> While I was working 10h/w during high school, I was also making DOOM wads and learning BSP algo in my extremely ample free time.
I don't recall having what I would call "ample" spare time in high school. I recall being at school 8:30 to 4 every day, then a few hours of homework daily and/or exam prep for the endless exams ("don't fail" they said, "or you'll never go to university and your life is ruined forever!"). I wasn't even that social and rarely spent time at friend's houses, let alone partying or clubbing. In fact, I had so little time I didn't explore "computers" as an industry until I finally did get to university and could actually spend 6 hours a day after lectures fiddling with a laptop and this thing called "Python".
In fact probably the one thing that got me going on electronics and computers at university wasn't the lectures and assignments as much as the free time and ability to spend whole days on things, not to mention socialising freely and at length.
With the min-maxing of pre-university CVs that it seems you need to do to get into the Right Schools (TM) and then into university, I'm not sure it has gotten better since then.
In retrospect I should have told them all to do one and spent high school on what I wanted rather than another essay about WWII and the endless, endless coursework that would suck up any spare time ("I've got an hour, I'd better polish the portfolio even more"), and even if I'd gotten the dreaded lower grades and so not gotten into the same university it would probably have been better over all.
I think homework overload could be part of the problem.
When I went to highschool in the
Aughts, UC tracked students rarely had homework, maybe 30 min a day, and school got out at 2:15. If you had a good job, you could get 1 or 2 hours of school credit instead.
Young family members I know now talk about several hours of work per day.
Here's the difference: I was a mediocre student who did zero exam prep. I did homework in the classes I cared about and didn't in the ones I did not in high school. My GPA was mediocre, B-esque, high SATs, only extracurricular was Computer Club. I spent my time reading books and fucking off driving all over creation to go dumpster diving to slake my hunger for computer parts.
I did not have a "portfolio". I had a bunch of weak programming experience from books I checked out from the library and a compiler I stole from my high school because I wanted to program so badly. (1998~, open source compilers existed but to my eyes I wanted Borland Turbo C++) Yea that's right I copied that floppy! :D Imagine a time when you had to BUY compilers!!
I wrote an entrance essay that I used for all four of my college applications about how computer games were the next huge entertainment media, replacing movies. I didn't min max anything because I didn't care / had no idea / was stupid. I was accepted at all of them, Case Western Reserve, Drexel, Rutgers, Rowan. I went to a non-ivy competitive engineering school in my area, which I'm repeatedly discovering was a very good computer science program.
I went on to a fruitful research career for 10y, and now industry.
Maybe I'm telling on myself that somehow I have incredible luck or privilege, since compared to you I sound like a failure. I am the first person to go to college in my family, and worked while I was in college as well as paid internship at a research university.
The only skill I had was doing the thing directly in front of me and keeping my eyes on the next thing. The jobs I had were nothing special: a dogsbody at a deli, delivering newspapers, Toys R Us, Staples, Dominos Pizza.
Every job taught me something different:
- something can go wrong and it not be your fault
- if you have time to lean you have time to clean
- some jobs are just fighting entropy, and that's normal (note: this is in service of bigger goals, every time)
- everyone is happy to see the pizza guy
I'm not sure how old you are, I'm ~40, so it is entirely possible we have different eras. Maybe it's possible to over optimize, also maybe I'm too old for this discussion. Anecdotes aren't data.
In short, if you've never cleaned a toilet that isn't yours, it is less likely I will trust you.
I don't recall having what I would call "ample" spare time in high school. I recall being at school 8:30 to 4 every day, then a few hours of homework daily and/or exam prep for the endless exams ("don't fail" they said, "or you'll never go to university and your life is ruined forever!"). I wasn't even that social and rarely spent time at friend's houses, let alone partying or clubbing. In fact, I had so little time I didn't explore "computers" as an industry until I finally did get to university and could actually spend 6 hours a day after lectures fiddling with a laptop and this thing called "Python".
In fact probably the one thing that got me going on electronics and computers at university wasn't the lectures and assignments as much as the free time and ability to spend whole days on things, not to mention socialising freely and at length.
With the min-maxing of pre-university CVs that it seems you need to do to get into the Right Schools (TM) and then into university, I'm not sure it has gotten better since then.
In retrospect I should have told them all to do one and spent high school on what I wanted rather than another essay about WWII and the endless, endless coursework that would suck up any spare time ("I've got an hour, I'd better polish the portfolio even more"), and even if I'd gotten the dreaded lower grades and so not gotten into the same university it would probably have been better over all.