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What You'll Wish You'd Known
sheck writes "Eminent computer scientist, author, painter, and dot-com millionaire, Paul Graham has written down the things he wishes somebody had told him when he was in high school in What You'll Wish You'd Known, suggesting, among other things, that students treat school like a day job, working on interesting projects to avoid what he has found to be the most common regret among adults of their high school days: wasting time."
What I wished I had known:
People
Most of the people you graduate with, no matter how popular/smart/wonderful they were in high-school will probably be completely worthless in college. Some will likely come home to be with their group of friends from high-school again and may not even finish college. They will be happy in their small group of friends forever, which is fine, but certainly don't believe that you need to limit yourself to that.
Class
That the reason I did reasonably well in high-school with very little outside work was because I went to class. Even if I slept through some of it I was taking it all in. You cannot succeed unless you attend class. Don't think that when you get to college or the real world you can succeed by not showing up just because you don't have to. It doesn't work like that.
College
Going to a four-year college and getting a degree really isn't all that important anymore. Yeah, you get a job, yeah you get money, and yeah you have fun but honestly the pay off in the end really isn't all that worth it.
I have seen plenty of people with high-school diplomas or two year degrees from a community college/tech school do just as well (if not better) than me and my more expensive four-year degree.
Don't give in to the pressures put on you by your social group, family, and school when there are plenty of opportunities out there for those of you that aren't interested in jumping straight into four-year degrees.
LPNs, construction, HVAC, general laborers under Union guidance all make great money and may even make twice as much as a four-year graduate starting... If you aren't interested in school for the next four or five years explore some other options. They are open and ready to make you into something that you may not have had the chance to know about.
Wasting time
Honestly, you aren't going to have much of a chance to "waste time" once you are done with school. People graduate and either jump right into working or go to college. After these small steps they start families and their chance to "waste time" is over for the next 25 years.
I hear all the time that "thirty is the new twenty". Take advantage of your age, your freedoms, and your time. Use it however you want. Right now I'm more interested in doing things that I know I won't be able to do 10 years from now. Responsibility sucks use your time however you see fit.
What I learned was that I needed to decide for myself what I wanted. Anyone who might read his article (or mine) might want to as well.
You know, I kind of doubt it would really be possible to convice a highschooler that they really will wish they studied harder once they're an adult.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Not that partying and getting wasted are inherently bad things, but I will say that all the people I know who kept telling me "school is a waste of time" are working in grocery stores and casinos, so one can draw their own conclusions.
This seems more like another one of those bits of advice tainted by the rosy hue of nostalgia, and which better applies to adults. I definitely agree that, as an adult, it is imperative that you find something to do in your spare time that interests you. Otherwise the dull drudgery of the daily grind would begin to wear.
From his couldn't-give-it-because-he-got-uninvited-to-the-h igh-school speech:
"There is some variation in natural ability"
No wonder his visit got the veto! That's public school sacriledge! Actually, it's bad news at Harvard now, too, apparently.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The things I'd say I wish I'd been told in school, they actually told me, but I didn't believe them, because they sounded silly.
~~Every few years or so I'm accidentally fashionable!
I wish someone had told me to go to a real library, a college library. I wish someone had told me this in grade school. I remember checking out every Byte magazine at my local library and still wanting to know more. I didn't even bother to check out there books that say "a computer has a cpu, monitor, and keyboard". I wish someone had told me to go to computer groups when I was a lot younger. I wish someone had told me to go to colleges and hang out until I met smart people.
"brxref
The author writes:
What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.
Why do our lives have to center around friggin' work? I would rather not work at all. And most people feel the same way, if they would just admit it. If we had the adequate resources, wouldn't we choose NOT to work at all, or just work a little bit?
So what is wrong with just admitting the truth?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It's only those obsessed with status & material wealth who get wrapped up in the notion that every worthwhile waking hour should be spent working on advancing careers and whatnot.
Power to the Peaceful
I see now why they vetoed this guy. Their eyes must have glazed over reading that thing. Imagine someone giving it as a speech to a young crowd that usually can't stand still for more than two minutes. Sheesh. This guy forgot who his audience was. If it were college grads, it might have been more appropriate, but still, it's a bit windy. Chop it down, bud.
