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University of Virginia Student Graduates in One Year
An anonymous reader writes "18-year-old David Banh of Annandale, VA recently graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Physics and Mathematics, and an education paid for almost entirely by scholarships. What's truly amazing is that he did it in one year, bringing in 72 Advanced Placement credits, then taking 23 credits his fall semester, 37 credits his spring semester and 3 credits in the summer. His brief undergraduate career didn't leave him much time to explore college, so he's now working on his master's degree. He says he may eventually pursue law school as a part-time student in hopes of becoming a patent lawyer."
What he did:
Where he going:
What he wants to do:
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Counterpoint:
How he did it:
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Basically, it's a neat feat that took years to prepare for, like going through a process to be "pre-qualified", but he isn't quite Doogie.
Have you read my journal today?
Hurry!
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
And what does he want to be after he completes his education (he is now entering a math masters program)?
A patent attorney.
Jesus! I recently returned to finish my degree, and 18 hours plus 20 hours of working is kicking my ass a little bit.
...you have completely missed the point.
This space intentionally left blank.
This mofo is gonna be RICH someday. The nex't Eiensteen perhaps?
shouldn't be allowed to be another patent lawyer. The world has already too much of this kind.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
.. he rushed through the technical stuff, and wants to jump into patent law.. sounds like a dig at the USPTO :) .. "I want to rush through stuff JUST LIKE THEM!".
There is A LOT more to college than the degree, hell - for most people thats an afterthought.
meh
Here is someone obviously talented in mathematics and science. Someone who obviously is intelligent and can be readily a "qualified american" engineer.
Yet, he chooses to go into law.
I would find it very interesting to know WHY he chose that path. I certainly have some ideas of my own why he did so but won't put words into his mouth.
Wouldn't it be an irony if he chose to be an H1-B/L-1 lawyer?
I never did finish my degree, despite taking several extra years (part-time) attempting to complete courses. I did get pretty darn good at netrek however. My guess is his priorities are probably a tad different from mine.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
What a slacker! But before I get modded troll, let me just say that I think more students could be graduating a lot sooner if useful classes were offered during the summer. A lot of summer semesters get wasted when out of state kids can't afford to go home for the summer and don't have any classes worth taking either.
Many IV league schools no longer accept AP credits. They want you to get an education from THEIR institution. If you enroll into a school with 72 credits, about half of your university education doesn't even come from the university you attended. This is why many schools are following the examples of the IV league institutions.
otherwise he would have learned that patent lawyers are agents of evil.
...but most university systems would not allow this - and on purpose. Why? Pre-requisites are required for you to take many of your last 24-36 credit hours. This is done partially so that you don't get in over your head, and also so that you are somewhat-forced to take part in college outside of just ramming your way through it. I also like how the article made it seem as if he achieved his entire degree in one year. If we're going to count AP/EA credits - but not count high school time - then I finished my first degree in 0 years.
Part of the point of an undergraduate education is to be exposed to new ideas and concepts while you're establishing yourself in an environment separate from your parents and the babysitting culture of most secondary schools.
Somehow, I don't think he got very much exposure to new ideas and concepts. He sounds like someone who's decided that whatever makes the most money is the best thing to do with your life.
Regards,
Ross
It seems to me that this guys has missed the point of university. Yes, his feat is just short of miraculous and he is clearly a smart guys, but it sounds like he was there merely for the credential. Simply to get the degree. University is supposed to give someone a chance to explore the universes, or the parts that seem interesting. To experiment and experience things. Not to simply vacuum up credits. In a way, I am sorry for him.
So that's where neighbor's missing supply of crack went!
Sounds a bit odd to me -- where I go to school, many of the course plans are layered, so you have to take a lot of pre-requisites... I don't know if he got them waived via AP credit or what, but even in my last two semesters (I graduate in May, hurrah) I'm still knee-deep in 400 level classes that I have to take before I can take other 400 level classes.
Also, I think he missed the college experience. College doesn't teach you as much book-wise as it does real-life-wise: living on your own, those 3 a.m. conversations about philisophy with your friends, boobies... I'm taking 18 credit hours and working only 24 hours a week and I still have trouble finding time for fun... this kid is either a robot or has no social life (I don't "party" or drink, so I'm already "unsocial" to some people).
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Okay. 37 credits your spring semester. That's pretty much 9 AM to 5 PM in class, five days a week. Add in study time and prep time plus time to do assignemnts, and (judging by what I did carrying 15 credits at Penn State) he was working an additional 6+ hours a night, seven nights a week, for his classes. That's it. That was his life for a year.
See, to me, college was about learning first and foremost, about obtaining a well-rounded academic education. The key here is "well-rounded." If you're literally spending 13-14 hours a day on class, what else are you doing? Nothing. That's not well-rounded. This kid missed out on everything that makes college, college. Friends, relaxing...hell, dorm floor-wide LAN matches in CS and UT99 (as in my case). Oh, and football. Sweet, sweet football. On the other hand, I can guarantee you that he did nothing but eat, sleep, work, and study.
I'll take a party here and there and some video games, please. I would not do what this kid did, nor would I consider it, or consider letting my children (someday) do it. It's just flat out not worth it.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
I say well done. I too finished at UVa with a double major in Physics and Environmental Science. It took me 3 years, however I did have time to sample some of the other, uh, benefits and activities present in C'ville.
...and he want's to be a Patent Attorney? For a moment I thought he was going for the Stephen Hawkins understudy position. What a waste.
As economists are wont to say: ... at what price did this feat come? Universal experience says the price would have been huge pain. The history of science, technology, etc., is also replete with individuals who were so burnt out after the early trajectory that they never recovered.
On the one hand, this is surely one bright individual, congratulations and one wishes him well. The history of science, technology, etc., is replete with geniuses who graduated from college at such early ages. Perhaps this is another, budding in front of us.
On the other
My recommendation: take a year off.
Patent Lawyer. I see that he already joined the dark side!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk!
Dr. Ray Stantz: Do you know how much a patent clerk earns?
Dr. Peter Venkman: No.
I have spent some time demonstrating to undergrads engineering courses and several times I have seen some amazing students who take to the subject really well. They don't do perticulaly well in the other courses but they seem to enjoy this the course and they go beyond what is expected of them. Then at the end I ask them if they are going to do the engineering modules next year because they will be practically guaranteed top marks in those too and they say no because they want to: Write web pages for a living, Become lawers because they heard that pays well, Knows someone who works with Java and so will take only very soft modules (despite the fact that they failed the java module).
This guy has some real potential, he could change the world, he could discover some fantastic advancements for the good of human kind, but no. He wants to be a lawyer.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
If he's done all this at the behest of his family, I've no doubt the day will come when he'll stop and say "What the hell?!??!", followed by a year-long drunk.
If, on the other hand, he's self-motivated, I hope he ends up with a wall of Nobels.
I pray he doen't end up as a lawyer. Of course, if he does, it won't take him too long to realize that law is the process of chewing sawdust which thousands of others have already chewed over before him, and he'll depart post-haste.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ah ha! So he has a secret twin doing half the work! Pfft.. perhaps not so smart after all..
A friend of mine graduated with two degrees (a double major in CS/Math, and another separate degree in Chemistry) in two years. While certainly impressive, not unprecedented.
...a patent lawyer?!? Anyone else out there screaming WTF? 37 hours in a semester or not, talk about a farking waste of time, regardless of how short it was.
as I did with mine. I intentionally stayed in college 6 years*(1.5 of those were spent doing internships) because I wanted to explore everything there was. My AP credits allowed me to get a lot of stuff out of the way so I could explore. I took an internship at a steel mill and worked at an R&D Lab in Japan. I majored in computer engineering and minored in math and Japanese, and actually took a lot of other classes that I didn't have to take because I thought they were interesting. I have something like 32 credits that don't really "count" as it were, for my degree. I am sure as hell glad I took them though because I will probably never get another chance to take a class in world music or Japanese literature.
Those sure as hell don't help me on my job or in grad school next year, but I really felt like they helped me grow as a human being.
Monstar L
christ, i graduated with a single major (computer engineering) and i had to take 140 credits. all he had to take was 135 for two.
:(
where's my second degree?
Now, the only thing that would be more amazing is if he did it drunk. 23 credit hours and beer. Now we're getting to godlike status...
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Apparently he didn't have enough time for a minor in female anatomy.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Here is someone obviously talented in mathematics and science. Someone who obviously is intelligent and can be readily a "qualified american" engineer.
Yet, he chooses to go into law.
He knows that's the fastest path to becoming extremely wealthy and financially independent. He's actually demonstrating that he's not stupid at all!!!!
Now Einstein "descovered" relativity, so Banh will discover "speedivity" (the faster you go, the more likely you are to come full circle)??
This just in: many high school aged students have to go to college to be challenged!! They have to go to college to learn what they should have in high school! More at 11!!
At 11: This just in, many US colleges {can be|are} easy too!! Students have to get advanced degrees to learn what they should have in college!!
About one of my friends with a Math/Comp.Sci./Pol.Sci. who went on to be a very good patent attorney. "How anybody who understands math would go into law!"
I envy him coming from a school system that allowed him to get 72 AP credits. My high school, and every alternative within an hours drive, offered a grand total of SIX AP courses (including Music Theory, wtf?). They required you to take the class before you could take the test. And every one of them had pre-requisites within the normal high school curriculum, making all 6 an impossible combination.
I am also a bit skeptical about getting through all of college in what amounts to, at most, 5 'layers' of prerequisites, and that would be assuming he brought in two courses worth of AP credits in a particular subject (common at most institutions, a 5 on my AP Calculus exam got me credit for Calc I and Calc II), took another level of course in the fall and spring, and then took the final one as his single 3-hour summer course. All 3 of th universities I have attended had pre-requisite trees deeper than that for almost any normal degree, and more of them than would fit in his schedule anyways.
The double major in Physics and Math is a pretty smart choice, if I were to "twink" my college education like that. Most institutions allow AP credit to qualify for non-major related prerequisites (so you can focus on the "good stuff" instead of all that well-rounded stuff) and thus most of his high school AP credits may apply. A typical Math and/or Physics degree focuses on multiple subdisciplines that can be studied concurrently rather than in sequence. And, of course, a person with an aptitude in Math will find the coursework easy to digest and easy to take tests for (which inevitably involve solving problems rehashed in the coursework rather than coming up with novel solutions or proofs). In other words, if I was powerleveling through college (which is what he did), that's probably the route I would have taken.
Of course, with this current toon, I took the other route and only had 12 credit hour semesters and took a lot of extra-curricular cultural classes in music, literature, and sociology. Sometimes life is better when you stop and smell the roses.
That's nice. With brain implants we could learn this much in a day. Eventually, a few nanoseconds. The singularity means this guy will be old news quick. Too bad.
Word.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
...burns half as long? I worry about people who are so task oriented. I bet the guy gets anxious when he isn't working towards a deadline and has some free time.
If the coursework was that unchallenging to him, how did it take him until he was 18 to get through high school?
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
I'd normally fall back on to the liberal arts idea of developing a human mind with a broad variety of ideas and methods, and the idea of an undergraduate education not being simply a checklist of requirements to meet, but with a guy like this you just have to stand back and let him run. I'd be very sad to hear that at some point he'd burnt himself out and decided to retreat to a Hemp Farm/Spiritual Awakening retreat in Eugene. Fast burners like him just need to be managed as little as possible.
Maybe someday he'll decide to write a UNIX/MINIX clone...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I bagged 28 different chicks my first semester, and 14 different chicks my second semester - thats 42 different chicks I banged my first year.
