I'm always reminded of an essay by, I think, pg about how school works the opposite of real life. In school you are effectively judged by your failures, and thus are encouraged to avoid failing since it will bring down your grade point average. Moreover, the impact of your successes is capped, and at a fairly low level due to grade inflation. Once you've achieved an A/4.0 there is little incentive to put in more effort.
In real-life, however, things are reversed. Being mediocre yet diligent at doing busy work in a variety of subjects, which is precisely what earning a 4.0 implies, is not terribly valuable. Instead what matters is excelling at a small number of things, perhaps even only one.
The conceit of our educational system is that the way it works encourages students to become "well rounded", but it does nothing of the sort and works stronger against doing so than towards. Students are discouraged from developing passion, discouraged from exploration, discouraged from putting forth more than the minimum amount of effort, discouraged from developing their own interests and their own points of view.
This is probably the one thing I've hated most about school for the last 7+ years (since middle school; I'm a HS senior now).
At the beginning of a term, I'd always get at least one teacher that says "you all have As now, and you can keep that as long as you don't mess up." (It's usually worded a bit nicer, but that's the idea.)
I HATE that mentality.
It means, to keep an A, I have to be on the top of my game for every test, every assignment, and every class. It means that if I screw up and stay up late before one test, I might mess up my grade for the rest of the semester. It means that one night can ruin my perfect 4.0 (which I gave up on after freshman year), thus "ruining" my chances of getting into my college of choice.
Luckily, I decided after freshman year that the difference between a 3.8 and a 4.0 was not worth the huge amount of extra diligence it would require. And that has paid off: instead of wasting time on HW and studying, I've spent my time learning Python and C and Linux administration and dozens of other potentially useful skills (that haven't helped much in college applications, but will be useful in and after college).
EDIT: Something else I wanted to add to this:
I've thought about this a bit, and I think one of the big problems is how our grading system is structured. Like I said: if you mess up, you're (in theory) done.
My ideal system would be the opposite (mostly). At the beginning of (high) school, a student starts with 0 in each subject. From there, school would be similar to an RPG: classes would have a prerequisite "level" required, and each class would gain points toward "leveling up." In each class, each assignment would be worth a number of points, and the total points earned at the end of the term would determine the points earned for the course. In order to graduate, a student would need certain "levels" in each subject.
This would not punish nearly as much, allow the best students to progress faster, and allow slower students to take it more slowly.
I haven't written this down before now, so excuse any glaring holes it may have.
> instead of wasting time on HW and studying, I've spent my time learning Python and C and Linux administration and dozens of other potentially useful skills (that haven't helped much in college applications, but will be useful in and after college).
Actually, you should mention that in your college app. For certain schools, especially ones that at least pay lip service to a "holistic review" process, that might be more interesting than your GPA.
My son is a high school senior. He's been very diligent since ninth grade in his school work - far more diligent than I'd ever have imagined since I never really pushed him - I was a classic high school screwup who had god enough test scores. During his junior year I noted that he did more homework every week than I did my whole junior year.
As a senior, he's realized much of the gist of what you and TFA are saying. He started teaching himself python (I'm a coder but I've never pushed it on him and I'm letting him learn on his own answering questions when he brings them to me) and now he's discovered Arduino and has completely lost himself in building projects and coding them. His grades have started to suffer some, but he is convinced that he's doing the right thing by following his real interests and I agree with him.
OTOH, there's a side of me that wonders how I would have felt if he'd done this before college apps were all done and grades submitted. As other commenters have said, it's a wonder that any creativity survives this system.
On some level, it's silly. There are high school dropouts that go on graduate school. It's not a high percentage but happens often enough that I don't it makes the over-emphasis of certain things in high schools seem pointless. If someone can do a GED, go to a junior college, then go to a 4-year and then on to grad school, it makes one wonder about a lot of the nonsense clubs and so forth kids pad their college apps with in high school.
Obviously, this is probably nigh impossible in countries outside of the US, particular Asian countries.
I believe the intent of college is simply to help you figure out 'how you learn' and expose you to more options and more of the world than your "high school life" did.
No college is going to give you a magic bullet of knowledge that ensures happiness or success...but every one will give you an opportunity at unique experiences and resources (and if you go the school route - take as much advantage of those as you can).
It shouldn't be about earning a grade or messing up and losing a grade...it should be about your dreams, hopes, and ambition...about what you want to get out of life and how you develop those tools, qualities, and skills to get it.
If you've figured out code and tech is your passion and you've figure out how you personally best grok it...then you're already years ahead of most university students ;-)
I'll be going to college for engineering or comp sci, so for me it will be more about learning in a more formal setting and filling in the (presumably large) gaps in my knowledge. In theory I could go out and start working in the industry after HS, but it will be much easier to do so with the credibility (and connections) that comes with a college degree.
