Turn this around and get your success from school. See if you can become the very best at school, and become the most popular kid at the same time. If you can switch your priorities to that, you'll discover that the dopamine rush will keep you coming back for more.

A mentor once told me to take advantage of everything available to you on your "school buffet". That's what it's there for. It's a great opportunity to be exposed to many different things, easily, and for free. How else will you know if you like it? Sure, you may not like the class in English literature or the ballet or playing soccer in P.E. But try it anyway.

Years from now you'll probably be sitting in a cubicle by day and changing diapers by night wishing you could experience something new and different once in a while. Now is your chance. Do it.

College was definitely the right choice for me, you should try it and see if it is for you.

Of course, there are more responsibilities (the changing diapers at night part) when you're older, but more freedom (no parents that are cramping your style). I say these things with my own time struggle as I try overcome the cubicle by day and masters degree classwork by night. I really do miss the college student schedule with relatively low amount of time in class and a lot of freedom and flexibility in setting my day-to-day schedule.

As someone wiser than me once said, high school is probably the most structured experience you'll have unless you end up in prison. College is different (if you decide to go).

High school is a geographical coincidence. College is more your choice.

You only have two years left in your "term". If you drop out, your parents very well may decide to kick you out (as in, why should they support you if you're not supporting them [by not dropping out]).

Unfortunately, in this white-collar society, having a high school degree is almost a bare minimum requirement for being hireable (in some states, McDonald's will not hire non-HS/non-GED)

> I absolutely can't stand wasting time.

Please read this: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...

> I'm introverted and spend most of my time reading or obsessively working on hobbies like programming

As someone who is much older than you and very much has considered the possibility of dropping out (e.g. quitting my job), please consider what you will do for income if you are not in school. Are you active in community/open source? If not, why? What kind of brand/reputation in the open source community have you built? Enough to do paid consulting?

> But, I spend nearly every moment outside of school learning, just because I love to do it.

You're like me. You're using absolutes. Contradicting yourself. I'm guilty of those self-lies too. No one spends every moment learning. Otherwise, you would be learning that which would have a greater relative impact on your navigation of this world (e.g. organizing introverts together, taking the lead, social and other-ness).

Very true. It is precisely the young people who thrive most as independent learners who feel most stifled by high school.

http://learninfreedom.org/

Some of the feeling of structure comes with adolescence. But happy is the adolescent who restructures his learning environment to increase his personal responsibility.

I also highly recommend AP courses.

Don't even worry if your school doesn't offer the class for it. A friend of mine and I did self-study for one AP test, and started about 3-4 weeks before the text. I didn't "ace" it, but I got a high enough score that it got me out of required classes in college.

The assumption of school is that you don't want to learn and so you need to be forced to. For all I know this may in fact be true for most kids, and so school is necessary for them. However if you are self-motivated to learn then school is massively inefficient.

There is no need for you to waste the next two years. You can, if you wish, undertake a self-learning program (home school yourself). While it is true that there are things that will get by staying in school, it does not mean that you cannot also get these things outside of school, especially with a little planning. You will still get into a good college, have friends, develop your social skills, keep your future options open, and so on. The book I mentioned explains how.

Try something similar. High school is a massive, pointless waste of time. It's like prison. Get out of it by any means but be smart. Meaning: don't go apeshit and kill your classmates. If you do drop out, have a plan on how you can give people what they want so they can feed you and clothe you. May be you want to spend the rest of your days working in a Walmart, but probably not.

Anyway, don't stress over it. You're in a fucking America, you won't die of hunger :) And you'll die regardless of whether you went to high school or not, so don't worry. It doesn't really matter in the long run so enjoy the fact that you were born in this perverted (but fun) world.

In other words, if there's one thing I've learned so far in life, it's not to underestimate the power of simple human contact. Go knock on a random professor's door, and I think you'd be surprised how many times the door opens!

Really? I went to three different summer programs at Ohio State University when I was in high school. Great fun.

My last summer program ran nine or ten weeks and had me playing RA in a biochemistry lab. One of the most generous masters' students in the whole world (I think the poor guy was in his 3rd or 4th year... he was kind of a long-term masters student ;) spent most of the summer teaching me stuff -- growing bacteria, lysing them, running chromatography columns, gels, enzyme activity assays, the works.

He was crazy, actually, to spend that much time teaching a high school junior who would never come back to the lab, but I hope he's having a happy career somewhere because he sure was generous.

Obviously, if an organized program exists, take it! My point was that the absence of such a program does not preclude you from taking an individual initiative to do something creative.

Even if you don't care about the competition, it's an easy pretense for getting in touch and working with a professor. Plus, you might be able to convince your school to give you time during the day to work on your research (when I was in HS, we got a period every other day).

Awesome rule to live by!

Maybe parts of it. In that it's extremely unlikely in ten years you'll talk to more than one person from your high school, but you'll still talk to many of your friends from college.

The problem with high school is you are stuck socializing with the people who happen to be geographically close to you. You don't get to choose who they are, so they could be a bunch of jerks and you can't do much about it. At college, that is WAY less likely to happen.

But you still can learn interesting stuff in high school, AND socially it's still an important step to go through all that dating/hanging out/partying stuff. You could wait until college to do that, but it would be awkward.

Lesson 2: Not all parts of your life will be ideal at all times.

Lesson 3: Any complex system that uses human beings as input will be non-ideal for many (if not most) of those people.

Lesson 4: Humanity's sacred institutions are (contrary to the way they're marketed) full of frustrating inefficiencies and design flaws.

You're frustrated because you'd like to be constantly challenged by just the right amount so that you can learn and reach your potential. Consider the video game: each new level is designed to push your skills just the exact amount. Life (and human institutions) are not so well designed.

There's a reason that the book Ender's Game is so engaging: it's wish fulfillment. We all wish that we could go to a school that provided exactly the opportunities that would make us the people we want to be. But such a school doesn't exist.

(Oh, and on a practical note: if a subject seems dull, then hit the library/web and look for other textbooks on the same subject. A book that presents things the way you'd like to see them can make all the difference.)

There's nothing wrong with being an introvert... but there are degrees of introversion. And self-study is the secret to learning, which you seem to understand, but you might be surprised to find that you self-study better when you've got a team, a goal, a project, or a group. If the groups at your school seem to suck, there are other ones around. You've even got the Internet, which I didn't have at your age.