"The best plan, I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector."
If a high school student actually understands that statement it's pretty doubtful that they need to read that piece or need much academic direction at all.
By the time you are old enough to want to make a list of things to tell young people they need to do to be happy, you are too old to relate to any young person in a meaningful or influential way. But inevitably, generation after generation, the old people are compelled to spew advice which the young will absorb, but ignore, until they themselves are old and ready to acknowledge its correctness (and then to futilely victimize that generation with advice).
I think the biggest cause of regret in young people is mixed messages being sent from all directions from know-it-all nannys who all regret their own youth and so want to live vicariously through others still in possession of it. Laissez faire.
There's also an important corollary to this: The opinion of high-school classmates doesn't really matter. Knowing this would have done me a lot of good. Don't bother trying to impress your peers in high school. In fact, go ahead and embarrass yourself. It won't be the end of the world. A year after graduation, no one will remember or care. If anyone does remember and care, those are the weirdos whose entire life will be spent obsessing on high school, the people who never move on with their lives, and so their opinion isn't worth much worry.
don't worry, you'll have plenty of adult life where you have to act like an adult. Waste your time now while you still can.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
I assumed 10% return under two scenarios:
In the first $3000 is invested each year as a 15, 16, and 17 year-old, for a total of $9k put in. Then no more investing is done. At 65 you have $963,381.
Second scenario is starting to invest at 30 and putting in $3k per year until 65. A total of $108,000 is invested. At 65 you have $897,380.
The moral of the story? You can't afford not to put money away when you are young. Sacrifice early for long term gains.
Note that I am not suggesting that you stop after high school. I am suggesting that you start right now and not stop.
Lasers Controlled Games!
My wife and I talk about this a lot, because we were both smart and geeky in high school (she was also an athlete, though, so she had a much easier time of it).
... since in high school I was most interested in my female classmates.
Our primary advice to our kids will be: "It gets better."
High school will not be, and shouldn't be, "the best years of your life." People will be petty, people won't understand you. You've got to take it, and still treat other people with respect. (Even if you're smarter, you're not necessarily better -- if you're excluded, don't retreat to elitism.)
All that said, I'm not sure if "wasting time" is so bad. Young children should be encouraged to play freely, not subjected 100% to a rigorous schedule of pre-planned activities. Not sure how much that can or should carry over into teenage years.
Graham is advocating exploration of that which interests you -- in my mind, I should've been spending more time practicing social skills
i have come to the conclusion that the self-taught are the people you want to work with and for.
the self-taught have a better skillset at picking up new skillsets when the pressure is on, they're more willing to and capable of learning by experimentation, they tend to be far more flexible and diverse in their abilities and they're are often more motivated to try out new solutions.
three cheers for the autodidacts
2 1337 4 u!
I don't necessarily agree with this. On the one hand, yeah, no one cares about the opinion of a bunch of high-schoolers ten years down the road. But on the other hand, it's important to develop the skills which will allow you to fit in and otherwise excel. Social skills, in other words.
High school is a broken system, but if people are stuck there, they might as well take advantage of the situation and polish their people skills. And in the end, it's social skills that really help in adult life.
I agree self-taught is great, however you should be carefull not to fall in the 'I don't need school' trap.
Self teaching works best for those subjects you are really interested in, use school to bring the rest up to 'standard'.
Even if you teach yourself a subject its great to hear it again in school, the teacher will most likely teach it from another viewpoint and I have found that this can help you from knowing about it to totally understanding it.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Yes, except...
how the fuck does a 15 year old acquire $3,000?
And how the fuck does he acquire another $3,000 the next year, and the next?
If you're in debt because of college, it's a fool's errand to invest unless you can get a much better interest rate than the one you're paying on your loans. Otherwise you'd be better off paying off the loans.
Oh -- and how the hell do you find a consistent 10% return on investment? The stock market historically returns 7%, and that's about as risky as anyone should get for the long-term.