I got laid an average of 8.2 times per week (ok, I counted total lays here, not lays by a different chick).
Can anyone match those stats?
He was later lynched by other college underclassmen who had been going to class for years, who finally worked out that what they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No doubt this guy has made some lucky meth dealer rich enough to retire.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
After reading the article, I felt like I had a similar sort of high school experience as him (though not as crazy as him). I came to college with 48 AP credits, plus 8 from college courses. Technically speaking, I could've graduated in a year or two. But there's no point.
First, the physics/mathematics combination is not hard to do. At least where I went to school a physics major only needed a few more classes to get a math degree (because so much was required for physics). Second, I don't think one can truly appreciate physics by doing it all in one year. I doubt he took very many advanced courses. I learned a lot in intro physics (I had AP credit, but declined it to take an honors intro course) that I never learned in high school. And it always takes me a while to truly appreciate a subject. Not just one year. Plus I doubt he got much research experience in.
I'm sure he's a smart person and talented, but there are plenty of people like that out there. If he had tried doing that at a place like Caltech or MIT, I doubt it would've worked. Plus I actually enjoyed taking distribution classes because they gave me an interesting perspective I hadn't known before. In fact, I wish I had taken more of them.
Regardless, if you're thinking of doing this, don't. If you're that smart, go to a better school, spend the money, and be really challenged like this guy never was.
Gone to the Dark Side young Banh has.
May the Maths Be with you!
... and I would know, because I went there.
Although I completed my college degree in the normal four years, the overriding academic attitude there is one of drastic over-achievement. That many AP credits, although high, is far from an absurd accomplishment there. I even had a friend who, after graduating, went into a master's program in physics (while simultaneously doing a bachelors in english).
Of course, on the flip side, I also have friends who burned out and started their own businesses.
Do the words "get a life" mean anything? I've known plenty of workaholics and video game addicts, but this is the first time in the last 15 years I've had the urge to tell someone that.
...that *everyone* entering college should be taking AP classes. That way, you wouldn't have remedial courses that students would just opt out of, and you can jump right into the nasty stuff. Beginning college English and Math should be for a small minority who don't pass the proper AP classes. Since high schools seem to be doing a lot of what colleges used to do, doesn't it make sense that colleges should start at a higher level? Wouldn't it be nice to accelerate learning a bit?
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Patent Law does not pay out like other legal specialties.
Boom.
Done.
PS: Does Captain Nerdburger have the social skills to interact with lesser humans and effectively part them from their money? Or will he be squirrelled away in some IT giant's back office combing through abstracts?
The American education system has a large potential, but sadly, "grad school" and ivry league 2nd degrees are whats pushing it down... what I mean to say is, it's not exactly hard performing well at a US university when British A2 exams and the IB compete with it - 3 years earlier!
I'm starting my MSc this week.
Matt
I wish I would have gone to the University of Virginia. The college I went to would not let you skip or test out of a class for the first 2 years. It was boring and tedious with lots of stuff I could have tested out of. Then I changed my major from something I knew (CS) to something I did not know. If I have to pay for the time I decided I had better learn something :)
Now I work in CS and my degree is worthless in my career. At least I had fun!
Oof, must be some really touchy lawyers modding in this thread. Probably the usual PR shills/lawyers/lobbyists that troll the board looking to earn their pay for being political/corporate apologists.
This guy hasn't missed the point of going to college. He got it right. He's taking advantage of the TIME VALUE OF MONEY. Facing the extreme price increases in tuition why not take as many transferable AP classes as you can. Then if you get someone else to pay for your collage that's even better. And instead of wasting 4 years of valuable time (where you could be making money instead of forking it over the university, landlords, beer vendors, or pot dealers you can get on with life and start doing what you want. The more you earn/invest today, the better off you will be tomorrow. The less debt you have today, the more you will have tomorrow.
Universities have become a money making shell game...they require you to take a load of irrelevant course work (to broaden your horizons) at over $300/credit then they offer limited sections of these classes which delays your graduation a semester or two. Yeah, the university has your educational interests at heart.
P226
I was going to say the exact same thing.
Racing through college like that just seems like wasted opportunities galore. Not only for the social interaction, which he almost certainly didn't get, but to take all sorts of other classes.
There are whole fields of study that I never would have had any clue about, except that I saw them in a course catalog when I was an undergrad and thought "what the hell, I'll take it." Economics, for example, is now a big interest of mine, and there's no way I would have taken it, if I had been just trying to bang out the minimum graduation requirements.
I wish this guy the best, but I think he's driving too hard and too fast for specialization. Even for a patent attorney, having some concept for things outside your area of interest is a good idea. That doesn't mean you need to take twelve credits of Underwater Basketweaving, just that there are a lot of things that you can learn about (particularly a big school like UVA), and it's a shame to pass up those opportunities, as they're rather difficult to come by later.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If your ambition is to become a patent lawyer, clearly you have no idea what a patent lawyer actually does.
What math/physics degree allows you to graduate with only 120 credits, 72 of them things that can even be counted from AP exams?
My engineering degree took 200 credit hours, including about 45 that I entered college with. Taking 37 hours in a semester would save you... half a year over my normal course load.
I mean, so AP can cover your intro pretty much everything... meaning that few of his classes were actually something high level AKA possibly challenging? I had a year and a half worth of math courses beyond what you can get with all possible AP credits.
I mean, awesome for him... but what the heck is the university even teaching in a degree that short?
In my math Ph.D. program we had a student the didn't complete his undergraduate degree because he was in a hurry to get to his real studies. Funny thing is, he didn't complete his high school program because he was in a hurry to get to college. I asked him if he was worried about completing his Ph.D., and he said it was either that or his G.E.D.!
This isn't really news for nerds, y'know.
I double majored in plumbing and genetics. My final test was easy:
What is only thing you need to know about plumbing: Shit stinks and water runs down hill.
Describe a kissing cousin: Shoot! I'd kiss them all
In order to take the patent bar, an applicant must have at least a bachelors degree in a technical field. It seems to me that math or physics is probably the route he could take with the lease dependencies between classes to get it all done in a year. As to whipping through college too fast, at least he can get paid for the research he is doing as a masters student.
science is a religion
Another neat case is that of venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson. Let me quote from his online biography:
Stanford, which uses the quarter system and thus requires 180 credits to graduate, permits no more than 20 credits per quarter. 8 quarters (i.e., two years and two more quarters) X 20 credits = 160, still a quarter short. According to a 1999 New York Times Magazine article on the guy, Jurvetson figured out how to sign up for and take more classes than allowed. If I recall correctly, on each quarter's registration cards he penciled in fewer credit hours for each class than its true worth, so the registration computer--which presumably watched for students who penciled in too many credits--wouldn't notice. Isn't that awesome? (And, unfortunately, something that Stanford's Axess completely-automated system won't allow today.)
Gives more of his justification. Including the good and bad IMO.
I D=27010&pid1443
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?
He obviously doesn't play World of Warcraft.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
The drinking age in 19 in Virginia?
The article did not mention how many times he got laid in college.
Or how much beer drank, or how many...
"Fix it"
NERRRRRRRRRRDDDDD!!!!!
I knew, the second I saw the headline, that it was a TJ grad. I could have easily spent another year at TJ after my senior year, and learned a hell of a lot more than I did during my first year (or two) of college. In fact, in my time at TJ (where I specialized in Physics), I learned more about computer science in passing than I have at the two universities I've attended for most of the past ten years (including a CS degree).
I'll be the first one to admit that chances are he missed out on a lot of fun college life, but sometimes you just have to do something "because you can". He's smart, and I'm sure he'll spend the next three or four years in grad school and law school, and he'll find time to have a little bit of fun while he's at it.
Congratulations to him, and remember, just because he's smarter than you (academically) is no reason to try and take away from his accomplishments just to make you feel better about yourself.
--brian, TJ '96
You call it "wasted," I call it "some of the best times I ever had."
(shrug) All depends on what there is to do and who else is around, I guess. I used to hang out with this old, cranky, brilliant, and thoroughly entertaining physics professor; he'd help me with projects in the lab in return for mowing his lawn.
Given what time on some of the equipment I used costs, not to mention materials that I might-or-might-not-have used, that was probably the most lucrative lawn-mowing I'll ever do.
I firmly belive that at least 60% of my learning in college took place outside of classes. And a non-trivial amount of that happened in pubs. But that's another story.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Oh great, so now we're going to have a SUPER-HUMAN patent lawyer. He must be stopped!
Just imagine how fast this guy will blow through the McDonald's training materials! He's got Assistant night shift supervisor written all over him...
This guys doesn't sound like someone I would want a a friend or boyfriend. Who would relate to him. I would be worried about complaing about things that find hard or taxing. I know he's school smart but is he street smart and is he able to relate to people his own age at people at all ? I hope he takes some downs time to learn about life and connect with the people around him or else he will end up living a loney life with nutting but his "work" to keep him company.
Nice kid I wish him well~ Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe ~
Let's assume for a moment that this guy is actually brilliant, not just cramming stuff (which should be hard in a Maths course, but I don't know how the courses at this university are organised). Then the fact that he wants to be an attorney shows what a horribly shallow personality he must have.
I mean, a true genius would be eager to use his cognitive abilities for the advancement of mankind. Start an academic career, change the way we think about the world. Live in fancy old College rooms, sip on a glass of Port, write thoughtful books.
No, he doesn't want to do that. He wants to earn a lot of money. How sad.
I recall a case from the late '80s or early '90s, of a student of Indian origin who got an MD at age 21 from a noted medical school. The papers in India were full of praise for this accomplishment. Then, this man went back to India and his family tried to find a suitable bride for him. His value in the marriage market being high (MD, US Citizen, famous), there was some sort of a demand for a huge dowry (illegal in India, but practiced widely). The upshot was that he with members of his family were arrested and charged under the anti-dowry laws and for other violations. I recall vaugely that he did time in prison for it.
Would it not have been better for the individual to have spent more time at college learning the rudiments of good citizenship and interpersonal skills?
But ScuttleMonkey removed it.
Troll me if you want, but seriously: University is first and foremost the place you go so you can get a piece of paper allowing you to get a decent job. "Nooooo, it's. . .like. . .about uh. . .learning life. . .you know?" Gimme a break, stoner. Tell that to your parents. They don't believe you either.
You wanna party and live on your own you don't have to pay a school $40,000 to do that and it leaves a lot more money for beer.
I think it's clear we need an overhaul of the University system to reflect this reality. I wanna learn to be an engineer then why are you making me read excruciating poetry or sit in a Wymen's Studies class so the (expletive deleted) professor can tell me how bad I am because I'm a white male? Cut that crap out and give me two years of course work where at the end I'm eminently qualified to do the work I want to do.
To me this guy is on the right track. Get your pretty piece of paper so you can get out there making bank. Show up to the college bar in your expensive car with a wad of cash. When you're an 18 year old nerd you aint gonna be getting the boobies anyway. When you're a 19 year old with a fat wallet and a hot car you'll get all you can stand.
Look, if you are lucky enough to be a jock type with rich parents to pay your way you can afford to kick back for 4 years taking ridiculous/pointless/useless courses between getting laid/stoned/drunk. Meanwhile the rest of us are working our ass of to get by (while piling up debt.) All of this by a BUSINESS with monopoly control over having a decent future strings us along unnecessary/expensive/REQUIRED addons.
What a racket. If it was any other business they'd be hauled into court and forced to change their ways.
It isn't IV league, but ivy league. It is called this because of the ivy that grows on the old buildings at these schools. IV would suggest something like "fourth level", but if you ignore sports (I don't know what division most Ivy's are), most of them are considered top tier.