Here's one regret from my high school days: At one point someone came up to me and said "You're a big guy and you're not already on the football team or any other team. Want to learn to play the tuba and march in the band? We need more tuba!" At that point I was a very shy freshman, easily embarrassed, with no musical experience, and that whole idea sounded preposterous, like some kind of practical joke. So I said no. I wish I hadn't done that. It turns out that they were probably serious. And playing the tuba is probably pretty easy! I might have faked it pretty well with just four notes and a basic sense of rhythm! And it might have been fun to march around with the band... a nice, structured group activity with a lot of depth. (There is always a more complicated piece of marching-band music out there...) And I'd be have been that much farther ahead on learning something about music.

Hang in there. Don't drop out of high school if you can possibly help it -- it's good to have the degree, and believe me it will end. And college is a big improvement!

---

[1] They pulled me and a few others out of freshman algebra class and just gave us the AHSME, one day. I had no idea what the AHSME was, but I took it, and I ended up in a three-way tie for first place in my high school with my best friend (another freshman) and a senior member of the math club. I learned about the math club the next day when its faculty adviser came stalking into the cafeteria during lunch, waving the AHSME results in one hand, with the wild-eyed look of a prophet on a mission. He approached me and my friend and more-or-less told us that we had to join the math club, it was vitally important, because we had the knack.

That guy was great. Teaching is a weird business. 99% of the time you are saying the same things that you always say, but the remaining 1% are tiny moments which change people's lives forever.

My mother _forced_ me to try out for drama. She said 'all you have to do is audition.. then I'll never bring it up again'. I can't tell you how much the thought of even going to the audition repulsed me, much less performing on stage.

At the audition, while waiting, I was hanging around the most friendly people I had ever encountered (ok, it was a bunch of girls that were actually talking to me). Suddenly the fear of being onstage was less than the fear of being lonely.

I went from being scared of walking down the hallway to being able to talk in front of large crowds. My Friday nights of soldering and programming turned into a different kind of fun.. a chance to socialize with others.

(btw I can't sing for the life of me.. the trick is to stand in front or next to people with a similar voice. If you have a decent director they'll do this automatically)

http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/index.php

Math club heaven. If only the Web had existed when I was a teenager.

Me my self studying in a third world school I had never thought of dropping and continued my study and will graduate in 25 days!!

In fact you are lucky, what about if you was here? You don't know the schools here, private or public, teacher are sometimes more stupid that pupils. I can't say more than, my english professor can't spell correctly the "wednesday". I have some good professor also, my math teacher is a SUPER PROF, just because his an old one.

Brief, here most of schools are public, but you need to study outside school, in what we call "additional hours" in some professors houses, which is non-legall and is costing me more than $100 a month.

So I study from 6 to 8 hours in school, 80% of hours are pure waste of time, simply because professor are not competent and students are indifferent. In fact, if you are a professor here, and you just give your students 20/20 and don't teach them anything, they'll be VERY excited, they'll love you and consider you as an intelligent prof.

Why are you considering school a waste of time?

Here's the response:

you want to start productivity from NOW, you don't want to wait few other years to learn programming, you want to start now.

Is it good or bad?

No, that's VERY bad, in school you expand your knowledge, even if it's not programming related, you know new phenomenas of everyday life that you don't know.

Don't be in hurry, you'll start working as soon as you have learned programming. Developing software isn't a simple job.

My own advice, is to carry on your study and then compelete study in university, you can then choose which section fit for you better and carry on your programming carrer.

Don't try to burn steps and jump over them, step by step and you'll get there, be sure.

Most states have these now.

Look into it.

Take something like econ 101 (not programming) or physics. Depending on the school you can take classes at, I think you'll find you'll be getting your a kicked by the information. What you used to find so easy in HS will now be much more difficult. You'll actually need to study :)

There are a lot of ways to circumvent the system and do something you like to do, don't just give in to your immediate urges to shut it out. At the very least, you should graduate High School.

All that was cool, but here's the thing I wish I did the most in high school: kissed a girl.

I think it's important to get good grades in HS because it will give you so many options when you graduate. Just deal with it. Some times you have to do stuff you don't like.

The rest of the time spend doing the things you love. And as a fellow introvert, I strongly encourage you to SOCIALIZE. I had a friend who forced himself to become less awkward by joining the HS football team even though he hated football. Forced socialization.

It worked. He was way less awkward than me in HS. Now he's in Boston doing this: http://diybio.org

You might want to read the book The Introvert Advantage by Marti Laney, "Caring for Your Introvert" in The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch) and Philip Zimbardo's The Time Paradox, which I wrote about here (http://jseliger.com/2008/09/01/the-time-paradox-—-philip-zim...).

Notice this commenter's idea: "[...]the academic part of high school is not challenging enough for you, but what about the other parts? Are you on one of your school's sport team? Are you part of any clubs? Did you try to take on some kind of leadership position at your school? How big is your friend circle?"

High school still offers many, many challenges, even if you don't realize it; for me, working on the school newspaper and joining the book club made a tremendous difference in how I perceived much of life.

"I was just wondering if you guys had any experiences or suggestions to share about school."

School is a game. Make it your mission to learn how to crack the game, which doesn't mean you have to neglect your "real" education, as it sounds like that will happen chiefly on your own time. And what you consider "wastes of time" aren't always: they're opportunities to network, or to learn how to flirt, or to learn how to get away with things, and so on and so forth. These are important skills too, but many nerds ignore them for too long.

A final book recommendation: try Curtis Sittenfeld's novel "Prep." It's not about someone in your situation, but it is about someone who, I think, finally learns how to "do" school. If you're as analytic as your post implies that you are, it's possible to learn this. Anyway, the personal website I linked to above has my e-mail address if you're interested in hearing more.

With that, push through. It is not that difficult to do well in high school and the reward of a good college is worth it.

If you really do love learning, good classes can really expand your understanding of - and interest in - the world.

Finally (and this is major), speaking as a fellow (reformed) introvert: you have a huge, gaping problem to address. You need to be able to easily and freely communicate and socialize with people. This is not some warm, fuzzy BS. It's a real life skill you have got to master. It's hard. It's painful. It's embarrassing at times. But, you have to do it. In "Hackers and Painters", Paul always talks about having the wind at your back in startups. Mastering social skills is an awesome hack that gives you the ability to make your own wind. People who can really network and socialize get things other people don't. That's a fact of life. Many introverts complain that this isn't fair. I always did. The reality is, social interaction is a pretty easy hack to get what you want in life compared to most other methods. It's worth the time and effort required to build up the skill. If you're hopelessly clueless how to interact with people, you could start off by reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

I recovered from the trauma of compulsory school, and I am now a college honors student with a 4.0 GPA. While there are still serious problems regarding "education" in the world of academia, college is significantly better than high school. A GED, well written essays, and outstanding SAT/ACT scores will get you into some of the most prestigious institutions without a diploma. Most people think that you have to be miserable for the next few years because they were forced to be miserable and they think it's the only way to find success in the future. I believe that they are entirely wrong about that. Research "unschooling", Paolo Freire, and Summerhill school and decide for yourself.