I agree that for many college is "simply to help you figure out 'how you learn'", but for others it is about the knowledge gained.
I would at least consider joining the workforce out of HS, your reasoning for not doing so is a bit shakey, especially if you're taking out loans to pay for college.
Most 18 y/o kids can't really function in the real world and a lot of the service college provides is a glorified summer camp. Carefully consider if this is worth hundreds of thousands if dollars and 4 years of opportunity cost, to be taken "more seriously" and acquire "connections."
You can learn a lot for sure, but its a steep price to pay.
Source: I dropped out after a year and started working and Im equally successful as compared to my college graduated peers
It depends heavily what sort of things you're aiming to do.
Personally, my advice is: university-level science/engineering/math classes are going to be, on the one hand, a damned hard weed-out filter the first couple years, but once you get to the advanced stuff, it's going to be one of the only opportunities you ever get to learn truly high-level, difficult, interesting material with actual human guidance, rather than having to just pick up a stack of books and work through them on sheer hope and grit.
...and confidence gained...confidence that you have what it takes to track down and acquire the knowledge you seek. Confidence, cultural exposure, and life experience are probably the most important 'soft skills' hopefully everyone pulls out of their 20s (higher ed or not) :-)
I disagree that the "practice" taught in CS classes gets out of date with industry. Consider that modern websites use a communication protocol first developed in the 1990s and run on operating systems largely inspired by one developed in the 1970s. Of course, some things do change quickly, like what database/programming language/web framework is "in" at this particular time. The underlying concepts, however, do not change as quickly, and those are the things that engineering schools tend to teach. I just graduated from engineering school and started working. The things I learned in engineering school come up all the time. I'm especially glad I took Operating Systems. Sure, you could get through college and get a CS degree without learning anything practical, but if you pick challenging and practical classes, you'll come out a much better engineer.
Also, about the "4 years is a high opportunity cost" thing. Given how it's much easier to find a high-paying software engineering job with a bachelor's degree than without, it's probably worth it. Besides, just because someone is in school doesn't mean they can't follow along with the latest industry trends, especially in CS where much of it is open source. It's not like the only learning you do in college is in your classes.
So my advice to matteotom is ... go to college. Take challenging classes that interest you (I highly recommend studying operating systems, compilers, and computer architecture). But also, don't neglect the opportunity to learn things outside of class (sounds like you won't really have much of a problem here). Do internships in the summers to get some industry experience (and a nice paycheck). And yes, of course, don't forget to make friends and have fun (I certainly wish I did more of that in college).
> the value of a CS degree at the moment is dubious
Completely wrong.
How do you expect to re-invent the stack if you don't understand the fundamentals, and where we've been before?
The practice of CS is something that anyone can pick up. The theory is what makes you more potent. To the OP: don't be yet another Rails programmer. Help us build a better stack than the web so we can move forward.
In my opinion, the theory is just as accessible as the practical side.
If you need the structure of a degree program, that's great. However, the typical programmer, who by the nature of the job needs to be a life-long learner, will tend to have what it takes to learn it on their own already. You are going to struggle professionally otherwise. And so that structure is not necessarily an asset.
But I do agree that learning the theory is valuable.
Pay close attention to what HN discusses on a regular basis. What proportion of it is software engineering? CS theory? Or any sort of deep technical topic, for that matter? Contrast that with the proportion of marketing/blog-spam about "ToDo in Ruby on Angular.js."
The problem with aggregators is the latter category always tends towards the top because it's easy and more people can relate to it. But it's not the sort of learning that makes you think, nor is it particularly insightful. It's just telling people what they want to hear: that this Ruby on Angular.js thing is what we all gotta jump on...because everyone else thinks so!
"I've spent my time learning Python and C and Linux administration ..."
That makes me sad, you're only young once, if you're pulling a 3.8 you should get out a little bit more, talk to girls (or boys, w/ever), there's all the time in the world to hunch over in front of a computer screen.
I would FWIW. Particularly in high school, but also in university. I finally figured it out for my masters' year; I didn't place as highly as in previous years, but I had a much better time including some unforgettable experiences.
In real-life, however, things are reversed. Being mediocre yet diligent at doing busy work in a variety of subjects, which is precisely what earning a 4.0 implies, is not terribly valuable. Instead what matters is excelling at a small number of things, perhaps even only one.
The conceit of our educational system is that the way it works encourages students to become "well rounded", but it does nothing of the sort and works stronger against doing so than towards. Students are discouraged from developing passion, discouraged from exploration, discouraged from putting forth more than the minimum amount of effort, discouraged from developing their own interests and their own points of view.