There is a reason many top teir schools (not just Ivy's) aren't accepting AP credit, and it isn't just because they want people to get their education at their school. Not all college classes on a given subject are created equal, and the content and difficulty of a particular class can vary wildly from school to school. I took several of my classes in high school at a local college, and I can't deny that the classes there were much easier than where I went for undergrad. AP classes might be better than many high school classes, and they might even be as good as college classes at some places, but they are not a good substitute for a well taught class at a good university given by someone who truly knows their field.
As an example, a friend of mine recently helped grade an undergraduate math placement test, and several of the people who got 5's on their BC calculus AP exam (the highest grade) were lacking an understanding of basic concepts like limits, continuity, and the definition of the derivative.
The problem with giving people credit for AP classes, then, is that they are either ill prepared for further study, or else you can't confirm when they graduate that they know everything that they should. A diploma should be more than just a piece of paper, but rather a stamp of approval that says "To the best of our knowledge, this university certifies that you can think and reason and that you have a working knowledge of a certain set of things." If half of your credits come from AP classes that are of a lesser quality, a university can't make such a statement with as much confidence.
Viewed in this light, it isn't just arrogance that keeps the schools from accepting AP credit, but rather the need for a diploma to have meaning.
Good luck catching him to give it to him. He would have to be on the track team to be able to get from class to class on time while taking that many hours. Heck a monkey on speed probably looks like he is moving in slow motion next to this guy.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
who did >105 study weeks (one study week = 40 hours of work) in a year. He did maths and CS and mainly just attended the exams. That was 6-7 years ago.. He still hasn't graduated (that means he hasn't done his thesis back here in Finland) :-)
You can get AP credit in High school for a lot cheaper than college credit in college. His senior year of High schoool he got at least 21 credit-hours from AP classes, probably more like 30-40. High School is free, with $50-$100 for an AP test (worth 3-6 credit hours, usually), while my college charged almost $300 per credit hour.
Given an option of getting 30 credit hours for $1000, or 30 credit hours for $9,000, which would you take?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
...and has still never kissed a girl.
another fuckin' lawyer.
The world needs this like Steve Ballmer needs an appointment to Anorexics Anonymous.
Meet a girl? (Strike that; he's a physics and math guy)
Eat?
Sleep?
Shower?
Shave?
Go to the bathroom?
Breathe?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I may be a dumbass, but at least I know what good poon tastes like!
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Great, now he's got 3 years to go travel the world! Now _that_ would be a well-rounded education.
-----
Kvetch is Yiddish for "throw an exception" --Dr. Ron Cytron
At this rate, he'll be retired in three years and be dead in five.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I could have graduated in one year if I hadn't drank so much.
I could have graduated in two years if I hadn't had so much sex.
I could have graduated in three years if I hadn't smoked so much pot.
I could have graduated in four years if I hadn't taken that year off to get my head together.
I could have graduated in five years if I hadn't had to work for a year to get more money to go back to college.
I could have graduated in six years if I hadn't gotten that girl pregnant.
I'd still be married if I hadn't drank so much...
From TFA:
His first semester, he took 23 credits and found he had more time than he did in high school to spend with friends, playing games (video games or board games, he clarified, not drinking games). Or just hanging out.
...
"I don't feel like I missed out," he said. "Most of college was euphoria."
And the most important thing he learned in college, he said, "is to value the people you spend time with, your friends."
I'm nowhere's near as smart and motivated as this guy. But I've been ragged on before about not doing enough socializing or not having enough fun. Perhaps each person has their own idea of what is "enough" for them.
Smart kids give me a pain.
Why, exactly, is it that he has missed anything? He has just earned himself a lot of time to kickback, and a lot less future frustration. He only took 3 credits over the summer, afterall, which is just one class, so clearly it is not his goal to spend every waking moment working.
I did not even know APs until junior year (my school loved to sabotauge us like that) but if I had, I would definitely have spent all my time on APs or in the local community college classes, which were payed for by the schools if you enrolled concurrently and are transferable credit at any of the colleges in-state. I dare say I would have had this guy beat. As it stands, I managed to pull off 33 AP credits largely through one big cram at the end of my senior year, and it is has done nothing but good things for me.
A friend who has come up this semester got almost the same number of credits, but she cut out of high school a year early with a GED. The result is not that she is "missing the college experience"; the result is that she can relax and go at whatever pace she feels comfortable, knowing that even in the worst case scenario she would only graduate when she would have otherwise.
Certainty and accomplishment a much greater consolation to many people than the 'normal' route. Neither you nor I has any idea has much peace-of-mind this kid has found through his chosen route, or how much it will do for him in the long run. Undoubtedly, it would be a bad idea to force everyone through the same process, but it is ludicrous to suggest that there would not be some people who would be better off for it, and I speak as someone who would very much have liked the same opportunity.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
What's really odd about this story and has me guessing it's validity is that most classes for junior/senior level require you take the freshman/sophomore classes first regardless of your AP credit. Also I'm surprised all the classes he needed were offered the exact semester he needed. I know a lot of times classes are offered once every other year (especially in physics/math) or only "every fall." If he did it in two years, that might be more believable, I'm a little skeptical here.
You'll find this guy's picture.
Unfortunately, when someone actually listens to the high-school principal telling you "school is your job", you get people like David Banh. Then everyone else has to work as hard to catch up with the workaholics, and then we all suffer.
Somebody sit Banh down and at least teach him the meaning of the word Shabbat. He desperately needs one (though not the religious parts, just the not working).
It seems irresponsible to me that UVa would have allowed a student -- any student -- to take 37 credit hours in one semester (as the article states). I graduated with 144 CH required for my major (petroleum engineering), and we were limited by the college to 21 CH/semester. I took one 19CH semester and regretted every second of it.
It seems to me this was more of a publicity stunt on the part of UVa that really wasn't in the best interest of the student. Personally, I'd think twice before sending my own kids there...
What do you call a bus full of lawyers careening off a cliff?
A Good Start.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
What the fuck? Mechanical engineering is 192 units at my university. Fuck this guy.
The article states that in some cases he just studied and took the AP tests without actually taking an AP class. I hadn't realized that you could do that prior to reading the article.
Also, this kid must have mad social engineering skills. Most schools won't let you take above 18 credits at a time. 23 is a reasonable load, but 37? I struggled to carry 18 credits per semester.
isn't the whole point of college to grow sexually? find out what your sexuality is really like?
in college you are on a voyage of self-exploration, and you are locked in a few buildings with a bunch of other young horny people. someone really needs to tell this kid to explore his sexuality now, while the getting is good. because he and all of us are just going to get fatter, lose our hair, and things will sag. it doesn't get better than right now, so get out there and get your freak on while the getting your freak on is good
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He also joined three fraternities and a sorority.
I agree with you dlevitan. I think it is definitely worth the time and money to go to a good school and be challenged.
A few years ago, when I was a student at the University of Minnesota, the Physics Education Research Group gave students in the introductory physics courses a sort of pre-test called the Force Concept Inventory at the beginning of each semester. The goal of the pre-test was to discover what kinds of misconceptions students had about physical concepts. Students who had taken high school physics courses did not necessarily do better on the pre-test than those who didn't take physics in high school.
I got straight A's in high school and took AP math courses, but when I got to college I discovered that there were a lot of things that my high school physics and math teachers did not explain properly, or did not cover at all. I think that students are coming out of high school knowing even less and less each year, but they think they will have an easy time in college because they got good grades in high school. The last time I taught a college science course, I was shocked and horrified by the things that the students did not learn in high school. The young man in the article is going to have a rude awakening someday, when he realizes how little he actually knows and that he can't keep on coasting through life based upon his high school performance. I think that the college he attended did him a great disservice by allowing him to use so many high school credits and finish in such a short time.
What the? He crammed math/physics studying into one year, and then he wants to go to law school?
Can someone please tell him that the LSAT (law school placment exam) is the only grad. entrance exam that DOESN'T doesn't include a math section. I guess that's the definition of exploring... trying something completely different.
My entire first year was a waste, mainly a review of the last few years of high school. After that, an 18-20 hour load kept me pretty busy. I had a little social life but no job, so not much to do besides studying and games. :)
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Everyone who's dogging on this guy for doing something amazing just looks jealous. He has a good work ethic, seems to have great endurance and a good outlook on life. He could spend the next three years weaving baskets or stabilizing air pressure in an acoustic chamber. Either way, he's doing what he wants to do. Just don't disrespect the guy for having a strong work ethic.
I thought I was cool doing it in 2 years. However I'll have a Ph.D. M.B.A and B.S in five. We'll see if he can match that. Here's how I did it at the University of Kansas. 24 credits hours coming in from high school (actually college credit we didn't have fancy AP courses at my high school) Fall 2002 18 credits (The most they would let me take) Spring 2003 21 credits Summer 2003 12 credits Fall 2003 24 credits (3 graduate math courses and 4 computer engineering courses with 2 labs) Spring 2004 25 credits I got 9 bonus hours for taking Spanish 5 one semseter. After this I got a B.S. in Math and had most the a B.S. in Computer Rngineering. I enrolled directly in the direct Ph.D. program in Electrical Engineering (KU doesn't have a Computer Engineering PH.D). I also enrolled in an online M.B.A. program from University of North Alabama in Spring 2005. I should be done with the M.B.A in December (Fall 2006) and the PH.D. in may (Spring 2007). All this for a total of 5 years in college. Not to mention I started working a full time job as a Software Engineer this past summer (once my coursework for the Ph.D was done, I am still finishing my dissertation). I so glad I didn't do MIT. I'll have more degrees and real-world experience have 1/10 the amount of debt. Also don't think I just wasted my college studying, the guys at my fraternity hated me because I never studied but always enjoyed that I could help them with their homework.
I understand from his blog that having dashed through college, with a focus on learning, he is now thinking of back-tracking with the objective of getting laid. This is, in fact, the that is "next" for him.
From his blog:
"...definitely, having sex is the next thing I'm looking to tackle", he said, "but I have an idea: by energetic rubbing ahead of time I think I can cut the coitus down to about 10 seconds"
He adds later:
".. I'm thinking of another double major - I can't see why I cant pop one off in the first 10 seconds, like I said, and then pop off another up the poop shoot for a total of about 20 seconds. That seems reasonable to me, and there might be some economy of scale - 15 seconds might be doable"
And later there's a brief discussions of logistics:
"I'm not sure where a partner will come from, but I'm looking to spend about $200"
... more and more jobs require a degree to just "weed out candidates," meaning it has no real value other than just obtaining the paper (purely from a employment perspective, of course), then you will have situations like this. People will do everything in their power to get that paper, in as little time as possible.
I am in no way saying a degree is not valuable, but there are many employers out there requiring a degree for positions that have no need of a degree.
My guess is, he'd have a difficult time getting into a good graduate program in math or physics. Since most schools only have a handful of openings each year, they want to make sure whomever they accept is dedicated, and won't flame out over the 4+ years it takes to get a Doctorate. They do this by looking at a person's committment, and their research experience; it seems that this student demonstrates neither. What graduate school is going to take a chance on an 18-year-old kid who looks at college as a race to put in the time needed for meaningful research?
Living in Charlottesville, I've seen the kind of crap this place churns out. A year seems like overkill based on the ways these morons drive. :)
P.S. Yes - I guess this is a troll, but how often do I get to rant about the local idiots in a public forum?
