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."

Comments

That's great

[delmoi]

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.

No wonder he was un-invited

[ScentCone]

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.

Go to a library

[yorkpaddy]

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.

More 'You Must Love Your Work' Brainwashing

[Cryofan]

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?

Re:More 'You Must Love Your Work' Brainwashing

[ThousandStars]

I think you missed one of the points the author was trying to make, which is that for smart, satisfied people, work and play generally merge into a single activity at which the individual is very, very good. That's how you get people who spend 80 hours per week programming and such. People whose work is play never have to work, and they seldom have to worry about money. The sooner one figures out how to make one's work one's play, the better off and happier that person will probably be.

"wasting time"

[Saeger]

Repeat after me: It's not "wasting time" if you're having fun.

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.

"youth is wasted on the young"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:"youth is wasted on the young"

[JimBobJoe]

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.

Regrettably, this is due to age discrimination. Thanks to the public schooling (which has setup this concept of people of the same age range, all from a very early age, doing the exact same thing as everyone else, and worse, socializing with people of a very small age range.)

So people grow up with this bizarrely narrow view of the world...people who are 19 do X, people 24 do Y, people 36 do Z.

As I like to say, if you're over 14 and half your friends are within 5 years of your own age, you're doing something wrong. Widsom and expertise will come to you from a wide range of people.

Re:"youth is wasted on the young"

[LWATCDR]

"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."

That is a myth that way too many younger people believe. Frankly life is still pretty much life. The problem is when you are young you are experiencing so many things that are new to you that you mistakenly believe that they must be new to everyone.
They really are not. What most people find is the older they get the more their parents knew. Not everyone mind you but most people will find that.
Now there is another myth that older people fall into. "Everything was better when I was younger." Humans tend to forget the bad stuff and remember only the good stuff. My parents have told me time and time again how they would not want to raise kids today. When I ask them they talk about how much better things where when they where just married than they are now. This was in the 60s so I asked them what about the Cuban missile crisis, the Manson murders, the Zodiac killer, and the Texas tower shootings? Older people need to remember the bad things in the past and not just the good.

The biggest regret of youth is what you do not do. What you did not accomplish and who you did not listen too. A smart young person will listen to an older person with an open mind. You never know what wisdom you may gain. A smart older person will listen to young people with an open mind. You never know what what wisdom a new mind might bring to the world.

Re:"youth is wasted on the young"

[cooldev]

A good point, especially when it comes to those lofty, "influential", graduation-style speeches.

But, as somebody who came from a family where nobody in the previous generation had gone to college, I would have appreciated more useful advice about college (and related preparation).

For example, I've done extremely well academically and career-wise, but I was overly-stressed and worried throughout high school and college, and didn't spend enough time just living and having fun. This led to under-socialization, which is probably the biggest problem in my life today.

Whereas my parents exacerbated this because they wanted me to be successful, peers who had parents (or other adults in their lives) with college experience had an advantage: they had a better understanding of how that world worked, what was really important, and what was coming.

The internet now makes it easy for people of all backgrounds to learn from the life experiences of others, although the noise probably drowns out a lot of the useful stuff.

Re:"youth is wasted on the young"

[lukewarmfusion]

I also own my own business... having just started it a few months ago, I am discovering many of those same things. The learning process is frustrating, but it's coming fast. My partner was working on his MBA so he would be prepared for some of these issues, but he's since stopped - they teach you how to be a manager, but not run a business. It's not the same thing.

As for the aforementioned "Slashdot break," I'm discovering that I am even more strict with my time than any of my previous bosses. I have been working 16+ hour days because 1) I know it's going to pay off for my business, 2) I love what I do, and 3) working hard for myself is far more rewarding than working hard for someone else.

It's not hard to find a small business owner that you can talk to about starting your own company. Luckily, I've got a few contacts like that - uncles, friends, etc. that were willing to point me in the right direction. But when you're in high school or college, there's a ton to learn and not many folks that will encourage it. Still, I'm glad I took a "real" job right out of college. I had an opportunity to learn from others' mistakes and develop fantastic experience and skills (while someone else did the legwork of getting the projects and running the business). When I felt I was solid enough to start those, I made the jump.

It's beginning to pay off now. I landed a big contract this week... it'll take care of my paycheck for another six months.

Re:Learn it all for yourself. It's part of growing

[nine-times]

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.

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.

Re:get a Roth IRA

[John Harrison]

ran some quick numbers, very simplistic. YMMV.

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.

What I plan to tell my kids

[madro]

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).

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 ... since in high school I was most interested in my female classmates.

Re:What I plan to tell my kids

[CamMac]

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.

As an old fart (25) in my first year of college, this is a serious understatement. I have met some unbelievely smart people. Students who are in Calc2 or linear Alegbra thier freshman year. Students who already have 3 years in two diffrent languages and aren't stopping. Unfortunatly, because thier entire life has been dictated by a schedual of classes, teachers and parents, these unbelievely smart people are incapable of making descions. They have gotten so used to being taught that they find it impossible to do something they haven't learned or to learn through trial and error. Which makes them useless.

You want a skill any employer wants? Do something that you have no clue how to do. Learn how to learn on the go. And stop asking your teacher for every little bit direction. Figure out how to figure out what your teacher wants without bugger them.

--Cam

Re:Learn it all for yourself. It's part of growing

[Frymaster]

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.

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

Re:Learn it all for yourself. It's part of growing

[pe1rxq]

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

Re:get a Roth IRA

[Pendersempai]

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.

Guy's smart...

[jpellino]

.. 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.

Re:Bullcrap in "article"

[chialea]

> 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

Re:What I'd Wish I'd Known

[selderrr]

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