1. Use your intelligence and self-teaching skills to make sure you get the best grades possible; this will help you get financial aid for college. Otherwise, you'll be limited to cheap schools, saddled with debt, or unable to go at all.

2. When you have choices about which classes to take, take ones that stretch your creativity in areas you wouldn't normally explore: for a geek, that's probably art, music, literature, philosophy, wood shop, metal shop, etc. These classes will usually have you creating things which is fun, and if you're creating written papers, that's very good practice for your future.

3. Since you're smart, #1 shouldn't take up much of your time. While in classes you can't avoid, you can 'take notes' writing about something else you're working on. Pay just enough attention to the class to make sure you're following what's going on. Outside of class, SOCIALIZE. Learn to make girls smile at you (or boys, if that's your thing.) Learn how to make small talk, and how to get someone else to talk about themselves. Having good conversational skills, especially if you're introverted, will be hugely important for you in your future.

It has allowed an extraordinary degree of freedom. I have been able to check out large masses of (mainly) science fiction and history books, with indefinite renewals -- and have been able to find the time to read one or two books a day, even with my other commitments.

It may be possible to do so in public schools. In my case, self-studying was always an integral part of my education as there were no adults in my immediate environment who could really teach me additionally; I did not receive the attention from teachers for that (though my work was consistently exemplary), and I was disallowed from entering elementary school early. You may be similar.

My main tools have been a laptop, paper, a "Pentel Graphgear 1000 PG1013-E" (a prized possession), and two library cards.

http://www.simons-rock.edu/ http://www.earlycolleges.org/

Also, try a sport or other extra-curricular. (tennis and track were good for skinny guys like me). Do more with your classmates than just go to class.

You want advice? Graduate, bang hotties, and hack the systems until they work for you. If you can't stand HS, you're going to hate a real job. Use your time now to learn how to manipulate your environment to your liking.

Failing that, I'd say stay in school and while you're still young use all that free time to network, meet people with similar interests, and make things. In short, "Get Excited and Make Things", as the poster says. You have tons of free time (or at least way more than I have now at 23), so run with it. Don't discount the value of highschool. You'll realize later in life how much it meant.

Some of the most influential and successful people I know, I met in highschool. Two of which are currently engaged in running their own business, which I helped bootstrap one summer whilst in college.

Don't drop out. Finish. Learn to finish things, even if you hate them. Accept them as challenges.

Try to find things to keep you enthused while you still have to be there, like clubs/societies, especially if they're in fields that you're not too comfortable with at the moment. For example (I don't know if this will apply to you, since your post is quite articulate), I went into the debating society in high school with very little knowledge of public speaking and a lot of nerves about presenting in front of people. Two years later I was competing at the national level, and people still think I'm a good speaker when I just wing presentations without preparation. You have a lot of free time right now (maybe it doesn't feel that way, but it's a lot compared to what you'll have later!), so make use of it in a way that pushes your boundaries and expands your skills.

Considering that you are reading this site, that you are switching schools and looking for solutions, I would guess that you've already accomplished the primary gain from public education - to understand the value of knowledge, and you went further and are self directed in its acquisition, so you've already accomplished most of what undergraduate school is trying to do (you may be bored for some time now....I made it through high school thinking university was going to be this awesome mystical place where I exchange with enlightened minds, but I learned later that that is only MIT, I shouldn't have grown up reading all about MIT, maybe read about other schools, because I didn't make the final cut).

You're going to be fine, and I believe this because your already alive. No need to find the appropriate group, high school or whatever, to 'lead' you, lead yourself to where you think your going to learn more, of what to learn - use the system's like schools available to you, don't wait for them to magically get wonderful - not going to happen. Unless you get into MIT....in which case, awesome, and enjoy.

Even if you have no connection to literature for the whole of your post-high-school life, my guess is that you'll get something valuable from those hours.

Not completing high school does narrow your options in life. Most people say that isn't a good thing. It may be right for you though.

I finished high school, then dropped out of college - only to return 4 years later. It was a bit harder to adjust without the momentum of study. But I did it and loved it enough to do a postgraduate course.

Maybe find a mentor in programming to help you set challenges - engaging your programming related to school work.

IMHO a large number of students in compulsory education (to age 16 here) don't love school.

Note - I am biased as I am now a high school Maths teacher in the UK. Sadly, only one teacher inspired me at school, so I am trying to do better.

You can go part time to college and see that learning, when forced is monotonous everywhere.

You can start college full time now, face the same issues, yet be out sooner

You can spin high school into a pleasurable social experiment. I noticed there was nothing said about you socially. Usually, kids dont dislike school because of education, its because of social issues.\

Look at it this way. You have 2 more years to become whoever you want to be, perfect that image, then display it to the adult world. You can become a ladies man (all it takes is working out), you can become the quirky nerd everyone likes, you can be the scary goth that has a clan of minions. But now is the time to play around with who you are and who you want to be.

If you see it as an experiment, it will be fun....

http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/

It has philosophy of education/parenting ideas. For example, you seem to think that you are selfish for wanting a life that isn't boring. I think that is a very reasonable desire. This is a site that will actually take your side on issues like this.

Also, people are probably telling you that college is different/better. Just survive through high school, and then everything will be awesome. It's not. College is maybe 20% better, not 500% better. Don't think of college as the answer to all your prayers. It's very possible you will hate it.

I left school after the 11th grade for what appear to be the exact same reasons. In the twelfth grade, I was 'homeschooled', I did a lot of independent study (AP English, AP Computer Science, Science-Fair, I attended the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology), and I took three college courses every quarter. (Physics, Chemistry and Engineering).

It was an immensely challenging year, and I had a lot of free time to learn what I wanted, and work an interesting challenging job on the side. When I applied for college, my parents wrote a letter saying what I did, and I had college transcripts to back it up. In my state, if you take college classes as a high school student they call it 'Post Secondary Enrollment Options Program' and the taxpayers pick up the tab.

I also only spent three years in college for the same reason; I started feeling like I was wasting my time. That may or may not have been true, at college I could have applied myself more and used more of the resources around me (most professors are professors because they are very good at what they do...learn from them, not necessarily from what they teach in class).

Some of it is probably you, and some of it could be the place/people you're around. This is very hard to look at objectively.

People aren't unreceptive to high school and/or college dropouts. People are unreceptive to slackers, and underacheivers. Honestly for me it just doesn't come up much, unless people ask 'Where did you go to school?' and by then they've usually made up some sort of decision about what to think of me anyway.

