I even have a huge interest in history, but I remember my first history exam on World War 1. I was ready to answer questions on its causes, the people, how industrial war changed the nature of fighting, the new countries that formed after the war... First Question: What was the date the Serbian nationalist Gavrillo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Second Question: What was the dates each country declared war...
It also took me years to actually sit down and read JRR Tolkien as we read the Hobbit as a class book in grade 8. First question for the test: List the names of the 13 dwarves that attended the party at Bilbo's house (1 point each for a test out of 30 IIRC).
Even at my own university, I struggle to maintain a 3.0 GPA while at the same time actively tutoring students for the very courses I'm failing.
The issue isn't knowledge or competency, it's a mix of work ethic and tolerance for menial busywork.
I think some of us just aren't made for the academia grind...
A concern is that a laptop is still not something my community can make with the local resources, and thus the exploitation of land, labor, and money continues.
What would a fair-trade laptop cost?
This really resonates with me. I love math now, but absolutely loathed it in high school. The curriculum lacked any sort of way to apply math to real problems. I simply cannot learn things in the abstract like that. It's like learning a programming language without ever building a program.
I found out later:
1. How SAT scoring works 2. That you shouldn’t take the last SAT of the year since then you cannot retake it 3. I probably should’ve taken the ACT instead
I wish they’d prepared us in school for this, but they were too busy training us for standardized state testing since that determined their own budget.
Could I have gotten into MIT? Unsure; back at 18 I didn’t know MIT existed and this was early Internet times. It would have been nice if my high school mentioned it as an option.
In my case at least, doing projects like this and getting good grades didn’t automatically turn into attending any college I wanted. Either way, I ended up with a great career.
Anyways, kudos to the person who made this project!
I'm somewhat on the other end of this, where I excelled in school, graduated valedictorian, but didn't gain any meaningful experience with projects and such and had poor leadership skills all around.
Both guys brutally failed in the first year in the University. They dis not like theory, they wanted to make.
So… i dunno. 2 reference points there.
I spent most of my young adulthood working on projects (not nearly as insanely technical as this! but) similar to this. But I dropped out of high school, didn't go to college, because none of them would teach me in a way, or a pace, that fit my learning disability or mental models. Luckily I had the drive to teach myself, and built a successful two-decade career, despite my parents and teachers telling me I'd fail and become homeless.
High school kids have insane potential, and can achieve truly amazing things. But often people disregard them and don't set them up for success. So many companies could hire really great engineers, even from high school, if they could just find the motivated ones and put them in a mentorship/apprenticeship program that aligned with their interests and ways of learning.
I was on a mission, and I can’t do two things at once. So school was about efficiency. I got great grades wherever that took low effort. That only went so far.
After graduation, nowhere I wanted to be would have looked at me.
It took me a couple years after high school to find the right university, but my personal projects paid off.
Looking back, it was a gamble. But you don’t really choose those kinds of paths.
Being talented and gifted is generally not appreciated, not even in academia. Many of the most talented people never finish their education because academia is more about playing the game & having the grit (or lack of backbone?) to deal with the bullshit and do what you are told.
And tbf, the best engineers I know are not necessarily the most talented ones, but those that developed the grit to push through the bs.
