Ask HN: The most impressive non-academic achievement?
It hit me when filling out an application form that most of my achievements have been largely academic.
Other than that I've spent most of my time exercising, socialising and volunteering. Nothing outstanding. I haven't done any expeditions, climbed high mountains or led a sports team to victory.
I wondered what some of the most impressive things you had seen in young people were.
Obviously you will have outliers who have started companies at 16 and sold them for a few hundred thousand etc.
But what are the things that you've heard of, or in fact done yourself that you've thought "Yeah wow, thats bloody impressive!"
Or perhaps I'm looking at this question the wrong way?
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* getting a book published with a major publisher
* winning a major award or trophy in almost any field/sport
* a blog with a lot of readers (or youtube channel)
* doing anything considered really difficult if you can tell the story in the right way
Working smart > working hard
- Buying and selling a company at the age of 16
- Replicating a Rembrandt blind-folded OR having your original painting sold at an art auction for value in excess of 6 figures
- Performing Mozart's Fifth Symphony one-handed at the age of 6
- Writing 10000 kanji on a grain of rice
In short, you are looking at this the right way. The application is looking for your most outlandish feat.
Edit: Bulletized list.
What is wrong with listing academic achievements? Or with volunteering? "With the volunteering org I'm part of, we've helped X people to Y" etc. IMO, it does not even have to be attributable solely to you, as many achievements require a team. If I was an employer, teamwork counts.
Figure out how your audience defines achievement and work backwards from there.
If you really want to do something impressive go for it. Don’t collect a set of prestigious certificates without actually achieving anything. Do something that actually makes a difference. The pseudonymous author of Mother of Learning[1] spent nine years writing a serial novel. If that’s all they’ve done with their life it’s a more impressive achievement than getting four prestige degrees and failing as a VC and CEO.
You do what you want with your life. No one else is ever going to know what you wanted to achieve unless you tell them. They won’t know what you actually achieved unless you tell them either.
[1] https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21220/mother-of-learning
"11-year-old skateboarder lands 1080" https://youtu.be/84VkS17b1P8?t=20
> Or perhaps I'm looking at this question the wrong way?
Yes. There are ~8 billion other people on the planet, trying to find a peak that hasn't already been climbed is probably not a good use of your time (unless you are truly driven, or called, to something.)
The great secret is to be of service to your fellow beings. If you measure your achievements by how much you have benefited the people around you you'll die happy and surrounded by love.
You can't take anything with you but you can affect what you leave behind.
Achieved 3rd jhana in concentration meditation.
I had to give up my degree in CompSci because I was becoming quadriplegic beginning in the early 2000's, And was unable to type. I then spent a decade working out how to become a computer scientist/robotic/terrible drone flyer. If that does not sound difficult, imagine coming home from work and finding out every single light switch, but, lever and key from your keyboard been removed. What do you do? I asked, you are also in pain.
Also, at the time there was no academic structure available to help, so I had to do it myself.
(I find this comment incredibly hard to write because I am a northern man from the UK and emotion is not something we do easily, this feels like boasting to me even though it answers your question. I am writing it Everybody else who might be struggling with some insurmountable problem with a very simple point: Do. Not. Give. Up.
Not ever, and you will either achieve your goal or die trying. You will almost certainly surprise yourself though.)
My partner says (and I think she is totally right) that I have major trouble when I have more than one emotion at the same time!
If you're concerned about feeling underachieved, then just try a variety of things! They may not be things that others find impressive, or that even you would think to find impressive. I found physical activity/dance, building a simple raytracer and making top post on HN to bring a stronger sense of achievement than getting into YC or college (both of which I worked harder for). I also think it's important to separate achievements from age if you're young, otherwise the sense of achievement will start to go away. tldr I think there's little correlation with what other people find impressive and what I feel "achieved" about.
Achievements are personal. "Achievement," just like "Success," is relative. I think the question is meant to draw out a personal story about overcoming obstacles to reach some goal. It doesn't need to be some world record or an Olympic medal.
Examples:
- Completing a half-marathon might be a major achievement for someone who's had life-long health and weight challenges, but not for a college athlete.
- Earning a college degree is a major achievement for an immigrant whose family came from a rural area of a developing country where few people completed school.
- For a high school student growing up in poverty, just earning enough through a small business to help parents pay the rent is a big achievement, without ever making millions or getting acquired.
- And so on...