Dropping out of school has not closed one opportunity to me. At least not one opportunity that I would have pursued anyway (probably some big corporations have restrictions on that sort of thing).

What it comes down to is this: Do what you want. When your guidance counselors tell you "If you had all the money you would ever need, what would you do?" Don't mistake that to mean, 'after high school, after college, after this certain point in your career'. That means "right now, what are the steps that I need to take to make that happen" and doing them.

I dropped out of school in 10th grade, and consider it the best decision I ever made. If you are going to do it, it's a decision you want to execute very carefully to avoid major confrontations with the people who still have a lot of power over you and think they're acting in your own good.

You might also consider Sudbury-style schools, where you would be completely free to spend your day however you like (I went to one after dropping out of high school, and now work at one).

Look up Hans Reiser [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser] and Niniane Wang [http://niniane.org/] - they are early dropouts in the tech industry. It's not totally insane to fast-track your career.

Don't think of the monotony. Think of the things that differ from day to day. You find something that interests you that isn't related to monotony and you focus on that. For me, it was girls; not to get laid, but to practice my game before I went to college. If you focus on the monotony you're going to kill yourself.

Life is full people doing things they don't want to do. Everyone does lots of things they don't want to do. Even the best job has many bits of work that no one wants to do. That guy in school who is always happy and who makes everyone laugh all the time - that guy does tons of shit he doesn't want to do. That guy at work who always seems happy and comes up with good ideas on how to make things better, that guy does a ton of shit he doesn't want to do also.

To a degree, it's how you deal with those things you don't want to do that define your happiness. Do you complain? Do you work REALLY hard to try to get out of doing it? Or do you maybe accept those things as learning experiences, and find ways to get the things you don't want to do done more efficiently and more quickly?

Be a man. Finish school. Find a career that gives you happiness, do the shitty parts, and find things to be happy about, work related or not. Or, be a whiny kid who constantly complains about how everything sucks.

1) If you're sublimely self confident and prepared to deal with the intense difficulty of this option, just leave. Strike out completely on your own, hit the garage, make the Next Big Thing(tm).

2) Kill all the pieces of yourself that make you an anomaly amongst your peers. Drug yourself out, develop an addiction to something that will numb your mind and dull the ennui of the existence you find yourself in. In short, destroy every piece of you that makes it uncomfortable for you to go with the flow.

The world is pulling you down because the world is, as often mentioned here, not designed for people like us. Your solution will be to address this discrepancy in some fashion. It is orders of magnitude easier to change yourself than it is to change the world, and I say this in full knowledge of how utterly stupendously hard it really is to change yourself, especially in this way that you know to be deeply wrong.

I'll spend the rest of my life in obscurity changing the broken things in the world before I spend an hour on my knees trying to figure out how to fit in, but this is not anywhere near as heroic as it sounds. Simply, this is because I am stupid and stubborn, and probably if I were less so (and maybe you are?) I would be able to see this path for the folly it is. Leave the hard stuff to the martyrs and spend your life in dull throbbing comfort in some easy and meaningless pursuit like law or politics, and snort cocaine off hookers for the occasional buzz.

Alas, some of us are simply not this way constructed.

Good luck.

Coincidentally, my girlfriend is just graduating college from learning to a be a grade school teacher. She's taught me something very important over the last year or so: that school is not really about learning the subjects your teachers are trying to teach you, it's about you developing as a person. Maybe it would help if you thought of high school as a social learning environment rather than an academic one. Let me also say that in no way do I mean that just because you're in 10th grade does that mean that you're not mature or intelligent. Everyone can improve themselves in many ways, not just academically, and that's what I suggest you focus on in school.

You're going to have boring tasks to do when you have a job, or when you live on your own, so it's best to learn how to get through them now and appreciate the genuinely interesting subjects while you can. I have had about a 50/50 split with good/bad professors in college and I'm assuming that this carries over into the professional world. You'll probably have some co-workers who are like you, and care about doing well, and some that just do it for the money.

You're way ahead of me as far as figuring these things out; I didn't start programming until the middle of my 3rd year in college. I also didn't read PG's high school essay until very recently, and I wish I had read it when I was your age. At the last career fair I went to, all three of the recuiters I talked to told me they wanted candidates with programming experience outside of class. You're well ahead of the curve and it sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders. Try not to get discouraged and remember there are lots of people out there that feel the same way you do.

I hope this gives you some perspective and encouragement. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

My suggestion to you is first to forget about dropping out of high school. That is not even a possibility. Now that we have that established, I will move on.

This might not help your grades, but one thing I used to do is actually work on personal projects while I was at school. I would write on paper, that I was supposed to be taking notes with, ideas and brainstorms for my projects. I would sometimes get so bored in school I would actually write out Perl code on paper just for the heck of it. Yea I was bored.

Sorry to digress, basically what I'm trying to say is make due with what you have. If you can't take more challenging classes like honors or AP level courses, perhaps ask around to find out who the more interesting and passionate teachers are and if you have an honest talk with the principal they may actually move you to the class you'd like. Work on your own stuff and your own knowledge while at school. Find others that are interested in those same things you are as well. When I was in high school I joined a webstaff which was basically a group of students that worked on the website. The media center/library people quickly spotted my overall technology talent, and I soon because very literally the school's IT guy. By my 12th grade year, I was practically spending half of my time 'working' at school helping people with computer related issues.

In closure, I have a feeling there are other issues at hand here. I don't quite know what I'm suggesting, maybe personal issues at home or maybe something totally different. Try to figure out what's at the root of your disliking. There is probably an underlying cause that you may be able to fix. Stop worrying so much about high school. Just pass and do good on your SAT. By the way, you're first two years of college, if you go, will be very similar. But when you actually take those nice tech classes where you really learn stuff it is highly enjoyable.

Learn how to attract girls (or boys as you prefer). Read about building self-confidence without becoming self-absorbed. Watch and learn from people who get dates without seeming like jerks. Learn how to make strangers laugh and soon you'll be making everyone laugh. Also learn why you should care about physical fitness: not only will it automatically make you more attractive, but the chemical process it gets going is like marijuana and cocaine and xanax combined, without any of the side effects. It'll make you more energetic and positive, and more able to focus creatively on intellectual things for longer periods of time.

Stay engaged with smart people from other places and times (e.g. your Graham reading, online forums etc.)

Bypass your teachers by reading the material in your own way, and doing your own thing in class rather than paying attention. Go beyond the textbooks to original sources or other books on the matter -- that alone will make things 10 times as interesting.