Yes, compounding interest can be very impressive, and your numbers are very pretty. But they're also very unrealistic.
> What I wished I had known:
Sex
Girls want it as bad as guys do.
Time spent on the clit has a great ROI.
17yo's are best, but you've got to collect it before you're 18.
The guys that brag the most aren't really getting any.
If a man catches you bonking his daughter you might as well keep on humping, 'cause he's going to be madder than hell anyway.
Santa Claus is gay.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
directly out of high school. Get a job washing dishes, building houses, or some other hard manual labor. Work and party your ass off, and when you get sick of that and will take school seriously, enroll in college.
And pay for it yourself. You'll appreciate it much more.
"He hated Mexicans, and he was half Mexican. AND he hated irony!"
.. I wish I was as smart as him.
Oh, wait...
Kidding aside, this is powerful stuff. I prefer the sort of biographies James Burke does in ecxplaining history - you realize things aren't as cut and dried and holy as they seem.
I constantly tell my students and teachers that if they don't pay attention, when they get to college they'll realize what a piece of cake HS was, in grad school they'll realize how much easier undergrad was, when they get a job they'll long for the days of grad school, etc... but if they push and act like a demanding comsumer, each experience can be the best prep they can get for the next.
Demand. One of my former students who's now at CMU Robotics came back to present to current students - he showed off some of his work but then got to the heart of it - never let your teachers off the hook. If they give you a textbook answer, press them. If they say they don't know, the next thing out of their or your mouth should be 'let's find out how to find out'... Never take no for an answer from someone in charge of your future. The late Paul Brandwein used to talk about how ENcouraging students literally means increasing their courage, and DIScouraging students only serves to literally decrease their courage. You want courageous students (OK - hopefully just short of trying out for "Jackass" - but it's their skeletal system...) who truly believe they can make a difference.
I sat thru so many college courses taight by people who were a chapter ahead of us and considered themselves the World's Foremost Authority... During the 80s I could tell my computer students that the mass market software they were seeing was being done by people who had 6 months lead time and a stack of books that you too could buy. I referred them to ads asking for people with 5 years experience on technologies that were 5 years old.
The ones who saw thru the hype and had the courage and believed have done amazing things at all levels - from raising amazing kids to inventing things to changing a small corner of the world.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
And in the end, it's social skills that really help in adult life.
I agree 100% but I also disagree 100% that high-school is the proper environment to learn these skills.
High-school is nothing more than a popularity contest/fashion show. If you are supposed to learn social skills please explain to me how you can apply those to the real world where no one worth a damn gives a flying rats ass what you wear and who you hang out with?
My suggestion is to just suffer through the shithole that is known as "high-school" and welcome your new-found freedoms in the real world.
I think there are two types of self-taught people.
Type one are the morons who think because they can code they are programmers. They don't know the theory. All they can do is code.
Type two are the truly dedicated self-taught people. They know how to code in more than one language, they know the theory, they know the answer to the question of "Why?".
> In addition, in order to be an econ major, you often have to take advanced math courses (for me it was Calc 3 so that I could take Econometrics).
If you think that's an advanced math course, I have a whole world of excitement for you. Seriously, there's wonderful stuff out there that you haven't even gotten near.
I've observed that math is a really great thing to study if you want a lot of options. With a small amount of training, you can do almost anything, because you have the critical thinking skills and the rigorous framework to understand it. I'm not saying that a math major could apply to a PhD in economics and necessarily get in without any additional training, but that it wouldn't be hard to get that training. The PhD program might even be more than interested in accepting someone who they had to train. Going the other direction would be considerably more difficult.
Another interesting example is in finance. Financial companies hire physicists and mathematicians like crazy when they can get their hands on them (I've heard they also like theoretical computer sciences). Basically, they want people with advanced mathematical training, who they can direct at the problems of finance. From what I've seen, hiring the other direction would be very, very difficult.
Math is mind-broadening. There are so many different structures and models to apply to problems in other fields. I've seen quite a few people be very sucessful simply by understanding more math than `needed' by their field, and applying it.