It may just so happen that your achievement is uncommon, such as winning an ultra-marathon or selling a company at the age of 16, but I don't think that's what the application is looking for.
Now for most proud of: Organizing a group of people to provide food, once a month, to people in need.
Both had as a mental note, what would I regret not doing, if the end was soon. I find 'regret avoidance' a big motivator for myself. With the caveat or, what will I regret for not doing.
The thing is, doing those things at 16 is kind of set up for the purpose of filling in those forms. The UK's "Duke Of Edinburgh Award" scheme pretty much is designed to produce it. And of course it's part of the pipeline; the private school I went to strongly encouraged us to do either DofE, or the military cadets scheme, for at least a year. If you were good enough as an RAF cadet they'd even let you fly a plane eventually.
Having been placed on the Oxbridge pipeline, I arrived there to meet people from different parts of the UK with .. different experiences. Acquiring top marks at the nationwide maths exams despite being at a highly marginalised school, beyond the ability level of the teachers, despite a bomb going off in the distance during the exam, is definitely impressive.
Honestly, my most grounding achievement, one that feels more real than anything else I've done, is that I got hit by a hurricane and, lacking resources and available contractors, built a new roof myself. Whatever else I do or fail to do, this roof is a good roof.
For people still in school, or applying to school (which I'm guessing is the application you're filling out?), I would say it's about projects. When I was in high school in 1998, I built a "portable" MP3 player using Linux and old computer parts that I put into a backpack. It didn't have a monitor, so we used the keyboard LEDs as control system. It was called the PIMP - the portable illegal music player.
Was this some impressive achievement that no one else could have done? Certainly not. But it's something you can talk about. Overcoming challenges are the achievements, what challenge is interesting to some, but how to overcome is interesting to more!
What does:
Organizing parties. Knowing a wide variety of people and organizing an event takes a lot of creativity skill and chutzpah.
Making music, not just good at a single instrument, but be able to play a variety of instruments, create new tunes, perform and have fun. Knowing the history and influences is a bonus.
Speaking multiple languages. Its always been too difficult for me.
Looking after people that were seriously sick. Parents/siblings with cancer, mental problems or disabilities. Its hard the hardest thing in the world. If you can come out all in one piece I have utmost respect.
I used to look down on soft skill heavy jobs and tasks thinking it was bs that only people who failed in "real" tech/engineering would care about, until I realized how hard it is to get anything more than 3 people to work together, be on the same page and not stir up drama.
I think what gives me most fulfillment is regular, scheduled, planned giving charity. I do this is two ways, first monetary: As a policy, I don't give money to panhandlers, but I support a few local shelters (a women specific one, a food pantry, and a general local fund). Second, I volunteer time regularly through my church, which supports these missions. Whether it be participating in service by playing an instrument, using my project managements skills (I learned from my job) to organize people, or just showing up to sweat somewhere, I spend several days every month giving time away. And _that_ gives me purpose, and that gives me a lot of fulfillment.
Almost two decades later, that’s the story most people want to hear. In fact, only a few weeks ago I was interviewed about it on Dublin radio (which then got a write-up in the Irish Sun).
I’m also especially proud of my completing the Monopoly Pub Crawl of London in order for my 30th birthday. But since few people have attempted it, and most who do it, do it out of order and thus reduce the time required by a third, it rarely sounds as challenging or impressive as I found it.
People also seem slightly interested that I graduated top of my university course while also winning the student award for “most lectures attended while drunk”, co-hosted my own TV program, have written 4 books across 4 genres (history, architecture, crime fiction, and business), and helped my daughter visit 19 countries before her first birthday.
Second, what films did you watch for the 60 hours?
One film blurred into the next; time stood still; I believe the final movie was Fight Club although our choices were cut back when the VHS Player overheated about 55 hours in.
Not to belittle any of these achievements, but this one seems like the odd one out, since it's hard to imagine that she would remember anything about these trips at that age. (Personally, my earliest recountable memories are around age 5.)
For example, summitting Everest is not as impressive as an achievement as it once was, not if you've seen the pictures of lines of climbers waiting just below the peak for their turn. I expect the next thing will be a Disney-style FastPass for an extra $30k, assuming we ever get over this pandemic. Of course it's still an arduous, dangerous, and expensive endeavor. But those things alone don't necessarily make it impressive.
You said that you volunteer. If you've done that on a consistent basis and out of your own volition, I would find that pretty impressive in a young person.
Ah... being a teenager again...