was it worth it? - Page 2

depends on how fast the returns to your studying diminish.

High school: Yes, as it got me into a good college.
College: Fuck No! Should have spent my time getting pissed instead and just adequately pass my units as it turns out high college grades didn't matter as much as I thought to potential employers.

Nope.

as I've said I am happy with my station in life right now, and so I was sharing what I realized I should've done back then. in aptitude tests in high school I was among the top scorers, but I chose to put my studies in the backseat and be a fucking screw up, irritating the shit out of my parents who had to be told that I might have to repeat a grade level at one time, and in the end meant me pissing away my potential back then. college also was like that- I chose a degree that I know I'd pass easily, without even considering what to do after school, and pissing away any and all chances of getting a degree in what I know I should be taking.

of course these realizations came long after school, and settled in my present job. but it still bothered me to the point I went out and attended graduate school in my late late 20s after work just for the heck of learning more.

It was worth it. Good grades in high school are one of the best cost-benefit items you can pursue in life.

I didn't study much so yeah I got a great deal. Studying just a tad more would've made my life a ton easier and opened up some great doors for me though. I'm in a great career so no complaints, but I do know I'm missing out somewhere...

I wish I studied harder in college.

^^ Wow, a spam drone that engages in conversation.

People repeat the names of famous people without understanding what they're talking about. Bill Gates went to Harvard, was in Math55 and was doing differential geometry of Banach manifolds at 19. Totally different situation to the average college dropout.

College is awesome. Just be careful not to gas yourself.

I didn't know this piece of information before. Thank you!

This is unrealistic. Your odds of going to YLS are near nonexistant, even if you went to Princeton. You may not realize how difficult it is, but it's near impossible.

I don't understand why you would chose that step to comment on. There are 250 acceptances to YLS each year... if you get excellent grades at Princeton calling it near impossible is a bit of a stretch. Harder to get US Rhodes or SC clerkship.

Princeton has a class size of 1200, of the people who want to go to Law school, there are probably 400 students (Philosophy, History, PoliSci, English, and WWS to a much lesser extent, Econ are the majors who generally go into law).

Of these 400 students, probably 200 of them are actually academically competitive. YLS accepts 1-2 students from Princeton a year, you want to be top 1% at Princeton, it seems rather difficult it's not something you can just "work hard" to do, everyone works hard, you're looking at 3-5 hours of sleep a night for 4 years to maintain a 3.9 GPA.

It's one thing to say you graduated the top of your class in HS or even at a medium tier university, to say you graduated top at a top 10 Uni is very very different.

I'm just saying it's much harder than it seems.

Ask me during my 3l year, or even my first 2 years after school, and I would have said no. But these days I like my job and I'm doing pretty well financially. Honestly, I can't imagine doing anything else for a living and I couldn't do what I'm doing without the school.