...being taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. That is the value of a college degree when compared to most other forms of education. Anyone can cram a thousand things into their head. However, it will ALWAYS take time to learn HOW to use that information in an intelligent way. There's something about our brain that allows it to, OVER TIME, remap/re-organize information we've accumulated into higher dimensions--often as a result of looking at things in a way that we've never thought of before (read: core set of diverse required classes).
While I congratulate this student for their motivation and drive, I have to leave my warning to stop and smell the roses, you just might learn something.
PS: That doesn't mean taking the 'diverse set of required classes' is always enjoyable. As a recent college graduate, I'll be the fist to point out all the complaining I made while taking these courses. However, in hind sight, they turned out to be more valuable that I realized at the time.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I transferred in 25% of my credits from high school, the Marine Corps, and test outs. While working full time and raising my family I pulled off an ASCS and a dual major BSIT and BSMT in three years. That was going to school year round on a block schedule. Nothing I feel like repeating. I think my masters is going to be at a much slower pace.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I can't speak for anyone else, but this was certainly my experience. The professors (at least the tenured ones) only seemed to want to talk about supporting the teachers union and encourage us to vote democrat/union/liberal.
Yes, this does happen, though it's not universal, and tends to be more common among professors of the, uhm, shall we say "less rigorous" fields. Just because someone is a leftist (the term "liberal" is too good for such wastes of biomass) doesn't mean they support independent critical thinking.
Unfortunately, the people who complain loudest about this legitimate problem tend to be right-wing assholes who'd rather substitute THEIR particular brand of Received-Wisdom-From-Faux-News dogma than let students come to their own conclusion, which leads more reasonable liberals to dismiss their complains. It's a pity, really.
I just finished college, with a degree in Psychology, and I'm going on to an MSW program in DC. I'll tell you, as someone who thinks they got most out of their experience at collge, I'll remind you of the words of Mark Twain: Never let schooling interfere with your education.
I had that on a piece of paper above my bedroom door. I took 20 units each quarter for my last two years (15 = norm). I did field studies that weren't required for graduation. I took classes at community colleges that didn't apply to my degree.
That said, I also went out with friends every weekend. I lived in a house with 10 other people, and so by the end of my 4 years I knew just about everyone in town. Music: college was worth it for the music exposure alone. Drugs: they aren't fundamentally wrong, evil or bad; everyone learns their limits. It's important. Sex: the best time to have lots of it is in college; always wear a condom. Always. Wear. Condoms.
There is nothing wrong with being busy in college; there were others that were even busier than me (my friend for instance created his own Bioethics degree while being an RA while working fulltime). But leave space for sex, drugs and rock and roll. No other time will you have stories about eating a sandwhich naked at your best friends birthday party, or friends peeing in two-dozen bottles and leaving it in someone's room as a prank. There is more to education than SCHOOL. You have to learn how to have fun too. And you have to learn who you are. The degree is for employers, not you.
Please allow me to hate the creator of the 120-character limit: *HATES*. Thank you.
I took 60 units in a semester once at MIT.
Son, the point of going to college isn't knowledge. Anyone can pick up a book and learn.
The point of going to college is poon-tang. Pure and simple. Why do you think they make you take English literature classes? To learn what a boring read Emily Bronte really is? No, it's so you can speak meaningfully to the cutie who wears the green satin bra on Thursdays, and so you can find out exactly what is under that bra, son.
Now go learn something on a "collegiate level", or you will turn into a bitter old man.
So say he's done by 22-23 years old. Unless he immediately goes into business for himself, noone's going to give him a whopping salary at starting point in his career. He'll end up earning his raises just like any other person in any other business.
And to play devil's advocvate to myself: Lawyers get hired by law firms to bring in money. The chances of a young whiz-kid doing that are slim. Not impossible, but slim. Paricularly in patent law.
I whent to a southern state university and when I accumlialated 80+ AP and CLEP credit and some one else collected 95+ Clep hours the University capped AP and Clep hours towards graduation at 36.
>I majored in computer engineering and minored in math and Japanese, and ...and if it were ME, looking at your application along side of his, even if you had a GPA a full point LOWER than his one-year degree, I'd hire you over him in a second. Who would I want as a prospective employer - someone with a drive to finish things instantly, has no demonstrated social skills, no interest in anything outside his laser-beam-focus, no demonstrated interest in expanding his mental horizons... or someone who took a couple extra years to grow, has five more years of real age and probably ten added years of relative maturity, wants to know more about more, is well-rounded, and is willing to work hard for a long time to succeed...
>actually took a lot of other classes that I didn't have to take because
>I thought they were interesting. I have something like 32 credits that
>don't really "count" as it were, for my degree. I am sure as hell glad
>I took them though because I will probably never get another chance to
>take a class in world music or Japanese literature.
>
>Those sure as hell don't help me on my job or in grad school next year,
>but I really felt like they helped me grow as a human being.
Seems like your approach is infinitely better. Sure, some employer might snap him up, but it's a rather risky thing for the long term.
His accomplishment is impressive. But that's not the whole story, obviously.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Everybody here is knocking him for missing out on the social aspect of college.
The flipside is, he's done with the academic part of college, but he's only 18. He could live on a friend's couch for 2 years and still be ahead of most people.
I mean, it's not like once you get your diploma, you're forced to forfeit all inklings of a social life - even in a college setting. Now he may choose to reject all of this, too, but that's not the same as saying by graduating at 18 he's missed the boat for partying, socializing, and in general getting the "Other Education" that college offers.
I actually take pity on this kid. He was in such a hurry to get "to the next thing" he completely missed college.
Sad honestly. College is a nice 4-5 years of your life of with barely any responsibility and a hell of a lot of fun. What is waiting for you after college. Answer: a career, have fun with that for the next 50 or so years of your life, i dont think putting that on hold for a year is gonna matter much in the end.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Imagine having to suffer through another season of Al Groh's abyssmal football team. I say he got out just in time. It's only a shame that he took so few classes in the fall that he might have had time to see the 'hoos limp into a bottom tier bowl game.
To be honest, the word I've heard is that UVa is (relatively) tough to get into, but once you're in, they pretty much stamp your card for showing up. I had a cousin or two that graduated in Honors General Studies (they call them Eccol's Scholars, or some such). One became a housewife, one worked in marketing at a bank which ended up going under. The latter traveled the world for a couple months, then came back to the states and decided to pursue a MD. That's probably the best use of that program - a stepping stone for another (useful) degree. I won't argue that there are smart kids there (both of my cousins are very smart, the former is close to her PhD in Clinical Psych now, and the latter is in residency), but there's a little less practicle work going on than I'd like to pay for.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Spend an extra year? check
Take a difficult course twice? check (see above)
Go to parties, get drumk? check (ok, 2 checks)
Meet the opposite sex? check (what better place to meet your first wife?)
Learn everything... not quite
Don't get me wrong, college was a blast, but it was a ton of hard work. I learned how to apply a strong work ethic. I went to every class, I listened. I did my assignments as soon as I could, so I could have time to party without slacking. I did my share of partying, but school came first. I also worked while in school, to pay my own way. But still had to get student loans. I didn't learn everything I know in college. I was a CS major, and pretty much all they taught about it at that time was programming. There is a LOT more to software development than programming. Luckily, I took the one software engineering course offered where we did everything BUT programming (project plans, budgeting, design, requirements, test plans, etc), and the project from that course is what got me my first job. Then I started to apply some of the things I learned, but there is so much they can't teach you in college. There are things that I gained an interest in and learned a lot about 10 years after college. But I had a good foundation to build upon.
It is all about balance. You study too much, you lose. You party too much, you lose. I still try to apply balance to my daily life now, 14 years after graduating college. And I am happy.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This post is brilliant and 100% correct. I minored in literature for this very reason.
That could get expensive, though probably cheaper than tuition.
Knowledge does not transform bottomfeeding scum, it just makes them more dangerous.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I did about the same as you. I went in to college with 60 credits, majoring in physics (was also doing math, but wasn't as into it, so I dropped the second major) and minored in German. The extra credits allowed me to take many classes that I wouldn't have otherwise. Psychology, sociology, random math and programming classes, bowling :), and study abroad. I still graduated in 4 years, had something like 160 credits (only 120 necessary to graduate), and if I could change anything it would be to have spent MORE time in school, taking more classes, spending more time studying abroad. As it is, I plan to go back in a couple of years once my wife is done with grad school and working again.
wait... good at math + patent laywer? sounds like a certain "most intelligent person ever" that we know. Einstien was all over math and physics and was a patent clerk...... then again he failed out rather then "cheating" i mean testing out.
Parallel comparison: I'm in Toastmasters (http://www.toastmasters.org/), an international organization promoting communcation and leadership skills. There's an educational program that takes an average person about five-seven years to compete. Numerically it boils down to about 55 speeches, a major project in leadership and mentoring about 23 people. The first part (10 speeches) takes about one to one and a half years. I felt like I raced through it in 10 months, but later I heard about someone really racing through it in 10 weeks. I met that person and discovered that they had definitely missed the point. He was not a skilled speaker at all and could barely understand all of the meeting roles or the opportunities for service to the organization beyond the club level yet he had achieved the first level of education.
Indirect comparison: World of Warcraft power-levelers (or any game with specific goals). The people who play a single character to level 60 and they're "done." They quit and state "I've seen and done it all." Completely missed the point. The game, like school or professional organizations, is comprised of a great deal more than a simple ladder for reaching the "top." These people miss out on so much content, relationships and experience. I'd compare them to someone who goes to a buffet, tries a single bite of each item and calls that dinner.
Where is this coming from? Has our sense of achievement been condensed to "do the minimum requirement as fast as possible?" I guess it's the opposite end of the spectrum of people, companies and communities that are so laid back that they see no reason to change anything at all ever.
I am envious of Banh that he obviously has a high IQ and the ability to absorb a great deal of information quickly, though I wonder how long he can retain it. Patent lawyer? What a waste of a good brain.
I see a lot of people writing about how college is about learning to socialize, go to parties and so on.
If that is a fact, why go at all? I do agree with the idea, at least party. I know a lot of people who did a year in between. Travel and work in another continent for that year. And yes, they learned some very valuable life lessons. After that year you can still rush through whatever studies you want.
Why do those two things at the same time? The people I know who did this all became better people, if only from the fact that they now know how other countries think, live and feel. And I am talking about a year, not a 3 weeks holiday, no, a year where you will have to work for your money to get drunk.
It is also good to take that time to stand back and think what you realy want to do. Many people have changed their mind completely of what their goal would be.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...you have completely missed the point.
NO SHIT!! Jesus in a f@cking chicken basket!!!!
The smart thing to do would have been to finish HIGH SCHOOL in one year and extend college as long as possible! I went to TJHS and UVA too, for what it's worth, and having seen the comparison, well... I could have stayed at UVA for another fifty years. I liked college so much, I went and got a three year Master's degree, and my plan is to get three or four PhDs over the next seventy years. Okay, not much of a plan, but I would sacrifice a nut or two to avoid doing exactly what he's deliberately done.
Good lord, last thing I would want on my tombstone is that I was already a lawyer at the age of 19!
Oh, the impetuous indiscretions of youth... Youth is wasted on the young.
and there's no exception here,...
I actually made an outline of the reasons why, before leaving. It was 4 pages long I believe. I also never would have met my wife (well maybe, it was a local BBS, but we actually met face to face in highschool, of course I already recognized her by sight before I met her). Or had time to have a part-time job during high-school. And the AP classes which got you college credit at a "normal" highschool were easier than the non-AP classes at T.J. that didn't get you college credit.
And then there were all my T.J. friend graduates who went to the exact same school as I (virginia tech computer science class of 1996 or 1997 if you're hanging around for an extra year, like me, to decrease time away from wife).