Lea
I regret that this comment is modded 'funny'. I just went to divorce after my wife ran of with a bloke from the gym club without even the slightest sorry. Having invested 7 years of emotion, payed for the house 2/3, put 3 kids on te world and working my ass off (she did a lazy-ass college doctoral job worth shit, and then lived 2 years off of wellfare while I busted my ass trying to pay the bills) I wish I had known her better before I decided to bind my faith to hers...
Good advice to all you youngsters : a girlfriend in highschool/college is a completely different person after you both start to work and begin a serious (=boring) life
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Congratulations on stating a useless generality. In my overly general opinion, self taught people are not team players, too self absorbed, and unable to accept useful criticism. They also don't have enough follow through to finish tedious, time consuming tasks, and can't succeed in a structured environment.
Now I could continue blathering on about the other things some self taught people do, or we could just admit that both of our statements are hogwash, and that self taught people run the gamut just like EVERYONE else.
Run up a ton of debt and end up in the job market 3 years behind everyone else in experience because you were tricked on how important it was to your future.
OK, maybe that's overbaking my case, but a lot of people seem to do it for little good reason. If you are fanatical about learning a particular subject, go study it. If it's pretty important to your career (eg Medicine, Law, Chemistry), go study it. For "getting on better in my career", I've rarely seen a benefit.
I know programmers with and without degrees, and I doubt the average earnings are much different. Certainly not enough of a difference to cover £30,000 of college debt.
If I know a school programmer, my advice would be to learn programming early (like at school), practise like crazy and write a ton of OSS and shareware. Market yourself through your creations and get a junior programmer job that way.
Friends
I wish I had made more friends while in highschool / college. Instead i spent too much time alone. Either studying, playing videogames or chatting on irc. And now that I want to make new friends, I CAN'T. I work fulltime.
So, make sure you make friends in college. It might be your last chance.
I disagree with the willingness to expiriment and self-motivate being teachable - they're something that people either have or don't have. Someone who's (effectively) self-taught will neccesarily have them, but being a graduate certainly doesn't preclude it, either. One problem with being self-taught is the gaps in knowledge where you've never run into anything - I have trouble with the higher math involved in 3d programming, for example, and have considered taking some online or night classes to remedy that. But, to be fair again, the longer you're out of school the rustier your skills in areas you don't exercise will be. My calc is lousy cause I never formally learned it, but it's not really much worse than the guy next to me who hasn't used his in 10 years.
you are 100% on the head.
investing $3000.00 a year instead of putting that $3000.00 into your debts is pure stupidity.
investing is for the rich that has NO DEBT.
if you are earning 7% on your investments while paying 12% on your car, 9% on your loans, 6% on your house and 17% on the 5000.00 credit card debt you have around, that 7% return on your investment mean you are insanely stupid.
Fools invest when they have debt. you can not get out of debt any way other than accelerating the payments on it. that money you are saving will return you more money if you put it in your debts and buy a baseball bat to smash yourself in the head the next time you buy anyting on credit again. have 1 or 2 credit cards with a $500.00 balance on them MAX.
Still doing that today, albeit with a far better income and a great family.
What would I want the teenage Me to know? That it'll all be just fine.
What else need be said?
-Tom
ahh ... no. See, people who take your approach will be in debt for their whole lives. If you don't have any money, you have to accept horrible interest rates. However, if you have some money, interest rates suddenly become much lower. It's amazing.
I have TONS of things I wish I had done differently. But if someone (even myself) went back in a time machine and talked to me, I would have told you to screw off. After all, I was 18 years old, full of testosterone, and the smartest, hottest thing in the world. I wouldn't have listened, and even if I would have, it wouldn't have been the same.
I like what happened later. I learned from my mistakes. I learned a LOT. Freshman year of college was a huge learning experience for me, and even though I had my fair share of bumps in the road, had someone just handed me the book on how I like to be me, it wouldn't have developed me fully.
So learn from your own experiences - but learn quickly and don't waste too much time getting there. I could rant on and on about what you should and shouldn't do in college (actually there aren't many things you SHOULDN'T do :) -- but you will have to figure it out yourself for the best possible experience.
