One of the things I most often wish I’d done when I was 15 is study programming. I didn’t do that, though, because I hadn’t known that programming would be my main breadwinning skill. (I wouldn’t have done it even if I had known it would be an important skill for me because I hadn’t known that I should ask what my future self would want and be strategic, but you’re probably well ahead of 15 year old me in that respect if you’re here posting this.) So I think one of your first priorities should be to find out what goals to work toward.
What purposes do you instrumentally value wealth and skill for? It matters mainly because that indicates whether they’re time-sensitive, how much risk you should accept, and whether the marginal value of more money tapers off once you have “enough” or not. Also think about what other forms of power you might want—would becoming a famous person be useful to you? (It’s good that you’re focusing on becoming powerful first—that’s usually worthwhile even if you aren’t quite sure what you want.)
I guess one thing you could do is research what methods you could use to become wealthy, and then what skills you would need and how you would be spending your time if you followed each of those paths. Look at which options you would enjoy or at least tolerate, and would earn enough money at (“enough” might be “as much as possible”, depending on what you want money for), and start learning the skills you would need to pursue those. Prefer skills that are useful for many paths, so you’ll be more likely to benefit from them even if you change your mind later.
Social skills and rationality are probably also good things to learn young. You can start using them right away, and you’re not likely to be taught them later. (If you learn programming and then major in computer science, you’ll probably waste some time being taught programming that you already know. I had to do that for HTML/CSS, and it was pretty unpleasant. I’m still glad that I’d learned it early, but not sitting bored in class for four hours a week is preferable when all else is equal.)
For social skills, it might be worth getting a tutor, especially if you’re not above the water line. One of the things that I most appreciate having done early is seeing a speech therapist who also helped me with understanding others’ nonverbal signals. (I started that during elementary school, though—it may be harder to learn at 15.) That’s probably expensive if you can’t have it done through your school or have health insurance pay for it, though. The other way to improve social skills is to spend a lot of time around other people, so that you have to practice a lot.
If you learn programming and then major in computer science, you’ll probably waste some time being taught programming that you already know.
At many universities this is not a big deal, because A) they may offer credit by exam for some courses, and B) it usually doesn’t inherently affect your grade if you don’t show up to class, or work on other projects during class. So if you already know the material for a course, the main cost is probably paying tuition to certify your knowledge. Source: These things are true at my university.
Thanks for weighing in. I guess it depends on the school—I actually didn’t think to ask about testing out of the course, but my university usually does take attendance in freshman courses, so I couldn’t have gotten out of it that way.
One of the things I most often wish I’d done when I was 15 is study programming. I didn’t do that, though, because I hadn’t known that programming would be my main breadwinning skill. (I wouldn’t have done it even if I had known it would be an important skill for me because I hadn’t known that I should ask what my future self would want and be strategic, but you’re probably well ahead of 15 year old me in that respect if you’re here posting this.) So I think one of your first priorities should be to find out what goals to work toward.
What purposes do you instrumentally value wealth and skill for? It matters mainly because that indicates whether they’re time-sensitive, how much risk you should accept, and whether the marginal value of more money tapers off once you have “enough” or not. Also think about what other forms of power you might want—would becoming a famous person be useful to you? (It’s good that you’re focusing on becoming powerful first—that’s usually worthwhile even if you aren’t quite sure what you want.)
I guess one thing you could do is research what methods you could use to become wealthy, and then what skills you would need and how you would be spending your time if you followed each of those paths. Look at which options you would enjoy or at least tolerate, and would earn enough money at (“enough” might be “as much as possible”, depending on what you want money for), and start learning the skills you would need to pursue those. Prefer skills that are useful for many paths, so you’ll be more likely to benefit from them even if you change your mind later.
Social skills and rationality are probably also good things to learn young. You can start using them right away, and you’re not likely to be taught them later. (If you learn programming and then major in computer science, you’ll probably waste some time being taught programming that you already know. I had to do that for HTML/CSS, and it was pretty unpleasant. I’m still glad that I’d learned it early, but not sitting bored in class for four hours a week is preferable when all else is equal.)
For social skills, it might be worth getting a tutor, especially if you’re not above the water line. One of the things that I most appreciate having done early is seeing a speech therapist who also helped me with understanding others’ nonverbal signals. (I started that during elementary school, though—it may be harder to learn at 15.) That’s probably expensive if you can’t have it done through your school or have health insurance pay for it, though. The other way to improve social skills is to spend a lot of time around other people, so that you have to practice a lot.
At many universities this is not a big deal, because A) they may offer credit by exam for some courses, and B) it usually doesn’t inherently affect your grade if you don’t show up to class, or work on other projects during class. So if you already know the material for a course, the main cost is probably paying tuition to certify your knowledge. Source: These things are true at my university.
Thanks for weighing in. I guess it depends on the school—I actually didn’t think to ask about testing out of the course, but my university usually does take attendance in freshman courses, so I couldn’t have gotten out of it that way.