I now own a home within eyesight of T.J., am 32 and have been in a relationship for 14 yrs, outlasting everyone I know, and am constantly reminded me of the fact that the current T.J. graduates would not be able to afford a $500,000 house (I bought it for $141,000 in 1998), so they are going through greater efforts than I did, and still could not enjoy what I enjoy.
The girls were MUCH hotter at my base school. And I could walk there. And get home at 2PM instead of 5PM. I do miss, however, the long bus rides where Hal would bring "The Ejaculator" (ear-cleaning syringe) and spray it at people on the bus, and nearby truckers. And the pissing incident was hilarious (Thank you Ravi). I didn't like getting blamed for putting a trashcan on the bus driver's head as she drove down I-395, though. It wasn't me, goddamnit!
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Speaking as a Wahoo alum and with no disrespect intended, I can say without doubt Mr. Banh missed out on the Jefferson Experience, the cord running thoughout The University meant to engage the mind equally in humanities, sciences, and fraturnity.
I attended private school and participated in Johns Hopkins University-sponsored summer courses, amassing approximatly 40 credits. As I mentioned above, UVA is dedicated to the Jefferson Experience, which includes all First Years living together in traditional on-Grounds dormatories.
I will not forget settling in the day after move-in, the crush and din of nervous and excited 18 year olds unpacking, meeting and greeting, and exploring this storied school we'd been all thrown together within, and opening my first peice of mail - a hard print out of my pre-registered courses.
All entering students were allowed to a language and elective of choice, but otherwise The University placed in-coming students in their necessary pre-req and/or intended Major course to alleivate some of the normal confusion when entering the less-structured university academic schedule (as opposed to the 7a-3p high school day). In my case, however, my 40 credits had placed me out of all my First Year courses with the sole exception of Chem lab. Happily enough, I had taken my old chem lab journal with me as I liked its combination of easily spaced lines, chart and carbon-less transfer pages (to wit, I still use same style lab journal to this day), and went to see my Dean about placing out of that course as well.
I should state, I was well recruited out of high school for both academics and lacrosse, and the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was quite familar with me. He briefly reviewed my journal, and had no problem excusing me from Chem lab - and he pointedly asked me: My 40 or so credits coupled with this latest meeting effectly made me a Second Year. I had a whole year - a *year* - with which to do whatever I wanted. He would sign me into any course I wanted, personally. The question was simple: What was I going to do?
The answer was equally simple: I took everything, and graduated not only with a degree in Chemical Engineering, but 4 minors: Psychology, Chemistry, Astronmy and Rhetoric, for as it turned out, my 40 credits included a number of the more common pre-req's in the College of Arts and Sciences as well, leaving me free to dabble to my hearts content.
I would love to say I gradated with Honors after all that - but I just missed the mark. But in retrospect, and I can say with certainity, at the time as well, the diffrence between getting an A, and actually drawing a B, was worth every moment, as I enjoyed everything The University had to offer outside the classroom, with sports, friends, parties and best of all, meeting my wife (though we did not become a couple until long after parting Final Exercises as friends).
The education is being with people as smart as you, as young as you.
For me, the most educational thing about college was being with people smarter than me. I went to a small obscure high school, where I was easily the smartest kid around, and got into a top-notch college. I found out that I wasn't as bright as I'd thought I was.
Different people get different things out of college. Perhaps most of us are not qualified to judge what a person brighter than us gets out of it. Having read your remarks, I'm pretty sure that you're not qualified to judge Mr Banh's needs.
Whether you like it or not, one of the really important parts of college are the experiences and bonding.
Dude, college is about bonding WITH CHICKS.
Let's face it - bonding with all of you fags is, uh, well, for fags.
If kids are coming out of high school with half of their undergraduate credits already complete, then what is the point of having high school?
This trend is happing everywhere. When I was a kid, AP was a rarity. Now almost half of the high school senior class is getting AP credits. I say 12th grade has outlived its academic usefulness. Most kids today are more than ready for college after 11th grade.
We'd get much more academic performance for our tax dollar if we just did away with 12th grade, send those kids on to college or other "transition" programs, and spend all that 12th grade money to provide free preschool to all children starting at age 3. By providing free early childhood education to all, our overall middle school and high school performance would be much better. And we wouldn't have this silly situation of half of our 12th graders taking college classes when they should just go ahead and be real college students.
I don't see what's so wrong with that. In fact, he will probably accomplish more than I have by the time I am married and have kids. Who knows, he may decide to take a couple of years off...because he has that luxury, unlike the most of us.
We have a prodigy like this one at the University where I work. His mother did not want him to take the mandatory freshman sex and STD orientation courses, so she raised hell with the dean until the school relented. Go figure. In other words, home schooled straight into herpes, chlamydia and pregnancies (if he EVER gets past 2nd base).
Jokes aside, teaching about sexually transmitted diseases and responsible living is part of a healthy college curriculum that goes hand in hand with growing up. Skip any of those steps and that becomes a recipe for trouble. Maturity does need to follow education. Best of luck to this kid!
>See, to me, college was about learning first and foremost, about obtaining a well-rounded academic
>education. The key here is "well-rounded."
I was a nerd in high school, and I was a nerd in college.
I was doing no more "social growing" in college than I did in high school - that is to say, I did none.
I suppose I had a few more friends, because I was now a nerd surrounded by other nerds (I went to a nerd school). But I can't really say I ever had a social life.
I would have to agree with the folks who have said at least 50% of the classes you take in college are a waste of time and merely income generators for the institution who claims to want you to be "well rounded".
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I'd sooner screw a RealDoll than an English major. Both of them have heads filled with air, but the RealDoll doesn't clutch and whine afterward.
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a science magnet school in the northern Virginia suburbs. It has 3-hr competitive admission test where each year 3,000 kids compete to fill 400 admission slots. The average SAT score (on the old 1600-pt SAT) was 1490. Last year, there were over 140 National Merit Scholarship finalists out of 400 seniors. About 15 years ago, their math team won a national math competition, and won a Cray system for the school - installed in the school and used by students. Football team sucks, though. UVa's not a slouch school, either. Maybe not MIT, but is always ranked in the top 10-15 public universities in the country.
Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain. --Friederich Schiller
some co-eds, but what can he tell his girl?
'Sorry I can't go out on Saturday, I have to finish another PhD thesis that evening.'
That said, there aren't many times, other than college, in your life where you are as free to experiment, try new things, and "open your wings". Learning about yourself and growing as a person (being social is a HUGE part of this) are the most important parts of college. Being successful (and happy) in life isn't always about what or how much you know. It is very often about how you present yourself (social skills) and who you know. College is a critical networking and personal growth opportunity.
I'm really sad to read this. One can experiment and try new things and 'open wings' long after college is over. When you're in college people often say "these are your best years." That always made me sad when I was in college. It wasn't that I didn't have a good time in college--it was absolutely wonderful--but I was only twenty years old! I didn't want my best times to be over when I (hopefully) had at least sixty years left!!
Good thing people were wrong. I'm still growing, spreading my wings, and trying new things. I hope that life only gets better.
Penny - plain text accounting
Checkmate. Guess the part-time law school suggestion means he discovered the ABA's rule about not graduating more than like, a semester early. 1 Year Undergrad = Kid 1, System 0 2.5-3 Years of law school = Kid 1, System 1 Although can't you take the patent bar before you have a JD?
makes me think back to when I was entering college.
there were no AP courses.
there were AP tests the college administered to all incoming freshmen, but you didnt get credits for the courses the AP results allowed you to skip. the school also wouldn't allow anyone to take more than 20 credits/semester; not that I would have regardless...
the history of the world
Nothing against the guy, but I'm startled that any college or university would give him a degree with most of the course credit being AP credits. Unlike the rest of /., I don't think that this kid has missed out on much. I had more of a social life attending classes than the hours between classes or just hanging out time. I took an average of 18 hours a semester and would have taken more. I found it difficult to though to schedule any more classes, get advisor approval to take that many classes and I had alot of social pressure to taken only 15-18 hours a semester from parents, class mates, grads, and professors. I've occasionally thought about takening a few more CS classes at my local community college just to met 10-15 people with similiar interests. If this guy did all the college work on his own and without the input of peers, then he wouldn't have any social life, Last I noticed most of college was centered around forcing a social life on students reguardless if they want it. I never wanted to attend pep rallies or any sporting events in college. I hated that the one question every one asked me about my university was if I chose it because some X sports person went there. No, I chose that university because they gave me the best scholarship offer and 10-15 others from my HS also were planning on attending that same university. Frieends and money and 2.5 hours away from mom were the factors that I used for choosing my university. This guy apparently picked the one place that would accept all his AP credits. I bet if many more try it, they'll quietly make a rule that they have to have more hours from that university before graduating.
... he missed a potentially cool nickname: Mr. Bong!
So the guy finishes undergrad in 1 year. All of the sudden everyone thinks he 'missed out' on the social aspects of college. The problem here is that he is still in college. Masters degree, law school, possible PhD program. He won't finish all of that in one more year so he still has time to focus on getting laid.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Your post was the only one that wasn't pure nonsense.
I go to UVA (in philosophy, so I doubt I've met the guy) and this baffles me for (at least) two reasons: If he is not in the engineering school (and with degrees in physics and math it sounds like he wasn't) then his credits per semester should have been capped at 17 to prevent people from doing exactly this sort of thing. I've tried to take more (this semester, in fact) without success. They do not normally allow that many AP credits to transfer, let alone count towards a major. Normally, only 60 credits of any sort may be transferred and NONE of them may count towards a major without super extra special permission. So, David, if you read this site: How did you get them to let you do that?
caritj.org
An undergrad degree at least isn't supposed to be a hyper-focused set of practical training. It is supposed to be a general education to help you become more well rounded, with some focus in an area that interests you. I like a quote that one of the professors here has:
BS: To learn to think.
MS: To think about what others have thought.
PhD: To boldly think where none have thought before.
The BS part strikes me as particularly relevant. The point is to gain general education and skills, not to get specific training. If you want specific, practical, training then you need to seek out training, not a degree. A degree should be about general learning. That's why any university worth it's salt will make you take English courses and math and science and so on even if it doesn't directly apply to your chosen field. It all helps to make you a more well rounded person, and many of those skills are valuable. Good writing skills help in any job, and while you might think the skills you learn on a research paper are only for academic works but you'll find the research skills you learn are very applicable to pretty much ANY field.
Just trying to breeze through it is missing the point. If you do that, the degree is just a piece of paper. If that's all you want to help you get a job, fine, but don't fool yourself in to thinking you got a real education.
Doogie Howser or no, this is quite the feat in North America. Most high schools don't allow for AP credits, let alone 72. And most Universities would never let a student sign up for this many courses at once, so a big hurrah for finding the sweet spot.
In terms of being a genius, I would not discount this man's intelligence, but let's bear in mind some other realities. As a math TA I worked with several Russian & Ukrainian students who had mastered Calculus (Derivatives and Integrals) by the end of 10th grade. They had done Physics in 8th grade well beyond anything I had done in 12th. So this is not some inhuman stretch of mental talent, though it is an inhuman amount of work.
Now, where I live, nobody learns calculus in 10th grade unless you skip a few grades (generally frowned upon for social reasons). This is not b/c 10th graders can't learn calculus, it's simply that the schools are not big enough to actually split out classes and accelerate those are capable. Add to this that some high school math teachers incapable of teaching calculus. So out here, nobody does this. Not b/c they aren't capable, but b/c they're not allowed.