Oh and don't start doing drugs or partying

What I did was I just started bringing textbooks from any subject I was interested to all my classes and read them. If you are getting good grades no one will care. But really, unless your teacher is really awful they won't care anyway, because there are so many kids who do need help that they should be focusing on. Who gives a shit about the kid who probably could've passed the exam without taking the class when so many kids don't understand basic algebra, especially with no child left behind.

hs sucks, try to learn social skills by observing others and practice thinking about being in other peoples shoes to learn better empathy. Try to learn useful things like econ 101, programming, business stuff, math, etc.

Adolescence really just eats balls and there isn't much you can do about it.

Go to a computer room when you can and build something great. Even though something is boring in your life and its mandatory for our society, do it. If people describe it as mandatory, do it.

A little story: I knew a guy in my school that made his first million in 10th grade. He dropped out and never looked back. You sir, don't have that luxury unless you decide to start now and make your first million. If you want out, strive to achieve what you think will actually get you out and keep you from working for "the man" in any other job....

Also, if your a child prodigy, think about going to the NSA website and crack a few of their codes... They are always hiring....

I also suggest you watch a movie called "Good Will Hunting". It struck home for me. Maybe it will for you.

What you should not do:

1) Dropout. 2) Make bad grades. 3) Skip classes.

If you find school boring, at the very least make sure you dominate it. You're at an age where you have infinite possibilities before you- Kick school completely in the ass to make sure you don't close off all those opportunities.

The kids who drop-out/make terrible grades in school because it was "too easy" for them end up creating more obstacles for themselves. Yes, you might not need a HS Diploma to get a cool comp sci job, but it is certainly much easier to get a startup job if you graduated summa cum laude from Stanford than if you dropped out of high school.

The truly smart, great, inspirational people are good at multiple things- they often say that the best programmers are also the best communicators. They also great grasp of their underlying subject matter (which might not matter if you're working at youtube, but would be relevant if you're working at a bioinformatics startup, etc.)

You're going to want to be good at multiple things. As much as you love programming now, you don't know what might happen in the future. When I was in 10th grade, I still wanted to be a doctor! So, don't close off any doors by throwing in the towel. If it's too easy for you, just dominate it.

If you still understand what I'm saying, let's make a sports analogy. Imagine LeBron James in H.S. He's head and shoulders ahead above the competition. There's no reason he should be playing. He probably could have turned pro at 15; however if he had been bored, tanked through games, not tried, he would have been labeled as a "me-first" player who didn't play his heart out, and he wouldn't have the same opportunities he had today.

So, play your heart out in high school. Life exists beyond books. As I've said in my other posts, achieve your genetic potential- not only academically, but socially, and physically as well. Develop habits that will last you a lifetime: self-discipline. strong character and ethics. stand up to the bullies. support the other geeks. build loyalty and true friendships. identify your insecurities, and blast them away.

Treat high school as an experience, not as a place to go to learn- you've mastered the learning part (at least you better by getting rockstar grades), make a good effort to master the rest.

If you think high school is boring, wait till you enter the real world. For 95% of us, the boring 9 am lecture is replace by the boring 9 am meeting. At least your class is over in 45 minutes, and if you're lucky, you can pass notes to the cute girl sitting next to you. My 9 am meetings sometimes last 2 hours and its a room of all males.

Even if you're in a startup, you'll face tedium. Fights with your board. Fights with your investors. Accounting (bleh). Trying to protect your IP by filing a patent. A lot of that stuff is tedious and boring.

A lot of times in life, you'll be faced with tedious, repetitious tasks. Having the self-discipline to power through these, as well as making lemonade from lemons- I learned these skills in high school!

  The trick was that when I started working in a lab or on startup ideas, I get the same dopamine rush that was spoken of in a previous. Working on classes that I could learn on my own time, destroying my happiness and health, when there is real good I could do in the world doesn't make sense from a utilitarian point of view; yet society functions on a credentialing system (as pg spoke of in one of his essays).

After a certain point, college (undergrad anyway) is just a grind that produces nothing useful. Lip service is paid to learning and then they grade you. Sometimes this makes sense and they are a fair representation of your knowledge, other times they are a random disconnected sampling. In certain classes, grading may make sense, but it reduces learning by encouraging certain kinds of depth first thinking.

What we need to do is break out of this acceptance of how things are done. For instance, if college is a credentialing process, then why are you required to take a class in order to gain a credential? If you get a C in a class, why should you be required to take it again (with all the work that entails) rather than just retesting? Some classes require attendance. Should not all the materials be provided so that you can learn on your own? This is not always the case.

If college is a holistic learning program, we should not be grading students or grade them in a way that does not expose them to hardship later ( e.g. by never revealing them to the outside world ). In my case, I know I would more thoroughly if I wasn't facing constant deadline pressure. Perhaps we could have a situation that is more you either present some results of your research or are given an oral examination that requires quick thinking.

College could be far more fun than it is, and far more educational. As it exists, it is a tedious compromise between an education and a certification. As a society, we need to figure out what we really want, because we are most certainly doing it wrong (whether my solutions are correct or not) at every level (I could recite what I learned about graduate school, but I have gone on long enough).

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(Sorry, double comment, I think I messed something up while messing with this. Also, it kills most of the current style. Anyone have a better variant? Might be good to have as a bookmarklet.)

I'll try to be more careful in the future.

When you're an adult you have to take financial risk to pay for time to work for free time to work on what you believe in. When you're a kid, your parents pay the bills and the health industry allows your parents' health insurance to cover to you- you have no financial risk. However, the devil's bargain is that you waste eight hours a day at school. It sucks, so get working on what matters.

You write well and you are clearly smart so you're also smart enough to get the grades you want. Get over yourself and stop looking at it as intellectual stimulation- instead, put in the amount of work necessary to get the grades you require. If you want to go to college, look up the average entrance scores and give yourself enough wiggle room to get in with ease. If you don't want to get in college, just put in the work to pass and push the rest of the time towards learning what it is you want to learn.

Dropping out of high school was one of the best things I have ever done with my life. Not because I was too smart or too anti-social, etc. I just wanted to do other things. So I did.

If you focus on growing and learning then you can take whatever path you want. It is riskier and scarier, but I think it is worth it.

I am 31 years old and I have lived a great and varied life so far. I was a pastry chef at a fine dining restaurant, a social organizer working with non-profits, a high school teacher, a startup programmer, a BI consultant, and more. Now I own a couple of retail franchises work on my own startup and play with my kids.

If you have the drive and guts to take the road less traveled, I say go for it. Dropping out is not just for losers.

But as far as I recall, once I started doing College classes, I didn't really do any more 'high school' classwork. I took the GED to be eligible for financial aid, but I believe I still took the year-end test for 12th grade, so I 'officially' finished as well..

