felt the need to post this. Also to clarify I don't want to claim that school isn't important for everyone, but in my case 95% of the material I can confidently say isn't.

So I guess my question is how much should I be allotting my time to personal projects, and should I feel bad if my grades suffer because of it? (By suffering I mean having about a 90% GPA as opposed to a higher one if I really applied myself. I'm not going to do poorly, I'm just not going to be exceptional academically.) I have a really hard time grasping that grades != intelligence, so it does bother me when they are lower.

Anyway, you guys have more life experience than I do, so please convince me to do my homework.

10 comments

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havoc2005
High School is completely irrelevant in life if your goals will not correlate with the years of geography, history, and literature you have to put up with. However, in your situation you will want to do good but get out as soon as humanly possible. If you can somehow take extra classes over the summer or self study and skip grades that would be idea. Go to college, network your ass off, but don't depend on college to make you any more satisfied then highschool has. With that being said, finish college as soon as possible as well, again, the key here is to network and meet as many people in your desired career field/goal as possible and then take huge risks. Use your high school and college degrees as fall backs in case you ever fail in life and are too burned out to continue.
runjake
I disagree. Geography, history and literature take up a rather significant part of this "old guy's" hobby time.

The seeds for these were planted by particularly good teachers in HS.

havoc2005
Well, to clarify, I'm a huge geography, history, and literature geek. I believe that, for the sake of reforming our educational system, less focus needs to be placed on classic literature and maybe have a better redefined and effective geography and history curriculum which covers more in less time. Less repetition throughout the years on those subjects and more focus on more practical subjects such as finance, business, career analysis, and IT. If you feel the need to progress your education in those other subjects beyond the amount that will give you general knowledge, then you can always self study as I have. I'm not downplaying the importance, just saying that the education system puts too much focus on it.
havoc2005
TL;DR: Finish HS and college ASAP, take huge risks, don't think about the consequences. If you fail, fall back on your college degree for a stable job
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staunch
Do well enough in school to keep everyone happy (including yourself). Spend the rest of your time learning deeply about something that genuinely interests you. Everything will work out.
dmazin
Depends on how good you believe your high school school is. I went to a terrible school, so I dropped out. Am I feeling any consequences? Not yet, I guess. I got into a mediocre four-year anyway (that turned out to have an amazing math department) but came back to community college to transfer to a good public school. I think, were I to do it again, I'd drop out of high school as early as possible (16), start community college full-time, and transfer into a good public four-year, two years ahead of everyone. This is best done in California. Disclaimer: Don't listen to me.
samdk
Evaluate what the consequences of getting a 90% average are, and decide whether it's going to hurt you or not. If you're applying to very selective schools it likely will. If you're starting your own company it won't matter at all. I did most of my work during my lunch period (it's astonishing how much busywork you can bullshit your way through in 30 minutes--I almost never had any work to do at home except for AP classes), ended up with a mid-90s average, got into a very good college, and am very happy with how things turned out.

Don't ignore the things that don't interest you just because they don't interest you. Even the things that aren't directly relevant to your future can become very useful in unexpected ways. School might be an incredibly inefficient way of learning things for you, but if you're forced to be there, put the time to good use. (I might be very happy with how things have turned out in general, but I do wish I'd put actual effort into my foreign language classes.)

One thing to look into is graduating early. I graduated a year early from HS, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. (I'm now a senior in college.) I had to take English classes at a local community college for one summer to satisfy requirements, but otherwise it didn't really change much for me. If you're interested, talk to your guidance counselor now. I started planning in the beginning of my sophomore year.

I should really be doing work right now, but if you have questions about anything or would like someone who's been through this before to talk to, my email's in my profile.

keiferski
Don't disregard high school until you've actually done something significant on your own time. Saying "this is a waste of time" doesn't have much merit when you haven't launched a successful product yet.
runjake
High school, like everything else in life, is what you make of it.

I focused much of my time in high school on electronics projects (I wanted to be an EE at the time) and being in classes or "assistant" periods where I had access to the school computers & VAX system. The rest of my classes, I did enough to get by. Although I later gained an immense love for the two classes I hated the most in HS (math & history).

(Ethically) exploit your environment, resources, and options to reach your particular goals.

Also, don't act so grown up. Use this time to enjoy your youth. Time drifts faster and faster as you get older.