Despite /. protests, this is feat of both this individual and the (normally restrictive) education system. This man has a degree, no debt and now he's being paid to be in school, sounds like a pretty good deal. He's ahead of the game with a good 3 years of full-time fraternizing available :)
...said that he finished fast too. Haha! If you didn't get the joke, it's that he had a girlfriend!
He says he may eventually pursue law school as a part-time student
If he's in such a hurry to finish everything else, why go to law school as a part-time student? Current ABA regulations permit you to finish in no less than 24 calendar months (maximum 5 years).
What?
Since he obviously put so much time and effort into developing his interpersonal skills, about the only thing he'll be good at is being an antisocial lab rat.
Christ... I had 132 credits by the middle of my sophmore year. I didn't qualify for a degree, though. Stupid MIT... :-(
I just got an email telling me I could get my degree within a week with credit for my life experience. Who's the underachiever now?!?
...that Slashdotters are telling this guy he needs to get a life?
That aside, cut the guy some slack. He's 18. I skipped the whole higher education experience, prefering to hit the library, the books and the internet real hard until I was 28. I turned out fine (though admittidly, I am posting on Slashdot.) He'll pummel through this for a few years, "miss out" on all those oh so crucial social lessons, and by the time he's 24, he might start all over again. He may yearn for those "lost years" of getting wasted, getting laid and getting wasted (again), and simply dive back into university for a four year program, just to experience that awesome and oh so enviable social interaction.
18 is YOUNG. He's experimenting as much as anything, and if it works, more power to him. If it doesn't, then he'll go do something else. Isn't *that* what growing up is about?
-Zen
Do You Experiment?
"He says he may eventually pursue law school as a part-time student in hopes of becoming a patent lawyer."
That may be the most depressing thing I've read in weeks. Has his education already failed him?
HitScan
Why not go to MIT, Cal-Tech, or another quant friendly school where he could actually be challenged and among other students of his caliber? I'm not saying I could do this, I'm not saying he's not smart, but as many other posts have pointed out college isn't necessarily a race, and the knowledge and networking is more important than the degree. Plus, watching Brazil score 10 goals in the first 5 minutes against a 3rd rate team in the first five minutes doesn't say much about the actual talents of the two teams except they are far from equal.
... but I chose not to. I had around 50 credits out of 125 after my freshman year, some coming from transfer/AP classes and some retro credit for taking advanced math and english classes. Take Calc 3 and get credit for Calc 1 & 2, pretty sweet deal. So that left me with about 4 classes a semester for the next 3 years and with all that free time I joined the Forensics team, got a cooperative intership that I worked parttime year round, partied and traveled. Finished my degree in 4 years, still ahead of a lot of my peers, and had a wonderful time in college. Now I'm doing it again with the Master's Degree as a fellow with the same company I interned for.
College is about having fun, learning some new stuff, meeting people and finding yourself in this world. Anyone can get a degree but not everyone can build character.
Nihilism means nothing to the dancing peasants
Seem to me some extreme measures just to avoid
Getting shamed with a permanent marker for passing out
"Hooking up"
Cartoons and Gin
Dope and Hostess goodies
The walk of shame (or pride for some)
Campus Cops
Stealing / painting / moving some worthless university icon (your schools or another's)
Sorority girls - heh
Any prank involving livestock, freshmen, or electricity (or all three)
Frat parties with Sorority girls
That guy on campus with one name like Boon, or Marsh, or Bowles
Stealing _______________ to "beautify" your dorm room
Waking up in a strange place with a strange partner
Waiting in the hall for your roommate to "finish" (ok I don't miss that)
Trips into (nearest) town with little or no $$, expecting a good time (and finding it)
And my personal favorite - getting high for that exam that you "couldn't possibly fail"
Get your tagline off my lawn.
As someone who went to college with over 30 credits, and being friends with someone who went into college with over 70 credits, I can say the college "experience" was a good social learning experience for both of us. I took my sweet time, taking stuff I enjoyed, rather than just persuing my major. I managed to get a 2nd degree I hadn't planned on (BA in philosophy of all things) as well as my BS, since it "turned out" I almost had the courses for it a semester before I was to graduate. I also managed to put 12+ hours a week into music performance classes (just for fun again) a semester, maintain a part-time job, spent a semester abroad, while finding the majority friends I still have today. I took 4 years and I don't regret it -- I also don't regret takign the courses in high school to allow me to do what I did.
Some naysayers may say some of my courses were wasteful (Calc C, as it turned out, didn't help in any of graduation reqs), but all in all the "academic environment" is a very important thing -- and I'm very glad this specific student chose to stay there.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Sounds like fun, if your parents can afford it. A lot of posts here claim that he missed out on drinking every night, having sex with random girls and bonding. The way I see it? He missed out on 4-5 years of worrying about money, working full time while taking difficult upper level courses, wondering if he'll be able to afford enrolling the following semester, and worst of all: living with your parents because you had to spend all of your earnings on books and tuition.
He's right. It's a good idea to blast through college and not spend much money (hell, he got a degree and made a profit!). Post-secondary is insanely expensive these days, and it's leading to many people refusing to take it. After all, why should you spend $40,000 to get a degree that might get you an extra few grand a year, but will take you 20 years to pay off? If anything, you should work for a while, then go take your degree(s) in your late 20's or 30's. It seems to be becoming less and less valuable to have a degree. Sure, my first few years of IT, I would have been better off... but now that I'm > 13y in the industry and still going, employers see that number, and they don't care if I got my BA-IT a decade ago. And I agree with them there, experience is worth more than some piece of paper (Microsoft Certified Solitaire Expert, anyone?)
He's wrong. I blew through high-school in a year, and I'll never get back what I missed. You can repay loans, but you can never get back the social learning that you missed because you had your head burried in a book. It's worth all the money in the world if you know what to say when a beautiful woman suddenly appears in front of you.
Oh, yeah, and, uh, friends and stuff too. Yanno. But mostly the women.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
The sad part about this is that this will likely be his 15 minutes of fame. With all the "smarts" it took to get this done that fast he will probably end up in a wage job getting paid less than someone who wasn't so pressed to finish early.
Well, I did it the "lazy" route, but I think I at least know how it's possible:
I discovered one year it's possible to take fewer shorter courses than more longer ones, and not only are the raw hours matched, but it saves wear & tear on the mind's picture of the weekly schedule. I had Monday and Wednesday
8:00-10:30, 10:35-12:00, 1:00-2:30, 3:00-5:50, and 6:00-9:00. Half of them spilled over onto Friday.
If this guy had some four-five days like that, then he might have collected his tremendous hours.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Are a fine place to learn how to socialize, and share.
I graduated from TJ in '93, and since then the reputation of the school has only grown...which is great for me, because it only makes me look better. :-)
If I was the kid now that I was in '89, I think it's pretty unlikely I would get into the school. But it was early in the school's development, the reputation was not yet established, and the application process was not nearly as competitive. I must have tested well because my middle school grades were pretty shitty.
I live in the DC area now and at 31 I still put TJHSST on my resume...the name carries more cache around there than my college (Beloit). So current TJ students and recent grads, please continue improving the fame and reputation!
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
doesn't mean you should. In this case I grade him an F...maybe a D+ at best.
Your HS degree no matter how "advanced" still is = to the most basic when it comes to apply to college...i can't tell you how many times ive heard the complaint from both parents and kids that all that extra work they did for an advanced diploma got them ZIP when it came the admission into the college of their choice..the schools i know of mostly only look at your grades and MAYBE your transcript SAT/ACT and extracurricular activities...
My new blog
Personally I do not see that as big deal at all. I graduated college in 2.5 Years (That is 5 Semesters) and went in with no AP or Transfer credits whatsover. I was a true freshman in College when I joined. I could have graduated much earlier if I went to my school's Summer and Spring terms as well. Moreover, within this period I also did a 4 month internship and holidayed every summer by travelling the world and worked 40hrs a week during school. I had serious fun when I was in and out of school!! This guy does have a double major, over me, but then I did get a double minor in Mathematics & Information Systems with my major in Computer Science.
I do sound like such a prude don't I? Trust me I am not. I am saying all of this just to make a point that you don't need to be super smart to do what this kid did. I am no genius, just an average student (or was).
But, if I was to do it again I would have taken the entire 4 years that were presented to me. I realize this 2 years down the road after graduation now that all my best true "learning" moments started happening towards the end of my short undergraduate education. If I had spent the rest of the time I had available to me in school I could have really learnt a lot more! I was a kid and in a hurry to be out of school to make money. Now look at me! I have mode money but am dying to go back to school because I cherish every moment I spent there. Hopefully I will be in school next Fall doing my Masters.
My advice to anyone else who wants to try doing this --- take it easy people and enjoy each moment of your college education, in and out of the classroom. There is no other place or time in the world where you will ever truly learn and grow as much as you do as an undergrad.
Peace!
I don't see why everyone is ragging on this kid for finishing college early. It makes absolutely no sense that one can't learn social skills outside of college, especially not this guy. Come on, he was PRESIDENT of his high school bridge club. At TJ, the bridge club is a step and a half below varsity football! (I should know, I actually went to TJ and was a member of the bridge club).
My college education was more in dealing with people and learning how to learn. I don't remember half the things I learned in class, but I met a ton of great folks, did a bunch of fulfilling activities, and hit on lotsa girls (unsuccessfully, alas). But in the end, it is essentially spending $30K-$50K a year on summer camp. The specific experiences are unique, but there is nothing learned at college that cannot be learned outside of it.
It's also no coincidence that his parents are immigrants. Does he have inferior social skills than most Americans? Perhaps. At TJ, when our varsity sports were losing in a match, at least we could cheer, "Well, someday you'll work for us." Someday we are going to work for this kid. I'm guessing three to five years. All of these Indian, Chinese, Russian grad students will be your bosses. And one day your boss will ask you what you bring to the company, and all you will say is: "I deal with the ** customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
It's time we got our butts out of happy hour, stood up off the couch, and stopped discounting the value of an education. Or else global warming will happen.
You need a Masters before you do a PhD. If he jumped into the MSc program, he's doing it the right way around.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The University of Virgina is 37th in the lists of the top mathematics graduate programs. Thus, his math degree (even at the bachelor level) is probably more valuble than mine, and harder to achieve. It's not as valuble as one from Berkeley or MIT, but not much is.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
In related news, 18-year-old David Banh, all-around genius and also an avid Slashdot reader, commits suicide as his stellar scholar achievements are labelled "slownewsday" on Slashdot's Tag system.
Contacted for comments, CowboyNeal, Slashdot mascot and fictional website manager, had nothing to say about this "crazy tags thing".
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
He is not a Muslim student at a Madrassah somewhere in Pakistan studying only the Koran and nothing else, getting his mind filled with garbage about how he and his "civilization" are being "humiliated by the West."
That would be tomorrow's foreign terrorist.
He is not a second-generation UK citizen of Pakistani descent, disaffected, searching for his roots in his native culture, swept away by some hate-mongering quasi-mullah preaching about "humiliation" outside the Mosque after Friday Services
That would be today's recently-arrested would-be plane bomber.
Banh wants to actively engage the world. He wants to be challenged and, hate them as you will, lawyers are all about matching wits. He would be a formidable opponent to any lawyer with his other skills in physics and math.
In other words, he'll terrorize lawyers
Now, this is bad, why?