I doubt I was as knowledgeable as you, though, if you're already reading hacker news. I didn't know it was 'really' possible to have a startup, though I did web sites for people.

Point being, you don't necessarily have to choose between two more years of boredom and not having a HS diploma. You can pretty much take the GED and start college, and I really doubt that would work against you.

Community college might feel like more of the same for you, but at least you can structure your classes to have more time to work.

1. Challenge yourself

So, you've got to choose from these kinds of activities:

  A: Activities that you enjoy doing
  B: Activities that *might* impress (say) the college admissions staff

You're in America: you don't hunt for opportunities, you are flooded with them. Someone on this thread recommended "taking every AP exam available". Sure, do that: it's really important. But that's not ambitious at all: AP exams cover only about 10% of what Indian entrance examinations do, and you get to use "calculators" and "appendices" (more like textbooks). Do something real, like aspire to be an IMO/IOI/IPhO/IChO/ISEF medalist (if you don't know what those are, shame on you).

2. Manage your time

I was absolutely dismal at this. But I've started doing it for a month and it really does wonders: I have stopped procrastinating and started to feel less stressed out. I'd recommend you watch the late Randy Pausch's other lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0) or read Getting Things Done. Most of HN can give better advice.

3. Skip school (a lot)

It took me a lot of effort to get my parents to allow me to do this. Alas, it was too late then. Usually, teachers do more harm than good. Read the right books instead of attending their classes.

Continue to slog through school (and that was no fun in my era, and has likely only become more of a slog) and get into every AP and into every local college class you can, and look to get an LLC and start up your own business and your own products. See if you're ready to operate a small business or a startup entirely on your own, or if you prefer to follow a, um, more traditional educational and career and corporate path.

If you work through the LLC and the AP and the college classes and particularly work with the local school authorities around this, you might be able to achieve a "reduced sentence" for your time in high school, too. Stranger things have happened.

It'll look good on applications to college/job. And it'll draw to you the type of people who are sympatico...

How are you at explaining things to those slower than yourself? Maybe you (or your club) could offer some tutoring help to those less fortunate (in brains). You could set up a facebook or other social site for linking kids needing tutors with those wanting to tutor (whatever subject). Harnessing your gifts to serve in the school will not only give you personal satisfaction but will enhance your social contacts. [And remember: it will also bring you some (unexpected) challenges to help round out your growth.]

--my 2 cents.

Wishing you the best with it!

If I hadn't done the dual-enrollment program, I would have probably taken the proficiency exam and gone to a community college. Instead, I'm graduating with the rest of my class and going to an Ivy League university. I can't emphasize how great dual-enrollment is.

Is there a way for you to stretch yourself within the confines of school? Are you allowed to test out of anything, study with a mentor, or maybe take some dual-enrollment classes?

Here is an interesting article by Tracy Cross - http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10479.aspx

I hope you can find a good fit soon. Hang in there. It's not fair to be marking time.

- Convince your school to miss classes if you demonstrate great scores and promise to keep them

- Convince your parents to let you take a year off, promising to continue where you left off later and use the time to pursue your interest of study. You will either confirm your suspicion that school is a waste of time or gain completely different perspectives. Either case is a win

- Homeschooling. I am surprised your parents haven't come up with this option yet. I am not familiar with the US educational system, but can't you just study on your own and appear for qualifying exams that you would have normally taken after high school?

I got a book published (Flash programming book in Brazilian portuguese, not that much of a big deal), still at 14, and after that I've never been unemployed. Today I'm 23, I'm living together with my fiancee and I have all the means to go to college if I want to, without getting myself into any debt. But none of my employers seem to have ever been bothered with the fact that I'm not graduated in C.S.

So at least for me, I think, quitting school pretty much defined what I am and what I do today. If I had stayed in school I would be probably still financially dependent on my parents and would not have had all the motivation I had to move forward in life.

http://simons-rock.edu/

Simon's Rock is unusualy in that the entire entering class has left high school early. You're treated like an adult there, allowed to make your own decisions and mistakes. If you're chomping at the bit to get on with your life, Simon's Rock is a great way to do it.

It's a mostly liberal arts school, but the technical classes were phenomenal. I was able to transfer to Carnegie Mellon for my junior year, no problem--all credits transferred, and I was just as well prepared as the other Physics juniors.

But you can't make your school not-school. It's always going to be boring, mostly pointless, mostly a waste of time. Accept this and deal with it.

Or you can stay frustrated and angry about it instead. This is totally normal, expected, and acceptable teenager behavior--it worked fine for me--but it won't actually change anything.

Good luck.

I got bored of high school my Junior year, and I spent my senior year at a community college. It wasn't that I disliked high school, I just sick of putting up with the other kids.

The upside of dual enrollment is that the state pays for the credits, which ends up drastically reducing the cost of your college degree.

http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/paleopsych/2005-May/00325...

Also this quote by Thomas Henry Huxley seems apt here:

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."

Further, a 3.5 is not "decent enough grades" anymore -- they're average. Grade inflation has led us to lose perspective.

Finally, the best thing I did for myself in my last two years of high school was learning to interact with people in my age group but not my peer group. Breaking out of an introvert's shell is very, very hard. It's not impossible.

I have been able to get good programming jobs based on my ability to get projects done. I wish I would have finished high school because now I'm taking online classes to figure out things I should have already learned. Google answers a lot of my questions but that isn't the same as learning it correctly the first time.

Who cares how bad school is, Don't drop out.

Seriously. I hated school as well. I got a gig first working at a mom and pop computer repair place, and then as the windows/netware monkey at the county offices. At both jobs I worked with people old enough to be my parents or grandparents, but it really made me feel... human. they appreciated me and treated me like a real person. They treated me as an adult, really; it made sense, I was doing a job normally done by an adult (even if they were paying me minimum wage)

Add to that, if you don't have an education, you need work experience. I got out of highschool in '97 or so... and jumped in to a .com job. It would have been harder without the industry experience. I survived the crash, and make pretty good money as a *NIX SysAdmin now.

but I think getting a job that counts (even if it's supporting windows boxes in an office, it's still industry experience.) is very important. The social aspects are probably as important as anything else. just being treated like a human being is a wonderful (and shocking) experience for a high school student.

If I had to do it again, I would have fought my parents harder. I tested out of highschool in my junior year (the test is extremely simple.) but my parents wouldn't let me quit because they didn't think I would go to college and they wanted me to have a highschool degree and not an equivalency. That was, of course, such bullshit. most of my co workers have a bs or ms. I leave my education off my resume. Nobody asks to see my high school diploma. (sure, some jobs would be easier to get with a college degree, but really, most of them accept experience instead. Nobody cares about what you did in highschool.)