Berto
Time passes far too quickly, responsibilities appear all too unexpectedly.
I *prize* the time I "wasted" in my late teens/early twenties. I travelled, I developed life-long hobbies. I tinkered with technology and developed new skill sets. I learned a lot about what true friendship was (and wasn't).
I may have "buckled down" a bit later than many, but when I did I cinched that buckle tighter than I would have if I hadn't had a chance to mature at my own pace.Few people grow old and regret the fun they had as a kid.
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
my biggest regret from high school is what i did after it - attending university.
i'm a third year CSC student at the University of Toronto, and im sick of it. im confident i have the ability to perform well in the labour market, and i just want to work, and learn whatever i want to learn in my spare time, and stop swallowing all the junk that the University shoves down my throat.
I mean it's great for some people, especially those who want to move onto grad. school, but its not for me, and I realize that just now. There are some important things I've picked up, that I could have easily picked up from reading some books that I'd have found interesting, but otherwise, I don't enjoy being a CSC student, namely because U of T is mostly a theoretical computer science school, and im really just not into that.
the only reason i'm still in school is cuz i only have one more year, and would rather not blow the investment i poured in to the first 3 years.
so my biggest regret in high school was giving in to pressure from my family to attend University, as they are still so narrow-minded to think it will be only way for me to land a good job. boy, were they wrong.
Enjoy an e-piphany
High-school is nothing more than a popularity contest/fashion show.
I've got news for you - the rest of life isn't a whole lot different. I'll use my line of work (software engineering) for an example. Some people write great code and some people write mediocre code. Some people have great people skills and some don't. Say you've got two levels of Software Engineer - one mainly designs and writes code while the other deals more with clients. And say you have two employees. One dresses neatly and is comfortable dealing with people (you know - that thing that makes you "popular") while the other is disheveled and "nerdy" but writes better code. Which one do you give the job that deals with clients? And which job pays more? I'll give you a hint: the person that is popular will get more money. Is it fair? Regardless of fair, is it the way things are?
(For the record, I say it is fair because people skills are more in demand.)
Addlepated - punk & metal
Get laid as much as possible, with as many different people as possible. It doesn't matter in the long run, and you'll have some great stuff to remember.
Reject Fear - Embrace Hope
My mom tells me I was reading by the time I was 1 1/2. I would sit in a big cardboard box filled with books, and spend the day reading. I remember being 3 years old, talking to a neighbor of ours who was a nurse, and having long, involved, scientific discussions about the human body. Life seemed like a great big toy that just kept growing the more you worked to uncover it.
Then I entered kindergarten.
Holy CRAP, was I ever unprepared for that! Instantly, I found myself on the receiving end of insults and other cruelties, coming from all angles. It had never occurred to me that something like that would happen. I had no idea how to deal with it. Needless to say, I ended up spending far more time with books (and later, my chemistry set & then my computer) than with the kids my age. I was interested in learning about the world, and the vast majority of them only seemed to care about bullying other people, consuming commercial entertainment products, and breaking rules. Even the other "nerds" acted this way and treated me horribly. I did everything I could think of to solve the problem, which mostly consisted of trying to be more like them, and to share their interests. That never worked, not even once: it's like they saw me coming from a mile away and knew I wasn't one of them and never would be.
Elementary school, middle school, and high school were the same -- major social ostracism. (College was a little better, in that there were more people like me, but there was still a massive contingent of the thuggish types.) I could not for the life of me figure out why so many people chose to act this way. How could they attach so much importance to appearance and social status? How could anyone possibly care so much about meaningless things, especially when there was a huge and interesting world out there to be discovered?
