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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."
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 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.
Next time try Bob Jones University - http://www.bju.edu/ - they are probably are closer to your "ideals". (Unless you want to actually learn anything valuable, that is.)
"But this one goes to 11!"
Congratulations on achieving enlightenment. Welcome to the club. We've been waiting.
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.
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 might be wrong about the universities, but I'm pretty sure about high schools. Most high schools don't allow students to graduate until age 18, with the exception of a few truly superb students. Oftentimes they actually set up their requirements and class prerequisites in order to maintain this situation.
Do you have any idea how right you are?
I'm currently in my senior year of homeschooling high school. If I really want to get senioritis, I only need to take Physics to get myself into an OK college. If I want a really good/selective college, I should take Chemistry. This winter I shall take classes at the local community college (the signup date was in mid-August, and I was just settling back in from camp).
Thanks to skipping Pre-Calculus (which my best friends, both in high school, agree was a waste of time), I already have calculus roughly equivalent to the AP Calculus AB standard. If I keep studying math, I can take the AP Calculus BC exam in May and hopefully skip intro math classes. If I take the AP in Physics and/or Chemistry, even better. I've also gotten a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam, know 5 programming languages and program a kernel for a hobby. Yeah, I'm a comp sci nerd.
Other than that, I really only need to document my homeschooled classes. To that aim, I'm taking SAT 2s in Biology and US History. For English, I'll submit a writing sample or a past paper. I can figure out some way to convey how much Modern Hebrew I've learned. Everything else was covered by the 2 years I spent in actual high school.
Let's see where we can cut away classes now. An entire 3 mandatory years of English can go - leading students to literature can't make them enjoy or understand it, and the schools don't teach any real writing. We'll replace it with a one-year course in writing and public speaking, along with an ample supply of interesting reading material for those who want it. A year of PreCalculus gets cut for anyone above the "average" track (read: anyone who would wind up in pre-calc before senior year) on account of worthlessness. 9-11th grade "integrated math" can get cut down to two years if they stop repeating things.
Out of my local curriculum, only the 4 years of science, 3 years of foreign language and 3 of history (2 global, followed by 1 American) seem to survive a test of their rigor. So we can go from 5 year-periods (1 period a day for a year = 1 year-period) of "core subjects" * 4 years = 20 year-periods in all of high school, down to 2 (math) + 3 (history) + 3 (foreign language) + 4 (science) + 1 (Writing and Public Speaking) = 13 year-periods. If we still assume that students must take at least 5 classes a year, we get 2 3/5 years of high school, while leaving room in the schedule for electives.
If we continue to assume an 8-period day with a mandatory health/phys-ed/other class each day (adding another 4 year-periods) and a free/lunch period, we still come out with 17 year-periods / 7 class periods a day = 2 3/7 years. Students only really need 2 years of high school - 3 if they take electives.