California had a "general competency exam", that supposedly proved you were sufficiently educated. You could take the exam in your Junior year and exit school early. I really wish I had done this. Some of my friends passed the exam (supposedly it was easy; "Which of these shapes is a triangle?" etc.) and started college and/or working earlier. They ended up quite successful.

2. A few, I could 'network' more as some people above me said. I guess I've been aversive to that because it seems that's the only thing most of my peers want to do. If that'll make it more enjoyable though, I'll try...

I hated most of school up to college as well, because 95% of it was just a pure time waste.

What are your Ruby skills like?

Do you want a job? ;-)

(Only 50% joking...)

drop out? startup? sucker up and go to college? do as your parents say?

just do whatever makes you happy, and fuck the rest.

"do what makes you truly happy for the longest amount of time".

That implies some thinking about the future instead of blindly following something that may lead to short-term but not long-term happiness. Also, it requires that you figure out what makes you truly happy, not just surface-level happy.

It's a lot more difficult to accomplish, but so very much more rewarding.

If I went back to high school? I would really focus in sports. It would teach me discipline, team work, and a lot of social skills.

After that, Try to get in a good college so you meet a lot interesting people. Follow your curiosity.

...keep hanging out in HN. Lot's of talent here.

They may know more about high-school education than us; they certainly know more about you and what would suit you - they may be able to assist in a solution, in a practical sense.

Many of the other commenters don't seem to understand your issue (assuming I do). Yes, you can socialize a lot in high school and participate in other things. Most of these 'other things' turn out to be as fake as the 'education' the school provides. But that's even not the issue here. I would bet that, even with a lot of 'socializing', unless you lose your core thirst to learn (which would definitely be a bad thing), you would be left with an empty feeling and a bitter taste at the end of the day.

And no, "real life is boring too" is no more true that you make it to be. Most adults stick to the 'system' (just like most students don't think of how much high school is wasting their time and stick to it) and do not pursue what they truly enjoy. When your actual job (and its purpose) is something you truly enjoy, these 'mundane' tasks of dealing with accountants and such would not appear big to you at all - they'll just happen.

I felt the exact same way as you do in college (which is not very different from school where I live), and coped with it with some tactics. The first one was what charlesju's comment says: "When I was in High School I used to pass the time by programming on my graphing calculator. I'm sure these days you can get by with reading a book in class or maybe even a small netbook. If none of those things are possible, just start a project and doodle your algorithms while you're in class and code them up at night. There are a lot of ways to circumvent the system and do something you like to do, don't just give in to your immediate urges to shut it out. At the very least, you should graduate High School." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=583462)

Some other comments here that I think would be useful to you:

"Treat high school as an experience, not as a place to go to learn- you've mastered the learning part (at least you better by getting rockstar grades), make a good effort to master the rest." - unexpected

"Stick with it, for now. It's not so much that it's a very valuable experience, it's that without it you will be locked out of so many other things that really are worthwhile. I know that two more years feels like an eternity right now, but trust me, it's not." - felixc And a word of caution here, see if applies to you: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=583453 - tracy

Finally, whatever you do, get rid of this 'guilt' that you are doing something wrong. I myself was affected a lot by it, until at the end when we interviewed for jobs, I saw clearly that those who had gone with the system mostly failed, but those of us who tried to break out and learn ourselves faired exceedingly well. So be aware that you are part of an elite group and would be very welcome at the real world.

Unfortunately, many of the comments here too seem to reinforce that you are simply being immature, but your comment indicates to me you are not. In that case, be clear about this: some of us just can't bring ourselves to go along with the 'system'. Once you've seen how mind numbingly foolish it is, it is very difficult to stay there (I'm reminded of the film The Matrix). So, there's nothing wrong about that being difficult for you.

But realise that this difficulty is something you have to overcome. Simply dropping out will complicate many other things in life, so I would not recommend it. Instead, understand yourself, and find ways to work around the system and make it palatable to you. If you forget about what the classes are actually supposed to teach and instead think deeply about what is being taught, you'll find that every moment can teach you a lot. Same goes for any work you're assigned - simply overperform (according to your standards - the school may not consider it excellent performance, but you know to ignore it). Research deeply about any assignment you're given, and if you're unable to do that (due to say lack of time), brainstorm yourself while writing down (or typing out) about the concept there. If you do this sincerely, you'll find that you enjoy the process, while excellent grades come your way without even all the 'hard work' the 'sincere' students put in.

To summarize the idea - you're interested in learning a lot, so use the things you do at school to do it; when you do the school work with concentration and dedication, you'll find that you've learnt a lot more than the teacher meant you to, while enjoying every moment of it.

First of all, unless something's changed, you should be able to have a driver's license by grade 11 (usually age 16). You can use this to take Community College courses. If you are feeling really clever, you can work with your school to get credit for these such that you don't have to take the HS versions -- but they also count as college credit, which we call "huge tuition savings" on the other side of the bill.

Second of all, you need to be participating in socializing activities. I'm a big fan of speech & debate (because there's not a job opening in the world that doesn't have "strong communication skills" as a prerequisite :-p -- the movie Rocket Science is a not-unreasonable depiction of the activity), but I've seen/heard that robotics and electronics clubs are becoming popular thanks to more-accessible components and information. If those don't strike your fancy or aren't available, then make your own. Do you realize how cheap a digital camcorder and video editing software is these days? Round up some people that don't suck and make a movie. I've had a whole bunch of friends that have done it, some in HS and others in College (see: "The Gamers" which was surprisingly profitable and "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising").

Third, if you're lucky then you're in a college town and if you're as smart as you claim then you may be able to be a lab aide for professors at that college. You don't have to want to go to school there, but getting in on that kind of experience is very valuable and also looks great on applications to the colleges that you do want to go to. (My youngest sister-in-law did this.)

Fourth, I would speculate that because you're posting here and you're reading Paul and all this other stuff that you're not very well diversified in how you're trying to challenge yourself. Let me remind you that an awful lot of technical jobs didn't exist when those of us filling them were kids, so really drilling into specialized knowledge when you're a kid may have a detrimental impact on your ability to adjust to certain change later in life. I would suggest that you spend more time doing art, music, writing, etc. (Consider: Paul Graham would almost certainly not be so capable of a writer if he hadn't gone wacky and gotten his degree in Philosophy. Also, if you doubt the value of art, go read Mac Hall -- there's a party sequence where Ian demonstrates the value of competence with a sketchpad at a party that always makes me grin. http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2001-03-21) The crucial thing is that you can bring in another skill that you've cultured to make your particular synthesis of capabilities unique and innovative.

