<p>@Preamble</p>
<p>Our semester already ended…
But yeah our teacher looks like a stoner from Fresno but he’s cool. We have some common interests.</p>
<p>Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love my Calculus teacher - he just gets easily side tracked… 40% of the time, we talk about math for a good 10 minutes, and then he decides to show us pictures of his trips to Colorado from 30 years go for the rest of class. We are two chapters behind the other Calculus class taught by the iron fisted Russian Calc teacher, lol.</p>
<p>Our math teacher last year did that too. 5-10 minutes of teaching 10 minutes for hw review, and the rest he just told us really interesting stories. I actually learned a lot too. I miss that guy. And in our world class we do have semi discussions about the world (terroism, politics, etc) but it’s pretty relevant to the class as a whole. His class is the easiest but that isn’t saying much since the other classes are pretty rough and fast paced.</p>
<p>Oh, my AP World class never went off topic, ever - our discussions were always heavily grounded in the textbook, except for one day, following the Boston Marathon Bombings, where we discussed terrorism and national security, but other than that, yeah, never really deviated from the course material except perhaps in the last few minutes, things would lighten up and the teacher would crack a few jokes.</p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt I love House too!! I only have seasons 5 and 6 on DVD though. I’m so sad there’s no season 9 and beyond…</p>
<p>My Spanish teacher is pretty unorganized too. He still has yet to grade our summer homework, and he basically spends 75% of the class BSing with us (in Spanish, I’ll give him that) about TV or what we did over the weekend or whatever. Now that I think about it, a lot of my teachers are really disorganized like that (chem, religion, and a whole bunch from the last two years)…</p>
<p>At least you get to take the PSAT. 
My school only allows juniors to take the PSAT while sophomores have to take the PLAN test… which no one really cares about.</p>
<p>I just realized that I forgot to get the APUSH winter assignment (my school operates on a block schedule). Welp, guess I’m not taking APUSH.</p>
<p>@sweetcupcake, it depends on the project itself. Typically, high schoolers who do independent projects have a goal of either being published, winning/doing well at international/national science competitions, or a combination of the two. Therefore, independent projects usually tend to be novel, and they usually address some relevant problem (the ones that win/get published, anyway). The project often isn’t a solution to the larger problem as a whole; it just acts as a sort of stepping stone for others to use to get to the solution. </p>
<p>For example, there’s a girl from California who invented a new supercapacitor that has major applications in technology; it can be used in a variety of things from cell phones to cars. She saw a problem (lack of efficient energy storage systems) and directly solved it. </p>
<p>Another high schooler from Louisiana modeled clusters of galaxies. His project generated data that other scientists used to address the problems they were addressing.</p>
<p>It’s as if preamble summoned all the other juniors and seniors here with her initial post. :P</p>
<p>@preamble - Wow…wish I had your skill. I would never have the guts to say that to the teacher and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have gotten away with it.</p>
<p>@elf - My Spanish class is pretty much like that, too. That’s the period I dazed off or finished homework for other classes. The teacher often goes on tangents about Latin American history and it’s the least productive class ever.</p>
<p>My geometry teacher last year made fun of all the short kids and would never talk to us. He probably taught about 10 lessons the whole year. We all failed the geometry final (except me, who insisted on help almost everyday) he wilt still assign us homework but he would never collect it. He had a rotten tooth in the front and had a murderous laugh…</p>
<p>^WTH</p>
<p>Excuse all the typos in my previous post, it’s difficult typing on mobile. -_-</p>
<p>@catchinginfinity haha same here. My Spanish teacher though always catches me doing my English homework during his class and gives me this disapproving look. But I think it’s mainly because I don’t really participate in the class due to the whole pointless factor…</p>
<p>@Pi All the short kids?! That’s terrible… My chem teacher pokes fun at short kids (and Asian kids, and basically ethnic kids in general), but she’d never make fun of them… I take it that you’re short?</p>
<p>I don’t really consider lying a skill or talent, per se. I try not to make it a habit and I tend to feel guilty afterwards. I once lied to my AP English teacher and told him that I had passed in an assignment that I hadn’t done (thus insinuating that he lost it) and he gave me a 100 for it in the grade book. 
I felt terrible for a week,</p>
<p>I meant your “getting-things-done-with-a-close-deadline” skill, haha :P</p>
<p>It’s impossible for me to do a good job on anything when I procrastinate.</p>
<p>It’s impossible for me to do a good job on anything when I don’t procrastinate, hahahah. </p>
<p>Wow I just discovered the apps portion of my TI 84 had a whole new function other than block dude… conics cheat sheet… periodic table… wow i am really excited and amazed</p>
<p>@preamble1776</p>
<p>Are you kidding? I’d feel great about pulling that off.</p>
<p>I have a really serious question. Is anything were doing really necessary? I feel like we all study are brains out and take all AP classes and 20 Extracurriculars and still don’t get into out dream schools like MIT or Yale. I feel like I am wasting my high school experience that I will never get back and I’m wasting it for the small possibility that I will get Into my dream school. Shouldn’t I just take the classes that interest me, most of which aren’t AP and enjoy those classes and settle for a state school that will offer as great as a program as Yale?</p>
<p>Just a thought…</p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt, Ah I see… that actually seems really cool. I don’t think I have that kind of dedication lol</p>
<p>The essay competition i find interesting enough to participate in address some sort of social problem. The Gulen Youth Institute’s prompt for 2014 was: “What role should state and non-profit agencies play in the education of disadvantaged youth who are not realizing their potential?”</p>
<p>Well, the state competition I’m a little bit more lame, “what have gifted and talented opportunites meant to me?”</p>
<p>^It is, but it can be grueling at times. I remember one time where I went to the lab at around 10 AM and returned home at 1 AM. I did a lot of grunt work that day.</p>
<p>Had to ask my sister for a ride because my parents were asleep.</p>
<p>@Catchinginfinity, would you mind PM’ing me a list of essay competitions that I can still enter?</p>
<p>@Pi12345 Looking good to colleges and enjoying high school don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can take AP classes but also classes you enjoy. Also how many or how “prestigious” the ECs are doesn’t matter as long as you can show you’re passionate about them, so you might as well do things you enjoy.</p>
<p>Your entire high school life shouldn’t revolve around college admissions, since when it comes to highly selective schools it really does become a luck-based system. It’s best to keep the end goal in mind, but make sure to enjoy the journey along the way.</p>
<p>So what I’m saying is, you can strive and have a decent shot at MIT or Yale without making your high school experience miserable.</p>
<p>^Agree with Cornball 100%. I feel like because colleges are so self-selecting nowadays, they look moreso for drive, personality, and potential.</p>
<p>@Pi - I try to take classes and commit to extracurriculars that I really do enjoy. I think that there are cases where it’s MUCH more beneficial to take an AP class over an honors/normal class that you know you’d enjoy more (that was AP World for me…it was the only AP class offered in 9th grade, so I took it even though I despise history), but in general, I try to only strive for things that I know I’ll actually put in the effort for.</p>
<p>Of course, I still have to work hard and sometimes I don’t feel like doing anything despite only doing things that I enjoy. (i.e. PROMYS right now…I love math, but I just really don’t want to use my brain right now.)</p>
<p>@sweetcupcake - That sounds really cool…I wish I was more into that kind of stuff because there are SO many awesome contests centered around poli sci/social justice/international affairs/etc.</p>