Slashdot Mirror
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."
It sounds funny, but it isn't. I wish I'd known that my math teachers through High School were PE majors and math minors. Going to a small private school in the mid-south, they were all coach/teachers (sometimes in that order).
After I got an A in College Algebra my senior year, I was sure I was ready for the CS curriculum in college. That first week of Calculus proved me wrong. What I learned later was that, despite my grades, I really didn't know math all that well.
That was 22 years ago. I've since picked up higher-level math on my own, but it would have been a lot easier if I'd been given the groundwork ahead of time.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
"Speaking of wasting time, I think my Slashdot break has gone on long enough."
Not as long as mine...I own my own business so I get to read the whole thing. Which brings me to my pet "Wish I'd Know This In School" peeve, which is why didn't anyone, not even my parents, tell me that I could actually start my own business and not have to necessarily go and get a job working for someone else.
During the last year of the English equivalent of high school, me and my classmates would go to the career counselling officer for lessons on how to get a job. We'd also take day trips local businesses and watch people we'd seen in the year above ours working at their little desks or operating machinery. We even took a few trips to local coal mines which really freaked me out (Anyone seen Kes? that was me).
Luckily I was interested in playing music - joined a couple of local bands - moved to London - joined a band that toured the World - moved to the Pacific NW - got a life - and managed get the hell out of the cycle of horrible, depressing life I was faced with, but it really needn't have been that way.
How about one single hour a week about how to start your own business. Or how to handle money that your business will generate, or marketing your business, Etc Etc Etc. instead there was nothing. It was ALL about how to get a job.
Needless to say we all knew that the rich kids at the private school down the road were being taught how to hire losers, or how to stay rich, so there was never any real mystery as to why things were the way they were, but I still feel sorry for my classmates.