CS, high school, and my advice🏫

Introduction 🧠

I think this may end up being a subtle mindset/mental health rant, but if it is, so be it.

CS is already a massive and confusing field for me (and in my opinion, most other people). With the addition of high school, it becomes even more challenging.

It's hard to navigate one or the other, much less both of them at the same time, thus it's a major challenge in my life. However, with a bit of practice, it's quite doable, and dare I say fun

A little bit of clarification 🔍

I should go ahead and clarify what I do each day, where I do it, etc. It's important to note that I'm lucky enough to do high school online, and while that may free up a good bit of time, I still have a daily workload.

You can find my daily schedule (which I hopefully plan to come back and update) here

How do I work through CS each day? 👨‍💻

In general, I try and spread out my work over backend, frontend, and planning. I don't like to hammer out one of these 3 each day, instead I try and glide back and forth, as it's a lot more enjoyable.

This definitely helps your mental throughout the day, as, at least for me, I don't thrive when I'm just grinding out the same thing, hour after hour, day after day.

Also, contrary to most people, I don't follow a rigorous schedule. I certainly have a bit of a priority list, but past that, I just do what feels right to do, if that makes any sense.

Can you still plan your own projects? ✍

While some might say that this may reflect poorly on my ability to plan and manage, I believe that it's quite the contrary.

I have what I would consider to be 8/10 planning skills. I could certainly improve, and I attempt to improve each time I plan something, but it's still pretty decent.

How do I work through high school each day? 📚

High school tends to be a lot more difficult for me, just due to my lack of interest in it (compared to CS of course).

However, it's something I have to do, so instead of sitting here and whining about it, I would rather find a better way to do it. And I think I've found that!

Each school year, I choose 3 classes that I truly want to excel in. These classes are normally math and my 2 electives, as math interests me, and my electives better interest me!

Then, for my other 3 classes, while I still do my best in them, I certainly don't go all out in them.

Do you still feel like a kid? 🧒

Even with all of this stuff that I do, do I still find time for myself, my hobbies, and other stupid kid things that I want to do?

Overall, I find myself asking this question a lot. I think it's one of the heaviest questions that I've had to ask myself, and knowing that at one point, I will have to answer with "No".

But that's ok. Even when I do have to answer with "No", I'll still be doing stuff I love. For example, before anything else, I still get up every day and think about what I'm going to do in Stardew Valley.

And I think that's amazing. I'll try and keep that level of "innocence" for as long as I can, and just enjoy life a little bit. It doesn't have to be about just one thing, and this idea reflects across my habits, my schedule, and my life as a whole.

Let's wrap this up 🔒

So is this effective? Short answer is yes, and the long answer is also yes. I keep a healthy GPA of ~3.6, while still being able to do everything I want to do in CS, and on top of all that, still living my best life as a kid/teenager.

My advice would be... just have fun, I think. I can suffer, and work 13 hour days when I'm 30. But for now, CS interests me, and with that interest, it's pretty easy to keep an nice balance.

Work is still work, but it's a hell of a lot easier if you're doing what you really love doing.