The problem persisted once I was out of college and in the workforce, but there was a new wrinkle. The same thuggish types were now working alongside me, ostensibly with the same qualifications I had, but their focus wasn't on doing their job competently or striving to be better...it was on faking their way through their job, goofing off, and stealing from the company. Worst of all, if they found someone like me who, just by existing, proved that they were bad people, they would tend to employ every low-life tactic imaginable to ruin my life. Four times, it rose to the level of getting me fired. Only once, in my early 30s, did I actually succeed against the thuggish types -- nearly all the people I butted heads with decided to leave the company, and I ended up as project lead! True, the 2 or 3 of us left had to do all the work by ourselves, but at least it got done competently. Unfortunately, the executives at that company were as gullible as the day was long, and fell for every con artist that came down the pike, and even though I and my small team improved our product to the point of creaming our competitors, the business end of things collapsed and took us with it.
Then my industry was hit by the dot-com crash and the offshoring trend...getting fired four times didn't help me either. As of this writing, I've been unemployed for 2 years, I live in the spare room of my mom's house, and earn pittances anywhere I can -- fixing people's computers, "handyman" stuff, lots and lots of painting, and other grinding sorts of work. And that, for me, has been the final blow. Over the years, I've had to give up on popularity, on friendship, on happiness, and on hope, but at least I had my employability. Now that's gone. I worked my ass off and kept my nose clean, and have less to show for it that someone that spent their life partying. All I have left are my brains and integrity, and frankly, they don't appear to have any value in this world.
I've been reading a lot lately, catching up on the books that I bought but never read. Finally, I got around to reading Ayn Rand. I started by seeing the movie version of The Fountainhead, then I read Atlas
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
DOn't kid yourself. If like the vast majority of the people on this planet you plan on working for a company and hoping somebody gives you a raise or a promotion you MUST learn how to dress, hang around with the right people and kiss a lot of ass.
Popularity is extrememly important.
BTW looks are also very important. Study after study shows that good looking people do better then ugly people.
My advice to high schoolers, work out, get and keep a great body. Get plastic surgery if you need it. Learn to sidle up to the rich and powerful. Hang out where rich people hang out, learn their lingo, learn their likes and dislikes, learn their habit. Finally think of something that would be irresistable to them and start selling it.
During the recent recession the sales of luxury items went up. Last chrismas luxury items sold very well while retailers like walmart were disapointed.
Maybe it's cynical but it's true.
evil is as evil does
To some extent I agree.... But I've seen "bitter" self taught ppl who are only half good but like to show off to get back at formally educated ppl... Taking every chance to try to show that they know more, are more intelligent, and overall a better class of people. Even when they are not actually any better.
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
The important thing is to get out there and do stuff. Instead of waiting to be taught, go out and learn. I wish I could have made the distinction years ago.
I've seen many people get ahead in a business setting who were not attractive, some even with very visible physical deformities.
As for hanging out with the rich, learning what they like, and thinking of a product to sell to them... while it sounds good on the surface (They have so much money!) in reality the problem is that selling to ANYONE is tricky. By limiting your target market to "The rich" you are also making your job much harder.
Instead I would say - figure out what you can do well that you can sell to the most people with as little effort as possible. Then you can grow from there.
The one thing you should pay attention to in regards to rich people is how they manage money. Learn about complex uses of money, and it will serve you well. You don't have to be very well off to manage money well, make it grow and work for you instead of draining from you like water off a duck.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Popularity is extrememly important.
BTW looks are also very important. Study after study shows that good looking people do better then ugly people.
My advice to high schoolers, work out, get and keep a great body. Get plastic surgery if you need it. Learn to sidle up to the rich and powerful. Hang out where rich people hang out, learn their lingo, learn their likes and dislikes, learn their habit. Finally think of something that would be irresistable to them and start selling it.
No thanks, buddy. I'd rather be ugly on the outside than ugly on the inside. You're not doing anyone any favors by promoting that kind of soul-devouring attitude. It's all well and good to be cynical about the state of the world, but that doesn't preclude at least trying to make the world a better place by promoting positive attitudes.
Poor or rich, everyone needs to learn to manage money. The rich kids that do not wind up in a bad way anyway, even if the family might prop them up for some time. It's far more vital for a poorer kid to do so...
I came from a pretty poor situation as a kid, and I credit a fair amount of what success I have had in life to being dilligent about learning what you can do with money. Not as dilligent as I should have been probably, but still pretty well overall.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley