College 0-> 1
“Whatever you do, you must give it 100%. You can’t be any garbage man. But you can be the best garbage man if that’s what you want to do.”
My mother is an endless source of advice and inspiration. My Father’s advice was slightly different:
“You are on the computer all day. You talk on the computer; you play games on the computer; you read on the computer. Now you want to get a degree in computers. College should be for doctors and lawyers, not TV or computer repairmen”
Through luck, gifts, and the grace of God, I scored in the top 1% on the PSAT and earned the National Merit Scholarship. I would love to talk about all the hours at home studying (that never happened) or my GPA (that sucked), but I can’t be proud of any of that. What I did have was an obsession with programming computers. I had an obsession with reading books. I also was lucky enough to be part of a magnet program.
Only a few states have “magnet” high school programs. The idea with magnet schools is that students who show proficiency in a subject can be bussed to a faraway school that specializes in that subject. As someone who grew up surrounded by failing schools, this was a life-saver. Through the magnet program, I could meet parents and teachers who went to college and learn from their experiences. One teacher suggested that I take an SAT Prep class since my freshman PSAT score was 1220/1600, which was high for my school.
SAT Prep class was amazing. The SAT is a multiple-choice test full of patterns. The way the wrong answers ladder up to the correct one is a pattern. The way they try to screw you by having the answer that is one careless mistake away from correct is a pattern. It turns out that memorizing these patterns is something I can be really good at. After taking SAT Prep my score went from 1220 to 1560/1600, meaning that I could go to College just about anywhere in the state without having to pay the $75 application fee. Winning the National Merit scholarship meant that I was going to do something that no one else among my family or friends had done: go to college.
Choosing a college was pretty easy. My mother told me that if I lived in a dorm, I would get bacterial meningitis and lose my limbs. That narrowed down my choices to Valencia Community College and the University of Central Florida. In hindsight, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to optimize for bacterial meningitis. I’m extremely lucky to have a top-100 computer science university within driving distance. Many companies refuse to open offices in SLC, Austin, Boulder, or other cities because “there isn’t enough talent”. I wish they knew that the country is peppered with boy- and girl-geniuses who will be staying local for college because it’s their home, because of some bad advice, or because of bacterial meningitis.
The Good
College was an amazing experience. I enjoyed it so much I went back two more times, thanks to the Presidential Fellowship. Because these scholarships guarantee attendance, I have never actually applied to college despite getting three degrees.
The Bad
Tenure, nepotism, and in-group behavior has made college an echo chamber and much less fun. The academic industrial complex has become Frankenstein’s Monster, and is ripe for disruption.
The Ugly
There was a vaccine for bacterial meningitis widely available even when I was in high school.
The Takeaway
On the surface this reads as an academic rags-to-riches story, with the failing public school system and the low GPA and the irrational fear of meningitis. But what I have discovered after years of reflection are all the small-but-important efforts of countless Good Samaritans along the way. I remember my AP Physics teacher driving me to a chess tournament. I remember my English teacher helping me submit poetry to a magazine for review. My parents didn’t give always the best advice but they cared deeply about me and obsessed over my education. It used to take a village to raise a child, but now it takes a whole nation. I hope that we can continue to make the next generation even better than the ones that came before.