Finally, it will almost certainly get easier. Lacking any kind of public funding for talented and gifted programs, my senior year of HS was ~40% independent study of one form or another. Not that I would suggest being quite the slacker I was -- I used the "Theorem of Theorems" which stated that "if a state-certified math book taught it to us, it must be true enough" to shortcut through entirely too many math problems -- but with a good mobile internet device and enough initiative to set your own goals, you'll be able to make better use of your time in the near future.

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So my advice is if you really dislike the schoolwork, just ignore it and do the bare minimum to pass, and spend your free time on more interesting things. You can't really quite school because you are still too young and immature.

But don't feel guilty about skipping schoolwork as long as you are spending your time on something productive and worthwhile.

2. You are naive. Highschool is a mechanism to socialize you and a filter for colleges. Nothing that goes on there is a waste of time.

3. Start acting like a Gr. 10 student.

> Highschool is a mechanism to socialize you and a filter for colleges. Nothing that goes on there is a waste of time.

Being able to effectively interact with other people is an extremely important skill in life, and will become more so in the future as the world gets more crowded and less wealthy. There's an old aphorism: it's not what you know, it's who you know. It took me twenty years to learn the hard way that this aphorism contains more than a grain of truth. It is, in fact, the whole ballgame. If you're smart but no one can stand to work with you, you will lose. Contrariwise, if you're dim but people love you you will do fine.

So if you don't want to waste the next two years, here's a project for you: figure out a way to get 100 of your peers working on something -- anything -- together. It doesn't have to make a profit (though that would be good), it doesn't have to make the world a better place (though that would be good too), but it should not be actively destructive (that makes it too easy) and every one of those 100 people has to be doing it because they want to. They all have to be enthusiastic about it. Note that what I'm suggesting is different from becoming "popular", though becoming popular might be helpful (or it might not). You have to actually organize these people into doing some kind of productive activity. Just inviting 100 people to a beer bash doesn't count.

If you achieve that you will have just had the most useful two years of your life. Good luck.

Absolutely. High school is a great time to learn to get along with, and like, all sorts of people. You have your whole life to study and learn. But knowing how to get along with people is more important than any other skill you can learn.

Beware developing an "I'm smarter than everyone around me" attitude like most geeks have. It limits us, both in success and in happiness.

Well said. I have started to meet many people who aren't super smart but they get things done because they don't paralyze themselves by analyzing why things won't work and just get things started. And by corollary, their confidence makes other people believe they can do it (even if they don't know how they will do it)

Recommended essay to ponder: "I ain't good but I got guts"

http://iggychaos.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-aint-good-but-i-got-...

This suggestion caught my eye. My oldest son appears to be a bit older than the submitter of this thread, now in eleventh grade. For him, "eleventh grade" has been mostly dual-enrollment studies at our state flagship university, with a seventeen-credit course load there this semester, and an additional distance learning class from the EPGY Online High School at Stanford University.

His peer collaboration project has been a website

http://impishidea.com/

about literary criticism of best-selling fantasy genre novels read by today's young people. He has gradually found a group of local and online friends who are appalled by the literary characteristics of today's best-sellers such as the Inheritance and Twilight series, and runs the website as webmaster and forum moderator, with help from a lot of his friends, to elevate the tastes of readers and to discuss better writing. Computer programming in the service of good literature is how he combines his interests.

I have utterly no idea how my son's activities will look to a college admission committee. (He should have his first admission result in about a half year's time as I type this.) And, no, he doesn't feel all day every day that he is doing just what he would like best. Part of the stress of being an adolescent is moving from dependence on the birth family to being able to independently support a family in the next generation. My son tries to keep his eye on the prize of getting to make more and more of his own decisions as he grows up.

- You can't make something interesting when your time is controlled minute-by-minute. If you were stuck in India for the next four years, you could find some way to make it interesting because you have freedom. You simply can't make, say, prison interesting if it's not already, because everything is so rigidly controlled.

- High school is NOT there to socialize you; it's there to keep you in one place all day so that your parents don't have to babysit you (see http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html, http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/). High school society bears very little resemblance to adult societies in the real world. For one thing, you can't pack up and leave if you don't like it. For another, your friends are chosen by accidents of age and geography, and not by you. For yet another, adults (some adults, anyway) spend the day doing things; most of the work that high schoolers do is simply thrown in the garbage at the end of the year.

- High school can't possibly be a filter for anything, because everyone is forced to attend; the "filter" isn't a filter if it lets everyone (or nearly everyone) through. Prep schools are filters for colleges, but they filter based on how much money your parents make and not based on how smart you are.

- The vast, vast majority of adults, by the time they're 25, have forgotten 90% (or more) of the stuff they've supposedly "learned" in high school; it necessarily follows that most of the "learning" is a complete waste of time, as you can't possibly make use of information if you don't know what it is.

- Why in Cthulhu's name should anyone want to act like a high school student? Most high school students accomplish nothing of any importance. Most high school students will do incredibly dangerous and stupid stunts if their friends ask them to. Most high school students waste enormous amounts of time on stuff that is neither fun nor important. See http://bygpub.com/books/tg2rw/chap3excerpt.htm for more on this.

'For another, your friends are chosen by accidents of age and geography, and not by you.'

this seems patently false to me, you hang out with the people who energize and care about you whether you are 16 or 25...

I mean, yes it's true that high school is boring and has many flaws, but it really doesn't take up that much time, and you can get a lot out of it. Classes can be boring and stifling, but I would argue that going to college without at least calculus isn't the best idea if you plan to have a lot of time to learn all the cool math you want/need.

Also, as some previous posters mentioned, until you're kicking everyone's ass and winning math/programming competitions, I don't think it's fair to say that school is too easy

The sample of such people is MUCH smaller in high school than it is in the real world (easily five orders of magnitude smaller).

"but it really doesn't take up that much time,"

Four years full-time is a lot, especially when you're young. The average job lasts less than three years.

"but I would argue that going to college without at least calculus isn't the best idea if you plan to have a lot of time to learn all the cool math you want/need."

Agreed, but you don't need high school for calculus, and high schools usually do a terrible job of teaching it (how many people know what a derivative is five years later?)

All I'm saying is that though high school clearly isn't perfect, I have trouble agreeing with the apocalyptic pictures some people paint.

That's what they kept telling me. I don't believe it. I for one acquired little social skills in high school and orders of magnitude more since I started working.

I think people just can't bring themselves to admit that high school is a net loss. It is not easy to admit you've wasted many years of your life. At the same time, most intellectually honest people can't really say it with straight face any more that high school has anything to do with education. So they cling to secondary made up reasons like the one about social skills.

I'm in 12th grade by the way, and 11th and 12th have been my biggest growth years in terms of interpersonal ability.