ONE thing; you regret

InquilineKea
Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:52:56 +0000

Not dropping out to homeschool myself

Not self-studying more APs (i was definitely in the position to 5 a couple of them in 9th grade, alas, it was a junior high hell)

Taking the academic ambitions of my classmates too seriously (none of them really had any)

Caring too much about making an impression on people who I’ll never talk with again (problematic since in early 10th grade I wanted to make an impression on THREE separate communities: HS, heavengames though I finally quit that in an outburst, and CC)

underestimating the power of self-study (which everyone must rely on after college)

being too reluctant to even take a look at books from the university library

not knowing that there was a DIRECT BUS ROUTE between my HOUSE and BOTH the public and university libraries

studying too much history and not enough social science (esp. econ)

mixed:
not seeking research earlier (this was previously a regret, but I kind of see breadth first, depth second as my preferred approach more in line with my interests and talents)

and i don’t know if my plans would have been realistic since I didn’t have 3 years of CC and AoPS archives to look over back when I was in 9th grade

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I’m kind of trying to help CT do exactly what I would have done if I had the chance to go through it all over again (and yes CT, this includes taking APs and SAT IIs)