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Coward, Class of '06 _acceptances_ in the top 25 Universities (class of 400 +/- 50): 218 UVA, 48 Duke, 29 Princeton, 24 Cornell, 12 Harvard, 9 Yale, 11 Stanford, 7 Penn, 41 Carnegie Mellon, 19 MIT, 21 Northwestern, 12 Johns Hopkins, 22 WashU in St. Louis, 14 UMich, 6 Brown, 8 Columbia, 16 Georgetown, 8 Dartmouth, 10 UChicago, 6 Caltech, 8 Rice, 8 Emory, 8 Notre Dame, 6 Vanderbilt, 2 Cal. Anyway, the TJ Diploma has even more rigorous requirements than the county's Advanced Diploma.
adj. having the tendency to kill time; pertaining to the act of killing or wasting time, or to one committing it;
Ditto me, except I did manage to get out in 4 years. I had a 4-year comprehensive (room, board, tuitition, and book allowance that didn't actually cover all the books you need with the bookstore's ripoff policies) scholarship at the local public university, University of Central Florida. I went in with about 40-something credits from AP and community college courses in high school.
I ended up taking about the average number of courses as most students. Some summers I worked and lived at home to save up money for going out, car insurance, gas, etc. Some summers I went to school with a part-time job and dipped into savings. I did a lot of volunteer work, hung out with my friends (who were mostly doing the same sort of things, honor students who were just enjoying college), and explored a lot of courses that never counted toward my major. It was a blast.
And you know, my friends were wrong. I really DID use my Polish I & II language skills when I went to Krakow years later, though I admittedly didn't remember too much. But, ha!
Hurrah he has just rushed through what could have been an amazing experience. What a schmuck!
/.
I wonder if this kind of story makes some slashdotters jealous, wishing they would have done something like this. From the overall tone of the comments I am going to say NO.
I am 26 years old, I am a professional dancer and also a PC Repair tech. I go dancing to salsa clubs here in Los Angeles six days a week, I dance with ten - fifteen women a night. I sleep as much or as little as I please. This morning I went hiking with an amazingly beautiful woman in Griffith park to the highest point above Los Angeles. Afterwards we had jamba juice, a shower, sex and a nap (in that order). Often times I wonder how people have time in their life for a full time job, more often I wonder why they bother. Societies values and priorities have become so warped that some people will undoubtedly find fault with my life, which is fine because their is fault in every life. It is hard to believe that we live in such connected times and many of us don't even know our neighbors. NE way enoughing ranting for now
Long live
...too much homework...
I considered doing this by staying in high school an extra year, which would have given me 68 credit hours of AP credit going into my first year of college, but only 48 of those credits would have applied to my major, and I would have had to be in college for at least 3 years anyway because of a long course progression that AP could only shorten by 3 months, so it wouldn't have helped me much. Ended up deciding to go to college for a full 5 years (it was a 5 year program) but took a bunch of extra classes that interested me that I wouldn't have been able to take if I tried rushing through it, plus I had a 5 year scholarship as well and was paying next to nothing the last couple years. I would recommend to anyone who is financially able, to go through college and enjoy what it has to offer rather than rush through it.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
I got my BS in applied math at 18. I started at 15, and got done in 3 years. My masters in CS took 4 years because I was working full time writing software at an aerospace company. It wasn't difficult, it was just a matter of jumping through the appropriate hoops. I met more intelligent people at nerd camp when I was 12 then I did getting my BS. No, I don't mean for their age, they were really smarter than the average 18-22 year old. Lots of 'em could've completed the course work of a typical undergrad. That's one little camp (WCATY) in one little state (Wisconsin of all places), and I knew dozens of kids smart enough to graduate college by 18, easily. AFAIK I'm the only who did get a BS early, and there were 2 kids there undeniably significantly smarter than me.
I'm kinda temtped to look them up online and see what they're up to now, ~15 years later, if I can remember their names.
I work 40 hours a week in one job and 15 at another. This sounds like another sissy who hasn't had his balls drop and will never know the pleasures of a women...though perhaps a guy. Some of us aren't supported by sucking upon daddy's cock and have to work to get through our higher education.
I mean, awesome for him... but what the heck is the university even teaching in a degree that short?
I'd say the university taught him how to play the system -- and quite well at that.
Today, I was pointed to the Google video of Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford. I couldn't help but think of Jobs' speech when reading of this.
Where do these people who accomplish brilliant feats in our educational system end up? What do they do with the remainder of their lives. Are they happier than the rest of us? Are they ever the ones who change the world, or do they just end up producing more of something we don't need?
I've long suspected that you could teach really young kids math concepts far beyond what is traditionally exposed. I'm not saying *everybody* has the aptitude, but I have no doubt that there are some who could grasp the concepts of math right through vector calc, differential equations, boundary value problems, and certainly into the logical reasoning stuff needed to do proofs. Why not? I feel cheated, since I know that at a very early age, I was exposed to a book that explained integration, and I was fascinated by the symbols and wanted to understand it. But no one was there to explain it to me. It was almost 20 years before I saw the concept again, and the only advantage I had was a bare concept that it might be mathematically interesting to compute the area under a curve. My grade school teachers responded well to the fact that I could read (I could read by age six, approximately as well as I could in high school, with the differences being in comprehension of human behavior and linear increases in vocabulary -- but my language mechanics were already complete.) But they did not respond well *at all* to my weaknesses in arithmetic. I was actually punished for this, even though my mathematical concepts and my curiosity were beyond those of the typical schoolkid. My arithmetic is *still* poor -- but I managed to get through all the undergrad calculus.
Anyway I really do think you could teach young kids some far more advanced mathematical ideas, especially set theory and logic ideas, than they are normally exposed to.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I took the Computer Science AB exam just last year. Had about 6 years of experience programming in Object Pascal, C, C++ and Lisp. I figured "why not get the weed-out Intro to Comp Sci course off my schedule?" So I taught myself AP Java in about 2 months from review books, walked into a local high school offerring the exam in early May, took the test, and got a 5.
I never took an actual AP Comp Sci course, being homeschooled, and I personally feel that taking a course would only have hurt my already-solid understanding of the topic.
I find it amazing that everyone is making such a big deal out of this guy. I took more than 60 credits in a year and I used half of my summer volunteering in China. I did it with a 4.0 GPA while running a business AND enjoying the college life.
This is really not news. It happens more often than people know.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I had a similiar experience at my university. I came in with 59 AP credits and got credit for all of them; all but 3 of them in classes that actually helped towards graduation. However, owing to the inflexibility of my major (computer engineering - meaning that, unlike in humanities, each course is a direct prequisite for the next year) and my department (required courses were offered once per year) meant that scheduling was a NIGHTMARE.
In the end, however, I was able to make it all work out. I graduated in 3 years (if I had taken winter or summer courses, I would have shaved between 1/2 and 1 1/2 years off that). I'm now a third year grad student at that school, and I have absolutely no complaints. I learned a great deal, I didn't massively overload on credits (I took 15 to 17 every semester I was there) and saved a bundle by not having to pay for the fourth year.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Or, he'll go nuts, discover beer and women, and never complete his masters. But I'm betting on one extreme or the other.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Don't most lawyers give up on doing something worthwhile during their junior years? How many times have you heard a junior, toward the end say "senior year is coming up, I'm going to graduate, I'm not sure what I can do with my degree... I think I'll go to law school". Not only has he graduated, but he's thrown in the towel and realized that there isn't much else to do other than leach off society. Well done!
Too bad he probably never found the time to attend a free play, get alcohol poisoning, lose his virginity, visit the haunted tunnels during Halloween, streak the lawn, or any of the other UVa traditions... OK, not so much the alcohol poisoning. Point is, how is he going to relate to other people? What's he going to do? Download road trip stories and football statistics off Google so he can have something to talk about when the subject of college comes up? Read the minutes of various student organizations? Cram four years of back-issues of the Cavalier Daily during an all-night reading session? Get to live in off-campus housing. See bands that will probably never sign, but are actually not bad. All the little snippets that make up life--gone.
I have no envy for this kid. Not one bit.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
First, I was a double math/physics major in high school; and am currently in my final year of doing a Ph.D. in maths. For the sake of this post not getting that 'jealous' tone; I will say, my academic performance has been good enough where I am currently funded by an international research scholarship (international competition with only 50 or so granted a year). Specifics aren't important as I'm not about to get into an acadmic pissing contest with the person in the article. I will say, I went through the American university system a few years ago; and have been teaching math/physics discussions, reviews and full-blown lectures on and off for the past 7 years or so.
First, this guy (in all likelyhood) is not a genius, as many have said. I agree with those who say that he found a system and exploited the hell out of it. This isn't all bad I believe; I did similar things with AP credits and course overloading. Although, I didn't do it NEARLY to this extent because I wanted to get something out of my education. The only shocking thing here is the Univ. of Virg. actually let this happen; anyone looking at this with some idea of technical education/teaching will regard this as an indication of horrific educational standards at Univ. Virg.
I don't care how smart you are there is no way someone will effectively assimilate the level of maturity to be effective in the areas of maths/physics after one year of Uni. study. There is something in education that is really never mentioned, that I refer to as 'subject maturity'. One can still do text book problems and tests in a subject and still have no maturity in it. Maturity is a reflection of original intuition and effective assimilation to the knowledge base already present in a person. To make this more clear, I'll put out a few stages. Stage 1: you can regurgitate what was read and nothing more. Stage 2: you can work problems if they are identical to problems you've seen worked before. Stage 3: you can work new problems that are based off of combining techniques from solving problems you've seen before. Stage 4: you can work simplier problems in the subject which may be completely different than other problems you've seen. There are obviously higher stages; but a bachelors degree rarely gets someone beyond stage 4. This guy is at stage 2; I'd bet money on it. I've seen so many 'hot shot' students who are REALLY good at working the algorithmic process of solving problems they already know; but have no creative ability in the subject whatsoever... grade chasers. Anyway, the article seems to reflect that this guy is simply chasing grades/recognition; I highly doubt he's in it for the deeper understanding. I bet within 6 months 80-90% of what he's learned will be gone. Also, to base so many credits in math/physics off of high school credit is laughable. There isn't even to mention the violation of logical progression in these subjects. You're telling me this kid was doing Quantum Field Theory as he was learning electromagnetism or general realativity before having any idea about pdes? This just doesn't make sense. Again, I am amazed Univ. of Virg. has such lax course requirements. Either that, or he simply was allowed to bypass many of the higher level courses all together. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the Uni. of Virg.'s educational standards.
That all being said, I believe he will have to spend at least another few years as a student. Any decent employers, graduate school is probably going to laugh at a CV outlining one year of study. I know he's been accepted by the Univ. of Virg. into a masters program; but I bet that's because no other decent Univ. would touch him with a 10 foot pole (it is usually discouraged to do a grad degree the same place you do undergrad).
I said 'not again' because I thought that decade or so when people were ooed and awed by the teenage college grads was over, when it was realized how poorly these graduates performed when put to further studies or into jobs. Oh well, I guess some people will always be impressed by the newest 'good will hunting'.
A lot of people (yes I know this is Slashdot) seem very unsympathatic to the plight of those well less off. Socialising at college is a luxury, which most of us can have because we are well funded.
t ml
This link talks about a 23 year old multimillionaire who owns his own chain of computer shops in Singapore
http://www.asiaone.com/a1news/20060903_story3_1.h
If you were to read the print version which I have done, there are several more comments
- He works 7 days a week
- He takes off 4 days a year at Chinese New Year to visit his family in India
- His mother does ALL his shopping since he has no time
- If had some spare time he would sped time explring outside of Sim Lim Square (Singapore's IT hub and where all his shops are located)
I have met him a few times since I have purchased computers from him - its quite extraordinary to see him juggling two phone calls 3 customers and filling out an invoice concurrently.
