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Ask HN: How to make the most of your high school experience?

by JonathanBuchh on 2/17/22, 12:32 AM with 19 comments

• by themodelplumber on 2/17/22, 12:42 AM

  > What did you do right

  I started running and lifting and worked off my man boobs, which helped get me some dates, which is what I was going for, so that was cool.

  I let myself read texts that weren't assigned by, or endorsed by, the fundamentalist religion into which I was born, which in retrospect was practically life-giving.

  > What would you have changed?

  I'd need to talk in terms of various universes to even start on this one, maybe.

  It's not like I'd move from one rail to another. It's more like, I'd like one universe to try this irreversible conversation with mom & dad and then face the consequences, and another universe to try the goth scene, running away from home, and some irreversible decisions, etc.

  The cool thing is, at mid-life you can start to realize you can travel back into time somewhat. It's complex but basically doable in a way that a lot of people never really take advantage of.

  Regardless, regrets are an amazing tool in any case as you move forward, I wrote a blog about this a while back. Hopefully you're still young enough mentally to let yourself make tons of mistakes, which should keep your executive processes sharp.

  https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/regrets-a-powerful-plann...

  Good luck with the rest of HS!

• by version_five on 2/17/22, 12:42 AM

  Serious answer, spend as little time as possible engaging with "high school" and have fun, date girls/guys, try drugs and alcohol (without being stupid about it, like at friends with cool parents), get exposed to different ideas, learn about what interests you. Get a part time job. You will have more responsibility later, do what you can to experience growing up.

• by pygar on 2/17/22, 3:51 AM

  Learn to read, write and speak. Learn to speak to people. Learn how to build and maintain relationships (I don't necessarily mean romantic ones). I know it's glib, but HS is a good time to focus on those social skills because you can bite more then you can chew and not suffer severe consequences unless you really F up.

  I also humbly suggest that you don't actively try to have a "high school" experience. The media we consume tends to romanticise it (lots of firsts etc) but most of it is inconsequential and can be harmful. Just be decent and don't let peer pressure stop you from doing what you want to do. Your grades matter, they are what decide your first steps out of school and into the "real world" but they don't matter much after that.

  What would I have changed? I would have tried to be less cynical and angry at everything at nothing.

• by deanmoriarty on 2/17/22, 4:37 AM

  Get laid. Get laid with every single person that shows interest in you, even if you don’t consider them that attractive (as long as they match your sexual orientation of course). If I think back at my high school times, that is the only advice I would give to my younger self.

• by lifeplusplus on 2/17/22, 3:56 AM

  - make at least 10 good friends, go out of your way hanging out after school, day after day, join clubs, go to parties, and more. Best long term friends I made were in hs.

  - the most important subject is math, master it to the T

  - learn to code, choose one language and go deep in it, something you can start making money with in 2 years ideally even before college (recommended: go lang, javascript, python, java...)

  - girls (make a goal to not be without a gf for more than 1 month, ask out new person every day if you have to)

  - gym (get into weight lifting and sprinting/swimming).. aim for consistency

  - apply for best colleges even if they are financially out of reach lot of them are actually free if your parents don't make 100k+

  - engage in public speaking, even try making podcast/youtube/tiktoks (being influencer isn't just cringe thing to do, it's highly lucrative and sets you apart in most fields)

  - invest all extra money in index funds, seriously, lot of upside in 10 years.

  - it's ok to drop out of college and come back when more motivated or do part time college, esp true if college isn't like top 10 college

  Priority list: Friends > Girls > Math > Gym/Sports > Coding > Public Speaking > Investment > Other HS Studies

• by busyant on 2/17/22, 1:06 AM

  Recently saw a video where Bill Burr said if he could do it over, he'd treat high school like a hip club with no cover charge. Everybody's in their prime. All the guys have a full head of hair.

  Do what makes you happy.

• by nonameiguess on 2/17/22, 1:58 AM

  Honestly, man, I barely remember high school. I was class of '99, am now 41, so the 36 months I spent in high school currently represent about 7% of my life and that number keeps getting smaller. I guess they're impactful years because of puberty and the experiencing of a lot of "firsts," but even so, it's hard to imagine at this point that doing things differently would have put me in much of a different place right now. Don't make any gigantic mistakes. Don't get put in prison. Avoid injuries you can't heal from. Don't have any kids. Don't completely scuttle the relationships you have with your family.

  I think the exception is if you're some kind of elite athlete. You don't get much of a chance to make up for key formative years in which you need to be training if you want any realistic shot at the pros and certainly a scholarship to a D1 school if it's a sport in the NCAA. Other than that, academically, getting into an Ivy only matters if you're trying to be an MBA or get into finance, and whatever else you might do in terms of honors and AP classes at best saves you a year of college in what's likely to be a 90 year life.

  College itself matters a lot more. Don't pick a useless major unless your parents are rich and you're going to get a great job no matter what. Don't saddle yourself with a bunch of debt. Still don't get arrested and don't have kids until you're graduated and have a job in a more or less "permanent" city you're gonna stay in. College is when my regrets started, but even there, the crappy and stupid things I did were easily overcome by the time my 20s were over.

