I spent high school in front of my computer

Promit Roy · 2011-12-26T13:53:25

I'm very disproportionately upset by advice in another thread: [quote name='wiz3kid' timestamp='1322634879' post='4888989'] [quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1322634592' post='4888987'] ... and go do all the usual highschool things - sports, girlfriends, etc. You'll only regret it later if you don't. Regret? Why regret?[/quote] Because you are only young once. In a couple of years, you won't have half the time and energy you do now, to tryout a new sport, chase after that redhead, learn to fix motorcycles... But you will always have time to learn esoteric programming languages, because it's the kind of thing you can squeeze into half-hour breaks between class, work, and so-forth. [/quote] Regret? Regret?! You know, somehow I don't regret doing the same exact stereotypical garbage everyone else supposedly spends their time with in school. I don't regret having a solid five year head-start on my peers when I got to university. And I certainly don't regret that I had a resume that involved me doing stuff and building products; somehow skirt-chasing doesn't quite set you up for the future. To be honest, I resent the implication that 'sports' and 'girlfriends' are the normal high school pursuits and everything else is squandering your youth. I also dislike the suggestion that you should strive to be normal, or that only doing fun things during high school is the right choice. It strikes me as an incredibly shallow and short-sighted bit of advice. I don't have anything against sports, really -- fitness is good, and sports can be a big door opener if you're serious. But I have a huge problem with telling our younger audience, hey, spend your time on frivolous stuff and come back when you're older. That's not right. A bit farther down, swiftcoder does clarify the advice, but that's not at all how the original statements read. I felt it was worth bringing up as a separate discussion, because the advice as written exasperated me so badly. I'm coming up on 25 years old now; not old at all, but enough to have gained some perspective on my high school and college years. Of all my regrets from all those years, my involvement with computers and programming certainly never rates as anything other than a huge positive. It got me everything I have today in no small measure. There are threads here periodically asking 'am I too young?' or something along those lines. The way I see it, doing is the single most important force we have, and you're almost never too young to start doing what you are passionate about.

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Started by Promit December 03, 2011 12:27 AM

60 comments, last by swiftcoder 13 years, 1 month ago

Bacterius

13,181

December 25, 2011 04:33 AM

For some reason I never had great teachers in high school (or maybe I always set my standards too high), so I walked out of high school having learned almost nothing that I didn't already know or couldn't figure out with a trip to the library or on the internet. In high school most of the other kids just seemed immature and plain inconsiderate of others sometimes. It's well-known that kids are cruel when in a group but some of the behavior I've seen in high school hardly even belongs to preschool. To put it simply the others didn't interest me - they didn't seem to be able to communicate with me in a productive way, or maybe the other way round. This is also why I hate small talk and social niceties, they are just redundant. But there were always other people similar to me, eager to learn and not waste time sitting in class listening to the same thing over, and over, and over, again, because some moron in the back row still didn't get it because he was chatting with his friends, so of course the whole learning process needs to grind to a halt, backtrack, and pick up that guy, which can be a monumental waste of time. Half the time in high school I wasn't even listening to my teachers - I was either reading books below the desk or sometimes literally sleeping. High school, in my opinion, was a total waste of time in terms of learning functional knowledge, although it did have the benefit of getting me to find friends, which helped me develop needed social skills.

I didn't have much for family life, as my family tended to move around a lot until they settled in New Zealand, so other than direct parents there's no one else in the country that's part of my family. My dad never really encouraged me much, and my mum was usually always busy and never really had much time for me, so home I always felt quite alone.

So after having said all of that, yes, I had friends, yes, I had a social life (I just didn't have 500 friends on facebook and 20000 twitter followers, a couple close friends was more than enough for me), and of course being the geek I am, computers attracted me from the youngest age. I started fiddling around with computers probably at the age of 6, and naturally after getting bored with the games that could be run on it, I started to wonder, what happens if I delete this file, would it still work if I renamed that directory, etc... (which resulted in the death in numerous operating systems - RIP), and then at the age of 10 or so I discovered I could actually get the computer to do what I wanted. Amazing! And so began my passion of programming, discovering that one could actually harness the immense power of that big mysterious box full of wires and LEDs, for any purpose, and not restricting oneself only to what was available. It was a revelation - one I wish anybody (even the so-called "popular" kids back in high school) could have experienced, probably one of the best moments of my life.

Long story short, just because computers are inherently "geeky" and connotated anti-social, doesn't mean the shy kid you used to laugh at in high school didn't have as complete and fulfilling a life as yours. He just followed a different path - his path, and just because yours involves chasing skirts and kissing girls, playing sports and having a ludicrously extensive social life, doesn't make it any more valid than his. Sure, he might be missing on some stuff you deem important, but you may also be missing out on some stuff he deems important. It's your values against his and all are equally valid.

So live your life as you wish, do things your own way, and don't just follow the group because everybody else is doing it. It's all about personal integrity - don't let others directly influence the way you act (of course take into consideration what people say, but don't blindly do what they tell you to do), and do what feels right to you.

TL;DR: I spend high school in front of my computer too, and I don't regret it a bit. I did acquire the social skills needed to effectively interact in a community, but in addition I also learned a whole lot more than if I just listened to my teachers. I believe I made the right choice for myself, and that's something no one else but myself can argue with.

To be honest most people who tell you you wasted your youth because you spent them in front of a computer screen are mostly people that ended up in crappy jobs because they never bothered to learn anything young, and so their only happy memories are their high school years. Ironic.

Sorry about the long post