Just like David Banh, he has no life and didn't take opportunity to socialise at tertiary institutions, but in the end, if you don't have much money, it is the most important thing in life.
Little correction: patent lawyer!
Some may argue that it is even worse than simply lawyer.
But of course it depends on which side of patent cases he'll take.
hany
For being a "genius" this kid sure has a lot to learn about college and life. I bet this kid couldn't figure out how to open a beer, take off a bra, or conduct a half-decent panty raid, let alone shoot the breeze with some peers. Being a patent lawyer is such a waste of some obvious talent that it's pathetic; there's nothing so challenging in patent law that it takes genius level intellect to accomplish. The point of being young is to make relatively consequence free mistakes, to enjoy life without the burden of adult responsibiliities, and to expand one's horizons in ways in which it is difficult to do as an adult. This kid could presumably do anything he wants (he has no loans or anything holding him back). If you are truly so smart then do something unique with your talent; help others, work on a matter important to human kind, start your own business, use your brain in a novel way--too many "smart" people fail to take risks, to challenge themselves, or to do anything different than all the other smart people are doing. it's pathetic.
Their football team still sucks. Apparently academic standards aren't high there either. I guess that's what you get from the south though.
The real story was that he overloaded by a bunch in two semester, so he compressed-out his last 2 years' worth of classes into one. Coming in with scads of AP credits was nice and all, but is this really news-worthy? I suspect a noticeable percentage of students could double-up their schedules if they weren't working, and didn't care about interacting with anybody. As a full-time student, I almost always had a bunch of slack time - even with project-intensive coursework. However, I decided that A) I didn't want to pay the extra per-credit-hour fee the school would assess for overloading, B) I needed to work to pay for things like gas and insurance, and C) I liked downtime - going to the movies, hanging out with friends, playing games, driving around to see what there was to see, etc.
Yes, the kid's probably pretty smart. But he's also really determined. I know many people who've taken 21-24 credits in a single semester and did decently - even people who are just 'average' because they poured a lot of time and energy into their classwork.
The article also doesn't say what the split in the AP vs 'real' credits were. I would suspect, though I don't know, that he took more of the arts/humanities AP classes and CLEP exams. CLEPing many classes isn't really all that hard if you're willing to put in a bit of time reading the prep books, or just know the material straight-up. Majoring in Math and Physics (from having talked to people who have, though it's not a universal truism) seems to have the fewest projects to turn in for grade, fewer papers (which take some time to just write, and more theory than application.
Congrats to him on blitzing through the material and passing the classes. But I think the more interesting story would be how much of this he recalls in weeks/months/years ahead that he'll need. I don't remember much of anything I learned in Accounting because I don't have a reason to know or use it. Same with most of the advanced math I've taken. But the programming and analysis class material comes out in my work.
antipaucity
...was that he also laid 69% of UVA's female student body in the first semester, which is why he only took some 20-odd credits.
I can't think of many more vile ways of earning a living.
Drug trafficker, jihadist and US President are the few that come to mind.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That is a very common line used by people that were crap at stusying.
If you want social interaction joing a knitting club.
College is ther to provide an academic education, everything else is a nice to have but by no means essential.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Guys, stop it frankly.
/. ) tells me that all those people that mistook college and university for a 5 year long cheap club the only thing that learned was: SISO (shit in, shit out).
My anecdotal experience (to which surely you'll throw yours, but, hey, this is
If you spend 5 or more years of your life getting drunk, partying, socializing and in general making an ass of yourself while paying just costumary attention to your education, chances are that you are going to get a job, but a shitty one. You'll get great at working the pub and club culture, but I am warning you, that will get you precious little in general.
The guys that put the hard work, very often graduating ahead of the rest, got the best jobs and now are in positions of influence (both in the public and private sector) have travelled all around the world (ahem, ahem, ahem) , get the best chicks (ahem) and in general fare batter.
Money and influence are great sociallizing facilitators, and the people that are most serious during their education will get those in abundant quantities when it matter with people that matter.
So the choice is yours, socialize during your young years with a bunch of stupid kiddos like you or save it for later, when you could have the means to appreciate en really enjoy the socializing (like if socializing stopped outside the college or uni campus...).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Could you please explain to me why having a trade deficit is a bad thing? In your explanation, don't forget to mention why it's bad to send other countries useless pieces of paper (we call those scraps of paper "dollars"), and get useful goods in return.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Getting a BA in Physics and Mathematics is relatively easy. You only need 3 300 level physics classes and 6 300 level math classes.a jorBrochure/p hp?catoid=7&poid=788
http://www.phys.virginia.edu/Education/Programs/M
http://records.ureg.virginia.edu/preview_program.
So if I send 15,000 scraps of paper to Japan and in return get a Honda Civic
It just occured to me that I'm perhaps misunderstanding you- are you saying it's a good thing to be a liar and a thief, as long as the consequences of your actions never catch up with you personally? In which case, perhaps I'm taking the wrong tack with you by taking the long view that consequences always will catch up with your actions and that it is the goal of asian cultures and middle eastern cultures to fullfill the same destiny that England thought it had in the 1800s.
It's entirely possible that you DO think that fiat currency is a good thing, and that you either don't see or are too morally bankrupt yourself to see the consequences of our actions with respect to foreign trade.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Bullshit.
thomas: "lots of people go to college for 9 years" richard: "yeah, they're called doctors" thomas: "shut up richard" -tommy boy
My name is David Banh. (if there's any doubt, a moderator or otherwise respected poster can verify with me by sending to dhb3r@virginia.edu, my school email account).
A friend of mine messaged me on Facebook asking about what my thoughts about the conversation going on here were. I've sortof sifted through most of what people are saying and it seems to me that people are expressing concerns and judgments, some positive, many negative. First, I think it would be fair if all those who were interested could know the facts.
Obviously what you hear from the media stories is only a half-truth at best. I am not willing to full disclose everything that happens in my life to the national media (Washington Post, Fox News or ABC), nor would they report anything except the more relevant and perhaps more extravagant parts of my life. However, I think I can be somewhat honest about my goals, motivations, inspirations and personal sentiments on the matter are.
I assume that most of you are asking: why did he do this?
Some of my motivations are too personal to discuss even here on Slashdot. However, I certainly would emphasize that my interest in graduating early was primarily financial. College costs $15,000 a year at UVa, $15,000 a year that I do not have and money that my parents either would not provide me (they never were explicit about it) and perhaps could not provide me. I have two younger siblings, one who is a senior in HS now and another just beginning HS; both of them intend to attend college and are more normal students. I know how much money I got from scholarships, $13000 for the first year, and significantly less thereafter. I know how hard it was to get those scholarships; I applied to over 30 scholarships, scouring the web weekly for possibilities and was accepted to some and rejected from others. My academic credentials in high school were very high, I had strong SATs, the highest GPA for both sophomore and senior years at the top high school in teh country and was president of a club, organizer for another, and served on the local unit board of directors for the bridge league in addition to other honors I had received from the, but still, I was unable to pay for college (4 years at an Ivy League or even 4 years at UVa). My siblings will be more disadvantaged certainly and I did not want to be the one to drain the financial resources if I could help it.
To extend on this... a lot of people were talking about enjoying the college experience and missing out on that.
My reply to this is to first consider the following. Suppose that I did pay for college, as perhaps my parents or I could've through any combination of loans, work-study or just liquidation of our assets. Would I, or perhaps should I, have felt right purchasing any luxuries? I see myself as a more independent person, not financially dependent to my parents; they don't owe me anything. I might be able to justify asking my parents to pay tuition and they might have been willing and happy to do it knowing that it was all in the interest of education, but, would my parents be willing to shell out $1000 for fraternity dues if I had been willing to ask them? I don't think so and I don't think they should be obligated to. Would my parents have been willing to pay $300 for a winter ski trip? I don't expect them to. I would not have felt right enjoying myself to that extent at the expensive of my parents or other providers.
So, as many of you have mentioned, I worked myself quite a bit harder one year and at the end gained admissions to the graduate department. This provides me with free tuition and a relatively generous graduate stipend. Now I can fully enjoy the benefits of college, for up to 6 more years under the same fellowship if I choose. I'm living independently (full financially and in terms of decision making) and I can afford some luxuries such as necessary club dues, a summer, winter or spring break trip with friends, and other similar enjoyments.
Did I miss out on the college exper
If graduating in four years is like leaving the party at 11pm (for the record, I finished in five), then graduating in one year is like totally missing the party because no one clued you in because you had 37 credit hours to handle. (37?)
I once took 19 credit hours in a semester in order to graduate when I wanted to. Worst. Semester. Ever (in terms of stress, anyway)! I managed to do all right, but had I taken a few credits less, I probably would have had a better semester GPA, but I can't go back in time now. I'm just glad I managed to eke out a 3.0, let alone get into the grad program of my choice (two years after graduating with my B.A.
In conclusion: Life's about the journey rather than the destination. Sure, it'd be neat to have finished college earlier than I did, but I felt like I learned more about myself along the way, and that's invaluable. Sure, you could be a genius and finish in a year, but what have you learned about yourself? How have you grown? Knowledge is, indeed power, but that includes intrapersonal knowledge.
(Also, the knowledge of experiencing an upside-down margarita. But that goes without saying.)
I guess I've waited too long to post and no one is ever going to read this, but someone needs to say this especially after all this nonsense about missing the college experience.
Wahoowa! Way to go man! Keep it up.
I skipped one grade in High School and after all the crap I heard about missing a year of social development, I decided to do the full four years at college (plus I was a double major). Hugh mistake. I should have skipped two grades in High School and done college in 2-3 years (I'm no where near as talented as this guy, so there is no way I could have done college in 1 year). Frankly the social stuff was pointless and the living sistuation unrealistic.
First you're trapped in the dorms with people who more than likely have nothing in common with you. This never happens in the real world. Once you're out, you get your own place and have complete control over the roommate sistuation. Plus you don't have general services to call to fix your lightbulb or clean the shower.
Then there's the social activities. Again completely unrealistic. Once you're out, you're too busy having to work to pay your taxes and your mortgage to ever have time enough to go to the football game or the insane political rallies.
This guy is smart enough to realize at an early all of this. I just wish I had realized it back then. The biggest waste of time and money was the formal education I had. I could be a millionaire right now, instead of being at least 2-3 years from that. This guy should be consider an example for all of our kids to look up to. I applaud him.
Actually, if he's a patent lawyer he might have to actually be able to understand the patents
So, how are you liking America? Is it a big change from wherever you just recently moved here from?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's a shame I got modded down as a troll because I pointed out the relance of the topic. Maybe American-focused stories should have a relance-to-the-rest-of-the-world modifier so I can happily ignore some of them.
The point of going to college is poon-tang. Pure and simple. Why do you think they make you take English literature classes? To learn what a boring read Emily Bronte really is? No, it's so you can speak meaningfully to the cutie who wears the green satin bra on Thursdays, and so you can find out exactly what is under that bra, son.
Only if you are incredibly, incredibly shallow. I spent much of my time at university getting drunk and chasing airheads, and 10 years later I regret not taking better advantage of the learning opportunities I ignored by being distracted. Luckily I earn well now and can easily afford the two part-time degrees I am currently undertaking.
Whenever a story like this shows on slashdot or digg, as sure as the sun rises in the east you get people dragging themselves up and babbling on about how getting hold of some bint's tits is some sort of major social and formative achievement. It's pretty sad. What are you, a panting teenager or something? Is it deep-seated insecurity, or simply susceptibility to advertising, that makes people think that getting laid is the most important thing anybody can do?