• by mbg721 on 2/17/22, 3:00 AM

  High school is a good time to try out a bunch of organized clubs (or sports if you get into them). You're kind of stuck with a more structured and less independent life than you'd have in college anyway; it's good to keep busy and figure out what you genuinely enjoy now, and then when you need some free time, you'll also have the breathing-room to enjoy it.

• by rsfern on 2/17/22, 12:52 AM

  I skipped out on AP English Lit and composition because i didn’t want to deal with all the writing, and I regret that.

  The English class I ended up in was such a drag, not intellectually stimulating at all.

  Also, turns out that clear communication (writing and presentations) is super valuable in technical fields, and scientists spend a lot of time writing

• by anm89 on 2/17/22, 2:32 AM

  I would take as much math as you can and try to actually learn it at a deep level. no matter what path you take from here this will suit you well.

  Besides that, have fun go to parties try out hobbies and just generally do whatever you feel like. I personally wish I had spent more time learning an instrument at that age.

• by ksaj on 2/17/22, 12:38 AM

  As long as you get through the whole ordeal, no matter how you did, you'll do fine after. Marks never come up in resumes, and even if they came up in job interviews, you can fluff to your heart's content since no employer cares to see your High School marks (except for University claims, of course). So take this with a grain of salt. It's basically my thoughts on what got me through relatively unscathed.

  When you count how many hours you get for each class in a semester (or tri or whatever division of the school year you have), you realize that if you skip any one class, you miss out on a big chunk and can get behind really fast. Then you end up asking the questions everyone already knows the answer to, and it's all quite distracting and frustrating for everyone around.

  So if you must take a day or days off, try to catch up as soon as you can before your return. Otherwise you might have a hard time understanding what the subsequent classes you attend are even talking about. That advice obviously doesn't count for bird courses. (Make sure you always have at least one bird course!!! It's a way to get easy marks with something that's at least interesting and fun.)

  If you skip a class to hang out with friends, then any subsequent hardships are yours to own.

  Also... you have to find a way to at least somewhat enjoy classes with material you can't stand. For example, I really hated History because it dwelled on WWII and specific names and dates, when there were other things that are more interesting and not so deflating as reading walls of text and watching old black and white movies with that old-timey documentary accent and wobbly sound track. I barely skimmed by because I just couldn't hack it. The only saving grace was that my uncle was a captain in the air force, and he could tell the same stories in a way that were far more captivating than those depressing school films. If it wasn't for quizzing the crap out of him every time we visited, I would not have passed.

  BONUS: My teacher was lenient on me because she knew I was trying to get this stuff down even when not in class. As much as I hated the class, I really respected the teacher for her understanding.

• by bradknowles on 2/19/22, 6:20 AM

  Don’t be too hung up on high school.

  Ideally, you should have good friends that you stay in touch with after you graduate. But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t.

  Ideally, you would take extra classes in the area(s) that interest you, and would hopefully help prepare you for college, or whatever you want to be your next step in life. But don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t.

  Lots of people have done not much in high school, and yet gone on to be wonderful contributing members of society.

  And lots of people who have “done all the right things” haven’t amounted to much after they left.

  In my case, since eighth grade (1980), I knew I wanted to “play with computers”, which turned into programming computers, which lead me to take programming classes and extra math classes in high school (graduated in 1984), which turned into getting a degree in computer science (1989), which turned into a career of being a professional System Adminstrator and later a DevOps guy.

  These days, I think kids get started with computers at a much younger age, and some of them are actually programming computers before they get to 10.

  If you already know what you want to do with the rest of your life, that’s great! You should follow that at your earliest opportunity.

  But if not, don’t stress out about it — high school and college are the times in many people’s lives when they start figuring out what they want to do. Some people take a decade or more to get all the way through getting a college degree, because they haven’t figured out yet what they want to do.

  Most of my cousins do not have college degrees.

  But one was a top mechanic for Otis elevators, and taught elevator maintenance to hundreds and maybe even thousands of other Otis personnel, in addition to being flown around the world to help them solve some of their stickiest problems. He may not have a degree, but he’s still a really smart guy.

  Another was a race car driver in his own right in the World of Outlaw sprint car series, as well as being chief mechanic for Sammy Swindell, including the brief time that Sammy was trying to break into NASCAR. He may not have a degree, but I still think he’s the smartest guy I’ve ever known.

  You don’t have to have a college degree to be a really smart person, or to have a really wonderful and fulfilling life.

  Although I do think it might help. ;)

• by halfnormalform on 2/17/22, 2:22 AM

  Meet as many people as possible. Try out different friend groups. Fail often. In different ways each time. You'll never have this chance again.

• by smarri on 2/17/22, 7:34 AM

  Get good grades so you can go to the university you want (if that's what you want to do). Be kind to yourself, it can be a stressful period. Party when your get old enough, have fun with your friends as much as possible. Start to become independent. Do sports and hobbies.

• by adrianwaj on 2/17/22, 9:11 AM

  I wouldn't worry too much about gym and weightlifting - use that energy to build a garden and grow your own food - find friends that can help. Healthy mind in a healthy body.

• by kevmauer on 2/17/22, 1:35 AM

  Take 3 college classes each summer and aim to get your associates as early as possible when you factor in your math courses

• by burner556 on 2/17/22, 5:26 AM

  Have sex with more people