What I think would be cool is if somehow high school could be replaced with college. Allow people to specialize earlier, and hey, if it turns out they're not interested in their specialization, at least they found out 4 years earlier.
What happens if someone spends 3 years in a specialization they picked out when they were 12 or 13 and realize they hate it? You can't reasonably expect people that age to know what they want to do for the rest of their life.
I am now a senior in high school and this year I am taking classes in Data Structures, Assembly Language and Shell Programming. I have already taken classes in C, Unix and Java.
For me, it has been great to be able to take classes that I am actually interested in instead of just the ones that involve the least work like many of my friends have (CS is the only department with that many specialized classes).
I wasn't forced to choose a specialization, if I was, I probably would not have chosen CS at the time. I chose different classes freshman year and started to gravitate towards CS as a sophomore. There was no commitment so I could have stopped CS and focused on something else if it turned out that I didn't like it.
Do you go to a specialized school? If only such classes were offered here. I too am a high school senior but everything I know (little compared to you) is self taught. I am looking to college to supplement that.
Most of what I know is also self taught. Once you get into the more advanced CS classes at my school, it is very independent (I am the only one in each of my classes this year). I can ask the teacher for help on an assignment or have him explain something if I need him too but most of the time I work independently.
I went to a public school that had a programming track like Spencer but we started at BASIC and ended in an "advanced" C++ class.
I jokingly referred to our classes as learning "skills" since we lived so close to the poverty line. We had well taught and well funded tracks in dry cleaning, construction, cosmetology etc. I joke but they provided job placement and it probably gave many people a decent living.
I also remember how great it was have an army recruitment office inside the school.
If your mind is on your startup, partying, or you don't know what you want to do, I think you'll regret
not having the focus and direction you could have put toward college by waiting. Experiencing a couple of failed
startups or working a crappy job can really motivate you to put 100% into school. In my case, I became an airborne
paratrooper right out of HS, grew up (alot), got $$$ for college, then hit the ground running.
I agree but what I think should be done, and I'm speaking from personal experience (I don't know how education systems work in other places), is to allow those who gravitate towards some fields really start specializing more than average student in these fields and only give them bare basics in the rest of the fields.
What happens if people spend 3-5 years specializing when they are 19 or 20 and they hate it? Personally, I wish I would've gone to college instead of high school. Worst case scenario I know a little bit about something I don't like and I have a better idea of what I might like.
What I think would be cool is if somehow high school could be replaced with college.
Where I grew up there was a statewide program where you could attend college classes for free during the last 2 years of high school. I pretty much did this full time after my sophomore year. I believe this sort of program exists in many US states.
We had no statewide program to attend early, but we could get dual (HS/college) credit for a lot of advanced classes through the local community college (which had a ton of deals to transfer credits to various colleges in the region). We took the classes at our HS or in the evening at the community college.
I got my first 32 hours of math/english/chemistry/history out of the way my senior year in HS for $48 a credit hour. Definitely a great deal.
Some cities in our state, notably the ones with colleges in them, allow their HS students to attend college classes instead (with approval of professor and the university). I've seen random 16 year olds on campus in calculus III classes for instance.
I disagree. Although I love working with web technology, I would be miserable if the only things I studied were computer science and business. High school introduces you to a broad range of topics, such as history and literature, that can get you interested in pursuing a liberal arts education alongside your more vocational classes in college. Hell, those liberal arts subjects could even become your vocation. I just believe that it is very important for people to have experience outside of the field they work in.
At my HS, when you were a junior/senior they had a deal where you could attend classes at a tech institute for free. I spent two weeks learning about wiring offices (pull cables, etc) before I decided I'd rather go the social development route in school.
But for a lot of folks, a technical degree from one of these places could be a real leg up in finding a comfortable paying job without incurring college debt.
